Human Rights Watch News

Azerbaijan: Free Jailed Human Rights Defender

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:48:39 -0400

(Berlin, May 2, 2024) – Azerbaijani authorities should immediately free a prominent human rights defender, Anar Mammadli, and drop the charges against him, the Human Rights House Foundation said this week in a statement signed by Human Rights Watch and 28 other groups. Mammadi was arrested on April 29, 2024, on bogus “smuggling” charges amid an escalating crackdown on independent voices.

Mammadli, who is a member of the Network of Human Rights Houses, is also a founding member of the recently formed Climate of Justice Initiative. The group is a civil society undertaking that seeks to use the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), which will take place in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in November, to promote civic space and environmental justice in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s crackdown on freedoms of expression, assembly, and association raises grave concerns about how civil society, including activists, human rights defenders, and journalists will be able to participate meaningfully and push for ambitious action at COP29, Human Rights Watch said.

The statement urges other countries to use the momentum around COP29 in Baku to demand the release of Mammadli and all other political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Resounding Support for a ‘Killer Robots’ Treaty

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 02 May 2024 00:30:00 -0400

Click to expand Image Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg welcomes participants to the international “Humanity at the Crossroads” conference on autonomous weapons systems, in Vienna on April 29-30, 2024 © 2024 Michael Gruber/ BMEIA

(Washington, DC, May 02, 2024) – Governments concerned about autonomous weapons systems – so-called killer robots – should urgently act to start negotiations on a new international treaty to ban and regulate them, Human Rights Watch said today. Such weapons would select and use force against targets based on sensor processing rather than human inputs.

“The world is approaching a tipping point for acting on concerns over autonomous weapons systems, and support for negotiations is reaching unprecedented levels,” said Steve Goose, arms campaigns director at Human Rights Watch. “The adoption of a strong international treaty on autonomous weapons systems could not be more necessary or urgent.”

On April 29 and 30, 2024, more than 1,000 representatives from 144 countries and international organizations, industry, academia, and civil society, including Human Rights Watch, attended a high-level international conference in Vienna on the problems raised by autonomous weapons systems. The conference featured a message from Pope Francis and remarks by the foreign ministers of Austria, Albania, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, and Sierra Leone, as well as the United Nations disarmament chief and president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Nearly every speaker emphasized the seriousness of this issue and the need for urgent action.

The conference host, Austria, issued a chair’s summary of the meeting, which “affirms our strong commitment to work with urgency and with all interested stakeholders for an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems.”

The Vienna conference followed a series of regional meetings on autonomous weapons concerns over the past 14 months, in Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago, Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Most issued regional communiques calling for the urgent negotiation of a legally binding instrument containing prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems.

On December 22, 2023, 152 countries voted in favor of the first UN General Assembly resolution on autonomous weapons systems, while four voted no and 11 abstained. General Assembly Resolution 78/241 asks UN Secretary-General António Guterres to seek the views of countries and other stakeholders on ways to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems “from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives,” and reflect those views in a report to the General Assembly in the second half of 2024.

“All countries have a role to play in preventing machines from taking human life in armed conflict and law enforcement,” Goose said. “Governments should submit their views to the UN on the concerns and challenges raised by autonomous weapons systems and express their support for negotiating a new international treaty.”

Some autonomous weapons systems have existed for years, but the types, duration of operation, geographical scope, and environment in which such systems operate have been limited. However, technological advances are spurring the development of autonomous weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The machine rather than the human operator would determine where, when, or against what force is applied.

For the first time, discussion of “lethal autonomous weapons systems” has been added to the provisional agenda of the annual session of the UN General Assembly, which opens in September. The General Assembly provides an inclusive and accessible forum for countries to address this issue. Tackling the killer robots challenge under its auspices would allow greater consideration of concerns that have been largely overlooked in discussions held thus far, including ethical perspectives, international human rights law, proliferation, and impacts on global security and regional and international stability, including the risk of an arms race and lowering the threshold for conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

Most treaty proponents have called for prohibitions on autonomous weapons systems that by their nature operate without meaningful human control or that target people, as well as regulations to ensure that no autonomous weapons systems can be used without meaningful human control.

Talks on lethal autonomous weapons systems have been held at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva since May 2014 but have failed to deliver a substantive outcome. The main reason for the lack of progress under the CCW is that its member countries rely on a consensus approach to decision making, which means a single country can bar passage of a proposal. A handful of major military powers have exploited this to repeatedly block proposals to negotiate a legally binding instrument.

“Autonomous weapons systems are a grave problem that can affect any country in the world, so clear, strong, global rules are essential,” Goose said. “Voluntary measures such as codes of conduct and political declarations only pave the way for a future of automated killing.”

Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of Stop Killer Robots, the coalition of more than 250 nongovernmental organizations across 70 countries that is working for new international law on autonomy in weapons systems.

Kenya: Floods Threaten Marginalized People

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Nairobi) – Kenyan authorities have not responded adequately to flash floods resulting from heavy rains, Human Rights Watch said today. The floods have left at least 170 people dead; displaced more than 200,000; destroyed property, infrastructure, and livelihoods across the country; and exacerbated socioeconomic vulnerabilities.

Kenya’s government has a human rights obligation to prevent foreseeable harm from climate change and extreme weather events and to protect people when a disaster strikes. Extreme weather events such as flooding are particularly threatening for marginalized and at-risk populations, including older people, people with disabilities, people in poverty, and rural populations.

“The unfolding devastation highlights the government’s obligation to prepare for and promptly respond to the foreseeable impacts of climate change and natural disasters,” said Nyagoah Tut Pur, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Kenyan authorities should urgently ensure support to affected communities and protect populations facing high risk.”

Kenya and most of the East Africa region has been lashed by relentless and devastating downpours in recent weeks, as an El Niño weather pattern exacerbates the seasonal rainfall. Recent studies suggest that climate change could be a contributing factor. The government has acknowledged that the extreme weather events were predictable.

Over the last few days, social media videos and mainstream media reports indicate that the affected people were receiving little to no support from the government to reach safety and to access essential services such as shelter, health care, and food assistance. Media reported that police and rescue teams’ help lines were unresponsive in some locations.

In its plans to combat climate change, including the comprehensive National Climate Change Action Plan 2023-2027 and its disaster response plans, Kenya identified flooding as a risk, identified areas that could be affected, and highlighted ways to mitigate it. The country also has a national disaster management unit.

As early as May 2023, the Kenya Meteorological Department warned that the country would experience enhanced rainfall due to El Niño between May-July and October-December, continuing into early 2024.

That same month, the government announced that at least 10 billion Kenyan shillings (about US$80 million) would be released to prepare a nationwide response. The Public Finance Management Act of 2023 requires county governments to set aside 2 percent of their annual budgets for disaster response. However, the government failed to put in place a timely national response plan. In August 2023, the Ministry of Health started coordinating with county governments to stock up medical supplies and begin cholera vaccinations. But in October, President William Ruto announced, mistakenly, that Kenya would not experience El Niño rains as earlier predicted.

Between October and February, 1,781 people died because of riverine floods, flash floods, and landslides, caused by heavy rains in the Western, North Eastern, Central, and Coastal regions. The Kenya Red Cross Society also reported an increase in waterborne diseases like cholera and diarrhea.

It is unclear what happened to the funds that had been set aside for the response, with some media reporting that the money was misappropriated. In November, parliament approved an additional 8.2 billion Kenyan shillings (about $60.7 million). An official with the Kenya Red Cross Society told Human Rights Watch that Kenya seems to have the requisite capacity and resources to adequately prepare for the heavy rains, but the government was slow to act despite warnings from the meteorological department and its partners.

Despite these harsh lessons from seasonal rains in late 2023 and meteorological department warnings, the authorities did not take appropriate measures to avert further disaster in early 2024 and were slow to respond, Human Rights Watch said. It was not until April 24, after nearly a month of heavy rains and many deaths, that President Ruto announced the creation of a multi-agency team to manage the response. Opposition leaders and clergy have called on the government to declare a national disaster and to hold accountable those responsible for inaction.

In low-income neighborhoods in Nairobi like Mathare, Mukuru Kwa Jenga, and Kariobangi, the flood impact has been quite severe due to less solid structures, congestion, and poor sanitation infrastructure, leaving people homeless and creating public health risks like malaria, cholera, and diarrhea. A well-known human rights activist, Benna Buluma, known as Mama Victor, was among 10 people who died on April 4 trapped in their houses by floods.

On April 29, the Mathare Social Justice Centre said on social media that at least 200 people had been displaced and still had not received support from county or national governments for temporary shelter, food, and other needed items.

The authorities should conduct a thorough and credible investigation to identify what went wrong and lessons learned, Human Rights Watch said.

The meteorological department has stated that the rains will continue in May.

On April 30, the government announced that people living in at-risk locations should relocate within 48 hours or be forcefully evicted.

Kenyan authorities have a responsibility to ensure that all possible steps are taken to prevent or alleviate human suffering arising from the ongoing floods and to realize the rights to life, health, housing, food, water, and sanitation of those most affected. The authorities should ensure that the response is inclusive and respects people’s rights.

“The government should ensure a timely and effective approach to disaster management,” Pur said. “This could ensure that future catastrophes are not as devastating and deadly.”

Ukraine: Russian Forces Executed Surrendering Ukraine Soldiers

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Kyiv, May 2, 2024) – Russian forces appear to have executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers as they attempted to surrender, and possibly six more who were surrendering or who had surrendered, since early December 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. These incidents should be investigated as war crimes.

“Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its forces have committed many heinous war crimes,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The summary execution – or murder – of surrendering and injured Ukrainian soldiers, gunned down in cold blood, expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law, is also included in that shameful legacy.”

Human Rights Watch investigated three instances of the apparent summary execution of at least 12 Ukrainian soldiers by verifying and analyzing drone footage posted on social media on December 2 and December 27, and on February 25, 2024. In these cases, the soldiers demonstrated a clear intent to surrender and, since they were no longer taking part in hostilities, were considered hors de combat and not targetable under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war.

Human Rights Watch verified the location of two of the three incidents based on the footage, but due to the lack of geographic details in the videos, was unable to determine the exact location of the third. Human Rights Watch was unable to verify which party operated the drone that captured the footage in these cases.

Human Rights Watch investigated a fourth instance by analyzing another video clip posted on social media on February 19 showing two Russian soldiers executing three surrendering and unarmed Ukrainian soldiers. Although the account that posted the clip stated the location of the incident, Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify the location independently.

For the fifth incident, the investigation relied on an interview with a Ukrainian soldier, a video posted to a Telegram channel on February 16, and in-depth media coverage including interviews with family members of one of the victims. The information suggests that six soldiers were executed in the incident, though the circumstances were less clear.

In one of the five incidents, on February 25, verified drone footage shared widely online including on X (formerly known as Twitter) shows at least seven Ukrainian soldiers exiting a dugout among some trees between two fields, removing their body armor, at least one soldier removing their helmet, and all lying face down as five Russian soldiers aim their guns at them. The Russian soldiers are identifiable by distinctive red tape markings around the arms and legs. Three Russian soldiers then shoot toward the clearly surrendered Ukrainian soldiers from behind and both sides.

Six of the Ukrainian soldiers remain face down, visibly reacting to the impact of the shots, while one attempts to reenter the dugout but is shot before he is able to. The incident took place near Ivanivske village in the Donetska region. The location was first verified by EjShahid, a volunteer for GeoConfirmed, and subsequently confirmed by Human Rights Watch researchers.

Click to expand Image A still frame extracted from drone footage filmed near Ivanivske village in the Donetska region of Ukraine moments before Russian soldiers shoot at seven surrendering Ukrainian soldiers at close range. © GloOouD, X (formerly known as Twitter), 2024.

The apparent executions do not appear to be isolated instances. Human Rights Watch also identified Russian drone footage posted on February 5, 2024, capturing a separate battlefield moment. In that incident, Human Rights Watch could not determine whether the Ukrainian soldiers surrendered, but a male voice heard in the clip, which appears to be credible, apparently provides commands to Russian soldiers on the battlefield in the Donetska region. The voice says in Russian, “take no prisoners, shoot everyone.” Audiovisual analysis of the footage supports the conclusion that the drone is Russian.

A report published in March 2023 by the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine documented Russian armed forces and Wagner Group executions of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) during the first year of the full-scale invasion. In its February to July 2023 periodic report, the UN documented the summary execution of six Ukrainian POWs. A follow-up report published in March 2024, covering the three previous months, identified 12 reported episodes of executions of at least 32 captured POWs or people hors de combat. The UN independently verified three of the latter incidents, involving seven Ukrainian soldiers.

On April 9, the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office said it was conducting 27 criminal investigations into the execution of 54 Ukrainian POWs. The Prosecutor General’s Office told Human Rights Watch it was unable to share more information about these cases but referenced three notices of suspicion it had issued against Russian soldiers for extrajudicial executions, one of which resulted in a court ruling in absentia, and a recent statement references a fourth. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine documented instances in which Ukrainian armed forces have abused Russian POWs during the full-scale invasion.

Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on April 22, asking for details into the incidents described above, as well as any orders to Russian forces to kill instead of capture surrendering Ukrainian soldiers. It has received no response.

International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, requires parties to an international armed conflict to treat armed forces who are hors de combat and those in custody, who become prisoners of war, humanely in all circumstances. It is a war crime to willfully kill, mistreat, or torture these forces. An order to kill prisoners of war or to execute surrendering soldiers rather than capture them, known as no quarter to be given, is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. Such orders violate Russia’s international humanitarian law, or laws of war, obligations as well as its own military statutes, and both issuing such an order and carrying it out are war crimes.

In addition to being bound by international humanitarian law, Russia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which strictly forbids extrajudicial killings.

Russia also has an obligation under international humanitarian law to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes by its forces or those committed on the territory it controls. However, extensive Human Right Watch documentation of international humanitarian law violations in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine over more than three decades clearly demonstrates that Russia has been unwilling to prosecute war crimes and other violations of international law committed by its forces.

“While each of these cases is horrifying, perhaps what is most damning is the evidence indicating in at least one case that Russian forces explicitly gave orders to kill soldiers instead of letting them surrender, thereby endorsing war crimes,” Wille said.

For more information on the four additional incidents documented, and an apparent Russian instruction to take no quarter, please see below.

Below are details of four of the five incidents, with the fifth detailed above. Researchers closely analyzed the videos, observing the use of each side’s identification tape – blue for Ukraine and white or red for Russia – and the distinct hues of the soldiers’ military fatigues to differentiate between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. They uploaded screenshots from each video to reverse search image engines and found no records of them before early December 2023.

Drone Footage Posted on December 2, 2023, from the Donetska region

On December 2, drone footage was uploaded to Telegram on a channel called DeepState UA, an open-source organization that has been monitoring and mapping military actions in Ukraine since February 2022. The footage appears to show Russian soldiers executing two surrendering Ukrainian soldiers in a tree line between two fields. One of the surrendering soldiers, wearing a Ukrainian uniform, has visible blue tape around their arm, regularly worn by Ukrainian soldiers. The first surrendering Ukrainian soldier exits the entrance of a dugout with their hands above their head and lies face down on the ground a few meters away. Six Russian soldiers, identifiable by their relatively darker camouflage, have their guns trained at the Ukrainian soldier and the entrance to the dugout.

A second Ukrainian soldier exits the dugout, hunched over with one arm partially raised and the second hanging limp, and then suddenly stumbles. In the footage neither soldier appears to be carrying any weapons in their hands. At least two Russian soldiers proceed to fire at and execute the second Ukrainian and then a few seconds later, execute the first Ukrainian soldier, who gets up to move toward the dugout after shots are fired in his direction.

Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify the location, but the poster of the clip provides a map to the video’s location and identifies it as 700 meters southeast of Stepove village in the Donetska region of eastern Ukraine. On December 2, 2023, on social media, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) asserted the authenticity of the video.

Drone Footage Posted on December 27, 2023, from the Zaporizka region

A screen-recording of drone footage uploaded to Telegram on December 27 by a user called 4sman4lav_osman, who says they are a volunteer with Ukraine’s 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar,” apparently shows three Ukrainian soldiers kneeling with their hands on their heads in a field between Verbove and Robotyne villages in the Zaporizka region. The group is surrounded by four Russian soldiers standing about 15 meters away. As one Russian soldier moves toward the captives, smoke discharges from his weapon in the direction of the Ukrainian soldiers, and all three immediately collapse. Subsequently, the same Russian soldier appears to shoot two of the fallen Ukrainian soldiers at close range.

The location was initially verified by a member of the open-source research community EjShahid, a volunteer for GeoConfirmed, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch researchers. On December 28, on social media the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed the incident occurred, stating that the soldiers had been members of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade and were hors de combat when killed.

Click to expand Image A still frame extracted from drone footage filmed in a field between Verbove and Robotyne vilages in the Zaporizka region, Ukraine, shortly before a Russian soldier shoots at three surrendered Ukrainian soldiers at close range. © stanislav_osman, Telegram, 2024.

Media Coverage and Video Posted on February 16, 2024, from the Donetska region

A video posted to a Telegram channel called RVvoenkor on February 16, during the capture of the city of Avdiivka, in the Donetska region, shows the bodies of six Ukrainian soldiers who, evidence suggests, surrendered to Russian troops who had captured their position.

The video is a series of clips stitched together that show six bodies. At least four of them, dressed in military fatigues consistent with the pattern worn by the Ukrainian armed forces, lie in and around a muddy pool of water that appears to be colored red by blood. None of the people in the video appear to have any weapons on or near them, nor do they appear to be wearing combat protective equipment.

One of the deceased is clutching a water bottle, while a second one has a Ukrainian flag partially curled up across their legs. A third has blue tape around their arm, consistent with tape worn by Ukrainian soldiers. The video features a watermark of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) 1st Sloviansk Brigade’s logo in the top right corner, alongside the name of a popular Russian Telegram channel, RVvoenkory.

Viktor Biliak, a soldier from Ukraine’s 110th brigade, was stationed in Avdiivka for 620 days until he and others withdrew from a position on the city’s outskirts as Russian forces took full control of the city. He told Human Rights Watch they withdrew over the course of two nights between February 13 and 15, after the city had already been encircled. As they withdrew, five soldiers who had been stationed with Biliak were unable to leave because they had serious injuries. One of Biliak’s colleagues stayed with them. All six soldiers believed they would be evacuated.

On the morning of February 15, after a radio conversation between the commander and the six men, two of them sent a series of messages to the brigade’s Signal group. Human Rights Watch received screenshots of these messages from a source who cannot be identified for security reasons. Two of the men left behind, Georgiy Pavlov and Andriy Dubnytskyi, wrote messages saying they and four other injured men had been left behind and curse the commanders for leaving them behind, saying God would judge them for it. The soldiers’ brigade later acknowledged on social media that they were unable to evacuate the injured due to intense fighting and their command negotiated for the Russian side to evacuate them and exchange them later.

According to a BBC interview with Inna Pavlova, Pavlov’s mother, on the morning of February 15, she received a message from Pavlov saying, “The Russians know that we are here alone.” She hadn’t heard from him since. Dmitriy, the brother-in-law of Ivan Zhytnyk, another one of the men left behind, said Zhytnyk video-called him. He played a recording of the call to the BBC. In the middle of the conversation, a Russian soldier enters the building, and a voice says, “Put the gun away.” “Are they there?” Dmitriy asks Ivan, who answers “Yes.” At this point, Dmitriy stopped recording video, the article says, but the call continued for a couple of minutes longer. “I saw a bearded man,” Dmitriy told the BBC. “I asked Ivan to give him the phone. I wanted to ask them not to kill them. But I heard the voice say: ‘Switch off the phone.’”

Biliak confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the location seen in the Telegram video was the location the forces had held on the outskirts of Avdiivka where he had separated from Pavlov, Dubnytskyi, Zhytnyk, and the three other men. He also confirmed that the body of Dubnytskyi is among those shown in the video, saying he recognized a tattoo on his right hand.

Video Posted on February 19, 2024, from the Zaporizka region

Another incident, captured in a video uploaded to a Telegram channel called Аморальна UKRAINE (Immoral UKRAINE) on February 19, shows what appears to be two Russian soldiers, identified by white tape around their armbands and their relatively darker camouflage, executing three unarmed Ukrainian soldiers, identified by their lighter military camouflage. Two of the Ukrainian soldiers – one of whom appears injured and walks unsteadily – are exiting a trench watched by two Russian soldiers, while a third Ukrainian lies on a mound of dirt directly next to one of the Russian soldiers. A third Russian soldier approaches the trench and proceeds to open fire on the standing Ukrainian soldiers. The two Ukrainian soldiers quickly fall to the ground.

The same Russian soldier then aims at and executes the Ukrainian soldier lying on the dirt mound, who covers his head with his hands just before the soldier opens fire. The Russian solider then reloads and fires additional rounds into all three Ukrainian soldiers as another soldier fires shots into one of the two Ukrainian soldiers who appears to be still alive. Although the account that posted the clip stated the incident occurred near Robotyne, Human Rights Watch has not been able to verify the location independently.

No Quarter Calls in Drone Footage Posted on February 5, 2024, from the Donetska region

One video clip taken by a Russian drone and uploaded on February 5 to a Telegram channel called ATO Donetsk, which promotes content about the DPR and the Russian military, shows four Russian soldiers attacking a dugout in a forested area where at least two Ukrainian soldiers are hidden. A male voice behind the screen gives commands to the Russian soldiers on the ground, multiple times repeating orders in Russian to “take no prisoners, shoot everyone.” Human Rights Watch cannot determine from the video whether the Ukrainian soldiers surrendered.

Click to expand Image A still frame extracted from Russian drone footage in which a voice is heard repeatedly commanding Russian soldiers to "take no prisoners, shoot everyone." The footage shows Russian soldiers then killing two Ukrainian soldiers. © atodoneck, Telegram, 2024.

One of the Russian soldiers nears the entrance of a dugout where two Ukrainian soldiers, identified by their light camouflage, are positioned. The first Ukrainian soldier begins to emerge cautiously with a second soldier close behind while the Russian soldier observes. About seven seconds later, the Russian soldier starts shooting, causing both Ukrainian soldiers to collapse to the ground. The first Ukrainian soldier lies motionless on the ground while the second Ukrainian crawls back into the dugout. The voice says “good, one was killed, well done.”

After that the speaker says “Guys, kill everyone, the second [Ukrainian soldier] is wounded, shoot him from atop, shoot him, take no prisoners.” A second Russian soldier approaches the entrance and throws a grenade into the dugout that the Ukrainian soldier had crawled back into. The voice then says: “Grenade, well done, here you go. And the second one was finished too, well done, guys.”

Human Rights Watch was able to confirm the location of the clip, which is a small forest 1.3 kilometers east of Klishchiivka, Donetska region. The location was first verified by a Telegram channel that posts geolocations of similar videos. Human Rights Watch analyzed the audio for any signs of manipulation and found no obvious hallmarks of manipulation. The audiovisual analysis demonstrates that the gunshots and grenades seen in the video match the muffled sounds transmitted through the radio to the voice behind the screen with a roughly 2.5 seconds delay to the visuals throughout the clip. This strongly suggests that the individual behind the screen is actively directing the soldiers on the ground in real-time by issuing commands. The video was shared by a pro-Russian Telegram channel and covered by pro-Russian media, lending credibility to the authenticity of the audio.

Australia: Rights Vetting Crucial for Defence Cooperation

Human Rights Watch — Wed, 01 May 2024 23:59:00 -0400

(Sydney) - The Australian government should include human rights vetting provisions in all bilateral security force cooperation agreements, Human Rights Watch said in a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. The committee is reviewing a proposed agreement between Australia and Fiji for defence cooperation.

“The Australian military should not support, train, or appoint to its ranks anyone credibly accused of committing serious human rights or humanitarian law violations anywhere,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “The proposed agreement with Fiji should include a vetting clause, which would set an important precedent for future bilateral military agreements.”

Human rights vetting provisions would require the Australian Defence Force to check that any person they work with from a foreign military has not been credibly accused of serious human rights violations. Currently, Australia does not have a transparent and legislated system for vetting security force cooperation as do some other countries. Even without such a system, the Australian government should ensure that it does not work with human rights abusers by including a standard human rights vetting clause in all bilateral security force agreements.

In January 2024, the Australian Defence Force appointed Fijian Col. Penioni (Ben) Naliva as deputy commander of Australia’s 7th Brigade in Brisbane. A 2011 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council by the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression specifically identified this person as having a role in the alleged torture of a former Fijian politician. The Australian government appointed Colonel Naliva without any formal vetting process, and maintains it was unaware of the allegations prior to his appointment. A mandated security force vetting requirement could have prevented his appointment, Human Rights Watch said.

“Australia has taken action against its own soldiers who have committed serious violations, so it certainly shouldn’t deploy with soldiers from other countries responsible for abuses,” Gavshon said. “Having a vetting requirement would safeguard against this.”

Thailand: Last-Ditch Effort for Tak Bai Massacre Justice

Human Rights Watch — Wed, 01 May 2024 22:10:00 -0400

(Bangkok) – The Thai government should urgently bring to justice officials responsible for the deaths and injuries of scores of ethnic Malay Muslim protesters in Tak Bai district in 2004, Human Rights Watch said today. A failure to do so will call into question Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s pledge to strengthen the rule of law in Thailand.

On April 25, 2024, lawyers representing the victims and their families filed criminal charges – including unlawful detention, murder, and malfeasance – against nine former officials in charge of the violent crackdown on protesters in the southern province of Narathiwat two decades ago. Under Thai law, the 20-year statute of limitations will end in October 2024, preventing legal action after that time.

“Despite overwhelming evidence, successive Thai governments have failed to prosecute those responsible for the deaths and injuries at Tak Bai,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Srettha should show that justice in the south is a priority by ending impunity for the Tak Bai massacre.”

On October 25, 2004, security personnel from various Thai army and police units were mobilized to disperse Muslim protesters in front of a police station in Tak Bai district. Seven protesters were shot dead on the spot, while seventy-eight others were crushed to death as they were being transported to an army detention facility in the neighboring Pattani province. Some 1,200 people were held in army custody for several days without appropriate medical attention. As a result, many protesters suffered severe injuries that required amputation of their limbs.

In December 2004, the fact-finding committee appointed by the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra concluded that the methods used to disperse the protesters – including firing live ammunition and deploying army conscripts and rangers inexperienced in responding to protests – were inappropriate and did not conform with established international guidelines and practices. The committee also found that commanding officers failed to supervise the transportation of protesters in custody, leaving the task to inexperienced, low-ranking personnel.

The inquiry identified three senior army officers – including the Fourth Army Region commander, Lt. Gen. Pisan Wattanawongkiri; his deputy, Lt. Gen. Sinchai Nutsathit; and the Fifth Infantry Division commander, Maj. Gen. Chalermchai Wirunpeth – as having failed to properly monitor and supervise the military’s operations, leading to the deaths and injuries of protesters.

In May 2009, the Songkhla provincial court ruled in a post-mortem inquest that 78 people died of suffocation while being held in custody by officials who had carried out their duties. However, the police decided not to press charge against those officials, claiming that the incident was force majeure, a legal term for an unforeseeable event.

As their last resort to seek justice, on April 25, the Tak Bai victims and their families filed criminal lawsuits directly with the Narathiwat provincial court. A preliminary examination will take place on June 24. Prime Minister Srettha should publicly signal his support for efforts to ensure accountability for the Tak Bai massacre, Human Rights Watch said.

“The cycle of abuses and impunity in Thailand’s southern border provinces contributes to an atmosphere in which officials believe they can violate human rights without fear of punishment,” Pearson said. “The United Nations and concerned foreign governments should demand justice for the Tak Bai victims without further delay.”

Indonesia Court Ruling a Boon for Free Expression

Human Rights Watch — Wed, 01 May 2024 19:00:00 -0400

“Historic,” said the activist Haris Azhar, describing Indonesia's Constitutional Court ruling in March to revoke three false news and defamation clauses from the country’s 1946 criminal code.

The judges wanted to protect human rights, he said, and they found that the code’s vague definition of “fake news” could be used to punish legitimate criticism of the government.

Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti, another human rights defender, together with the Jakarta-based Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and the Alliance of Independent Journalists, sought a judicial review of the law after Azhar and Maulidiyanti faced criminal defamation charges brought by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, a minister in President Joko Widodo’s cabinet. Pandjaitan’s lawsuit argued that the activists defamed him in a YouTube podcast in August 2022. A Jakarta court acquitted the activists in January 2024.

Powerful people and government officials frequently used the laws to prosecute activists and other critics of the government. According to Safenet, a free speech organization, between 2020 and 2023, there were 32 criminal defamation cases in Indonesia. After the court ruling, some cases were immediately dropped.

But Indonesia has dozens of criminal defamation laws that could undermine the right to free expression, including those recently passed as part of the 2022 criminal code and the 2023 Internet and Electronic Transaction Law.

Azhar points out that the 2023 internet law is “even more brutal” than the Dutch colonial-era provisions, which made up most of the 1946 code, because it allows the government to take down digital content without a judicial order. The United Nations has said the 2022 criminal code, slated to come into force and replace the 1946 criminal code in January 2026, threatens basic freedoms.

The new criminal code makes promoting news that a person should know or suspect is vaguely “uncertain,” “exaggerated,” or “incomplete,” and which can cause unrest, a criminal offense that can be punished by up to two years in prison.

Other articles effectively restrict anyone other than medical providers from disseminating information about contraception to children, or from providing information to anyone about obtaining an abortion.

Authorities should revise the new criminal code to reflect the court ruling. “We need to challenge these new laws,” Azhar said.

The recent Constitutional Court ruling will likely be the basis for future petitions against other toxic regulations harming free expression rights in Indonesia.

US: Digital Metering System Exposes Migrants to Harm

Human Rights Watch — Wed, 01 May 2024 09:00:00 -0400

Click to expand Image A man seeking asylum in the US uses his phone to access the US Customs and Border Protection CBP One application to request an appointment at a land port of entry to the US, outside a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, January 12, 2023. © 2023 REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

(Mexico City) – The administrations of US President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are forcing thousands of people seeking asylum in the US to wait for months in Mexico, exposing them to danger, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 68-page report, “We Couldn’t Wait: Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border,” details how the Biden and López Obrador administrations have made a difficult-to-use US government mobile application, CBP One, all but mandatory for people seeking asylum in the United States. The result is de facto “metering,” a practice formalized early in the Trump administration that limits the number of asylum seekers processed at ports of entry each day, turning others back to Mexico.

May 1, 2024 “We Couldn’t Wait”

Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border

Download the full report in English

“The Biden and López Obrador administrations are knowingly exposing migrants to persecution at the hands of cartels that systematically target migrants for kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault,” said Ari Sawyer, US border researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The US and Mexican governments should stop forcing migrants to wait in Mexico and should stop collaborating on rights-abusive immigration policies.”

The report is based on interviews with 128 asylum seekers who were able to share information on the experiences of a total of 263 people, including family members and friends with whom they were traveling, as well as interviews with 13 shelter workers, eight migrant service providers, Mexican government officials, and human rights workers. Research was conducted in August and September 2023 in Mexico City; Saltillo and Piedras Negras, Coahuila; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon; Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; and Eagle Pass, Texas. Because US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not provide enough appointments through the app to meet the demand from asylum seekers each day, tens of thousands of people seeking asylum have been compelled to wait in Mexico, often for several months, since the Biden administration introduced a new asylum rule in May 2023.

CBP’s nearly exclusive use of the CBP One app to process asylum seekers creates additional barriers to access for those seeking asylum, particularly for certain groups. Many asylum seekers do not have cellphones because they cannot afford them or because criminal actors or government agents in Mexico have stolen their phones. When asylum seekers do have phones, their devices often do not have memory space to support the app, they cannot pay for the data they need to use the app, or they do not have access to Wi-Fi.

In addition, nearly all the asylum seekers Human Rights Watch spoke to described having trouble using or accessing CBP One. For some, the app was particularly difficult to use due to identity factors such as their race, digital literacy, ability to read or write, language, age, LGBT status, or disability.

The Biden asylum rule relies on policies nearly identical to two Trump-era policies—the entry and transit bans—held by federal courts to be illegal. It stipulates that asylum seekers must use CBP One in most cases to access the US asylum system. Asylum seekers who show up at the border without an appointment, who cannot prove they applied for and were denied asylum in another country along their route of transit or certain difficult-to-prove extenuating circumstances, face “enhanced expedited removal” to Mexico or their country of origin without adequate due process.

US and Mexican officials and private security guards hired by the Mexican government stand guard at international bridges and screen asylum seekers for CBP One appointments, turning back those who do not have one. Asylum seekers who face danger if they wait in Mexico often cross over more remote and dangerous areas at the border, where their lives are at risk or where they find their passage blocked by river currents, razor wire, or other barriers.

In just one example in September, Human Rights Watch witnessed a Haitian family attempt for three hours to turn themselves in to US immigration officials near Eagle Pass, Texas, but were impeded by Texas Department of Public Safety boats, river currents, razor wire, and other barriers.

Those who are forced to wait in Mexico also face forced relocation to southern Mexico by Mexican officials; a lack of access to basic services like health care, potable water, and shelter; violence at the hands of criminal groups as well as Mexican immigration authorities, National Guard soldiers, and police; and the possibility of summary deportation.

Cartels and corrupt government officials profit from policies that strand non-Mexican migrants in Mexico for long periods of time. Thanks to these policies, cartels have expanded their business model to include the extortion of the US-based family or friends of kidnapped migrants, Human Rights Watch found. Cartels routinely search kidnapped migrants’ phones for US numbers and demand ransom payments in US dollars. Cartels in Nuevo Laredo extort asylum seekers who have CBP One appointments, threatening to prevent them from getting to their appointments if they don't pay.

“An app-based appointment system suggests the illusion of order and impartiality, but in reality CBP One puts people in danger and means more profit and power for criminal cartels,” Sawyer said. “The United States and Mexico can and should do better.”

Germany Falling Short in Curbing Anti-Muslim Racism

Human Rights Watch — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Click to expand Image Demonstrators mark the anniversary of a far-right extremist attack on February 19, 2020 in Hanau, Germany, that killed nine persons of predominantly Muslim background, February 17, 2024. © 2024 Hasan Bratic, picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

(Berlin, April 30, 2024) – The German government is falling short in protecting Muslims and people perceived to be Muslims from racism amid rising incidents of hate and discrimination, Human Rights Watch said today. The absence of a working definition of anti-Muslim racism and a lack of official data on incidents and of investment in institutional support for victims are among the impediments to an effective response.

“The German government’s failings in protecting Muslims from hatred and discrimination start with a lack of understanding that Muslims experience racism and not simply faith-based hostility,” said Almaz Teffera, researcher on racism in Europe at Human Rights Watch. “Without a clear understanding of anti-Muslim hate and discrimination in Germany and strong data on incidents and community outreach, a response by the German authorities will be ineffective.”

By end of September 2023, the government’s preliminary hate crime statistics for the year had counted 686 “anti-Islamic” crimes, surpassing the 610 recorded for all of 2022. In mid-January 2024, the Interior Ministry told Human Rights Watch that it could not yet provide any data for the period between October and December. But German civil society groups have warned of a rise in anti-Muslim incidents since October, following the outbreak of hostilities in Israel-Palestine.

On November 30, Reem Alabali-Radovan, Germany’s federal commissioner for anti-racism, added her voice to a first of its kind EU-wide expression of concern about the increase in incidents. This is a positive step, underscoring the work needed to improve protections for Muslims in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, Human Rights Watch said.

Rima Hanano, head of the Alliance Against Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate (CLAIM), a German network of nongovernmental organizations, told Human Rights Watch that 2023 marked a frighteningly new high for anti-Muslim incidents. In November, the Alliance documented an average of three anti-Muslim incidents a day. In one case, a man perceived to be Muslim was called a “terrorist” when exiting a public bus, assaulted, and hospitalized for his injuries.

While civil society groups like CLAIM collect data on such incidents, the German government has yet to develop an infrastructure for countrywide monitoring and data collection, based on clear indicators that would equip authorities with the necessary knowledge and tools to tackle the problem.

Since 2017, the German government’s hate crime system has classified hate incidents against Muslims and people perceived to be Muslims under the rubric of “anti-Islamic” motives. This classification considers prejudice to be based on their religious identities, dissociated from hostility based on their ethnic identities, Human Rights Watch said.

A government-commissioned three-year study (“Bericht des Unabhängigen Expert*innenkreis Muslimfeindlichkeit”) on the state of anti-Muslim hostility in Germany, published in June 2023, recognized that anti-Muslim sentiments are widespread in Germany, recommending that the German government should no longer dissociate anti-Muslim hate from racism but recognize their connection. To the dismay of an author of the study, the Interior Ministry has neither engaged with the experts who produced the report nor carried out their recommendations. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she did not agree with everything in the report.

In a written response to a letter sent by Human Rights Watch in mid-December inquiring about the government response to the rise in anti-Muslim and antisemitic hate, the Interior Ministry referred to the study, vaguely acknowledging that a racial lens was missing from the category of anti-Islamic crimes. However, the ministry did not elaborate on how it intended to revise its approach. Any focus on anti-Muslim hate and discrimination that fails to include racism or acknowledge the intersectional nature of such hostility will be unable to capture the full picture or inform effective policy responses, Human Rights Watch said.

In 2017, 1 out of 10 people interviewed for the second survey on anti-Muslim discrimination by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 15 EU member states, including Germany, said that they had reported the most recent anti-Muslim incident against them. Those that did not report felt that “nothing would happen or change by reporting it.” Of those who did report incidents, 81 percent said they felt “somewhat dissatisfied with the way police handled the matter.”

Anti-Muslim violence in Germany, which has one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe, is neither a new phenomenon nor has it grown in a vacuum. In 2020, a far-right extremist and racist attack in Hanau, a German town, killed nine people predominantly of Muslim background: Ferhat Unvar, Hamza Kurtović, Said Nesar Hashemi, Vili Viorel Păun, Mercedes Kierpacz, Kaloyan Velkov, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Sedat Gürbüz and Gökhan Gültekin. Then-interior minister Horst Seehofer labelled it an “unequivocal racist attack.”

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) stressed in its Policy Recommendation No. 5 on preventing and combating anti-Muslim racism and discrimination the need for independent monitoring structures and robust capacity-building by authorities to combat anti-Muslim racism and strengthen recognition and recording of such incidents.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination obliges the German government to protect Muslim communities. In its 2023 review of Germany’s compliance, the Committee that monitors compliance with the convention reminded Germany of its duty to effectively investigate, prosecute, and punish all racist hate incidents.

“Muslim communities in Germany aren’t a monolithic religious group but rather a group with a diversity of ethnicities that experiences hatred and discrimination that cannot be reduced to their faith,” Teffera said. “Germany should invest in protecting Muslims and all other minority communities in Germany because it is an investment in protecting all of German society.”

Saudi Arabia: Halt Executions of Child Offenders

Human Rights Watch — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0400

Click to expand Image Men hold placards bearing portraits of a prominent Shia Muslim cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, whose execution sparked demonstrations in 2016 by the country's minority Shia citizens against systematic governmental discrimination. Some of the alleged child offenders currently on trial were accused of attending similar protests. © 2016 STR/AFP via Getty Images

(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia’s court of appeal in April 2024 approved death sentences for two Saudi men for protest-related crimes allegedly committed as children, Human Rights Watch and 26 other organizations said today in a joint statement. Saudi authorities should immediately halt executions for child offenders.

Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Appellate Court upheld the death penalty sentences for Yousif al-Manasif and Ali al-Mabyook, for alleged crimes they committed when they were between the ages of 14 and 17 and referred the cases to the Supreme Court for final approval. Al-Manasif and al-Mabyook, both from the eastern province, where most of the country’s Shi’a minority live, were arrested between April 2017 and January 2018 and appeared before a court in 2019.

“Saudi Arabia is investing billions of dollars in major entertainment and sporting events to distract from its repressive rights environment, while people charged with crimes as children remain on death row,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi Arabia should quash the decision to execute al-Manasif and al-Mabyook and start living up to its promise to end the child death penalty.”

The charges on which the young men were convicted were almost entirely based on their confessions. Human Rights Watch has documented rampant abuses in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system, including coerced confessions against children later sentenced to death, that make it highly unlikely that al-Manasif and al-Mabyook received a fair trial. At least five people sentenced to death as children remain in danger of execution at any moment.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Saudi Arabia is a party, includes an absolute prohibition on capital punishment for crimes committed by children. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances as it is unique in its cruelty and finality and is inevitably plagued with arbitrariness and error.

“If the Saudi leadership genuinely wants to be seen as a rights-respecting country, it needs to immediately halt all execution orders and commute all death sentences, including the egregious cases of al-Manasif and al-Mabyook.” Shea said.

South Sudan: ‘Disappeared’ Critic Resurfaces

Human Rights Watch — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Nairobi) – The reappearance in a South Sudan court of a former refugee who had been forcibly disappeared more than a year ago points up the urgent need to reform the National Security Service (NSS), Human Rights Watch said today. South Sudan authorities should urgently put an end to the agency’s arbitrary arrests and detentions of critics, activists and members of civil society, some of which constitute enforced disappearances, a sign of troubling regression in the country’s human rights landscape.

Human Rights Watch has documented three other cases of enforced disappearance in recent months. Security agents arbitrarily detained two people, including a former Juba City Council leader, without warrants and have since then denied any information about their whereabouts. The agency is also implicated in the disappearance of a youth activist at a checkpoint, which authorities have failed to effectively investigate.

“South Sudan’s security service has for years committed flagrant violations of national and international law without consequence,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The egregious violations of people’s rights by the security service underscore the need for urgent and meaningful reform of the agency.”

The 2014 National Security Service Act gives the agency broad and unqualified powers that enable it to commit serious abuses with impunity. Human Rights Watch has documented that the NSS’ exercise of these broad powers has contributed to shrinking the space for civil society, including human rights defenders and independent media. The agency exerts its authority without meaningful judicial or legislative oversight, and its agents are rarely punished for abuses, leaving victims with little recourse for justice.

On April 24, 2024, the NSS brought Morris Mabior Awikjok Bak, a South Sudanese critic and former refugee in Kenya, before a county court in Juba to face charges of criminal defamation against the director of the agency. Bak had been forcibly disappeared on February 4, 2023, in Nairobi, Kenya, returned to South Sudan, and detained by the NSS, although it refused to acknowledge his detention or disclose his location.

The Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan had reported on Bak’s detention, allegedly by armed Kenyan security forces and a South Sudanese man in civilian dress, his forced return via a charter flight, and his incommunicado – and unacknowledged – detention by the NSS. In April, the agency acknowledged that it was holding him and indicated that it was bringing criminal defamation charges against him, underscoring the untethered abuse of power by the NSS that South Sudan’s government tolerates.

At about 10 p.m. on March 28, security agents took Kalisto Lado, the former head of the Juba City Council, from his home in Juba and bundled him into a pickup truck with at least 10 armed officers, a witness told Human Rights Watch. Other sources reported that Lado had been under physical surveillance due to his outspokenness against irregular land acquisitions in Juba by powerful individuals that is dispossessing the Bari community and had received a warning that the security agency was looking for him. Witnesses believe that he is being held at the NSS headquarters, Blue House, in Juba. The authorities should immediately release him or bring him before a court and charge him with a recognizable offense if there is sufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing. On April 19, media reported that Lado’s family has brought a case against the government at the East African Court of Justice challenging his illegal detention. The government has 45 days to respond to the complaint.

In late March, the NSS summoned Michael Wetnhialic, a political activist, to the Blue House and detained him, a relative told Human Rights Watch. The authorities have yet to acknowledge his detention or disclose his situation or whereabouts. This is the fourth time the agency has unlawfully detained Wetnhialic. The first was in January 2017 when he was detained in the Blue House for approximately four months, then in September 2018 for a month, and in May 2019 for nearly five months, all for allegedly using Facebook to criticize the agency and senior government officials. During each of his detentions, Wetnhialic was held under poor conditions and denied access to family or a lawyer but was never formally charged.

Credible sources recently told Human Rights Watch that Biar Ajak Marol, a youth activist who headed a local organization called Junubin Chronicles, a nongovernmental group that carries out campaigns on social issues through music, was detained on October 4, 2023, at a checkpoint staffed by joint forces including police, military intelligence, and the NSS. The sources said that Biar was initially held at the Riverside detention facility, then transferred to the Blue House, where he is apparently still being held. Human Rights Watch could not independently verify this.

Interviewees told Human Rights Watch that police and military intelligence authorities engaged in a witch-hunt and harassed seven of Biar’s colleagues and friends, accusing them of being involved in his disappearance, arresting and detaining them multiple times, and beating some of them, rather than conducting an effective investigation into his alleged enforced disappearance. The seven were released on the instruction of the public prosecution at various times due to a lack of evidence, witnesses said.

The NSS also twice prevented Biar’s colleagues from holding a news conference about his disappearance, even though they have no legal authority to decide who can hold a public event. It is still unclear where Biar is or why he was detained, and the authorities seem to have ended their investigations.

The deprivation of a person’s liberty by state actors followed by a refusal to acknowledge the act or the whereabouts or fate of the detainee constitutes an enforced disappearance under international law, which is always prohibited and in certain circumstances may constitute a crime against humanity. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the government of South Sudan to credibly investigate all cases of enforced disappearances and ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

The authorities have yet to investigate or prosecute anyone for other enforced disappearances the NSS is implicated in. These include the 2017 kidnapping from Kenya and apparent extrajudicial execution in South Sudan of Dong Samuel Luak, a prominent South Sudanese lawyer and human rights activist, and Aggrey Ezbon Idri, a member of the political opposition, as well as the enforced disappearances of two United Nations staff, James Lual and Anthony Nyero, and an airline employee, James Adieng.

Amendments to the 2014 act introduced to parliament by the justice minister in May 2023 stalled in September after parliament members removed all references to NSS operating detention centers, introduced a new safeguard requiring the agency to obtain a court warrant before any search and seizure, and a new section requiring parliamentary approval for any other functions assigned to the agency by the president or national security council.

“Members of South Sudan’s parliament should set aside party political considerations and act to protect human rights and the rule of law in the interest of all South Sudanese,” Segun said. “They should urgently resume their work to reform the National Security Service to impose genuine limits on the role and powers of the agency and ensure accountability for abuses.”

UAE: Unfair Trial of Rights Defenders

Human Rights Watch — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Beirut) – Emirati authorities are holding an unfair mass trial that has raised serious due process concerns, Human Rights Watch said today. The trial includes many defendants held in prolonged solitary confinement, which may amount to torture.

In December 2023, while hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Emirati authorities brought charges against at least 84 defendants in retaliation for forming an independent advocacy group in 2010. Those on trial include prominent activists and dissidents already serving long prison sentences based on abusive charges, including Ahmed Mansoor, a prominent human rights defender; Nasser bin Ghaith, an academic; and Khalaf al-Romaithi, a businessman, as well as those convicted following the grossly unfair “UAE94” mass trial in 2013, many of whom have been held arbitrarily after their sentences ended.

January 27, 2021 The Persecution of Ahmed Mansoor

How the United Arab Emirates Silenced its Most Famous Human Rights Activist

Download the full report in English

“This unfair mass trial is a farce, and the allegations of torture and gross fair trial violations lay bare the UAE’s hollow rule of law and utter lack of access to justice,” said Joey Shea, United Arab Emirates researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Other countries and global businesses and celebrities partnering with the UAE should urgently call for an end to these abuses and for the release of human rights activists like Ahmed Mansoor immediately.”

The due process concerns include restricted access to case material and information, limited legal assistance, judges directing witness testimony, violations of the principle of double jeopardy, credible allegations of serious abuse and ill-treatment, and hearings shrouded in secrecy.

In a statement released January 6, Emirati authorities accused the 84 defendants of “establishing and managing a clandestine terrorist organization in the UAE known as the ‘Justice and Dignity Committee.’” The charges appear to come from the UAE’s abusive 2014 counterterrorism law, which sets out punishments up to life in prison and even death for anyone who sets up, organizes, or runs such an organization.

Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed informed sources and Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC) representatives between late March and April 2024.

Human Rights Watch research indicates that many of the defendants have been kept in incommunicado solitary confinement for at least 10 months. Phone calls and family visits have been prohibited from between 10 months to a year, except for brief phone calls in December 2023, informing family members of the existence of the new case and instructing them to hire lawyers.

During the trial, defendants have repeatedly described abusive detention conditions, including physical assaults, lack of access to medical care and required medicines, incessant loud music, and forced nudity.

At a hearing on March 14, some defendants said that officials at the al-Razeen prison forced them to listen to extremely loud music during periods of rest and sleep, informed sources told Human Rights Watch. They said they were interrogated after long periods of loud music and forced to confess under duress and psychological exhaustion. Those who refused were punished with solitary confinement.

According to the EDAC, one defendant told the court after having spent 250 days in solitary confinement: “I do not know what time it is, and I do not remember anything from the Qur’an after I had memorized the Qur’an.”

Emirati authorities should investigate the alleged abusive conditions. Authorities should hold those responsible for any unlawful acts to account and immediately provide the defendants with adequate medical attention, Human Rights Watch said.

The unfair mass trial has been shrouded in secrecy, and Emirati authorities have prevented defendants’ lawyers from freely accessing case files and court documents. Lawyers have apparently not obtained physical or electronic copies of the court documents, relatives said, and are only able to view the documents on a screen in a secure room under the supervision of security officers. Informed sources said that the lawyers are not allowed to take photos of the documents and are only permitted to take handwritten notes.

Emirati authorities have also prevented family members from freely attending the trial. During some sessions, authorities did not allow relatives into the courtroom and instead forced them to watch the proceedings in another room via a livestream that was muted so that they could not hear the proceedings.

At a March 7 hearing, defendant Sheikh Muhammad al-Siddiq said: “We hope that before you sentence us to death, you will give us the opportunity to defend ourselves,” the EDAC reported.

While a January statement from the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the UAE’s official state news agency, claims the case is “public,” Emirati authorities have severely restricted access to the hearings, even for family members, and have kept basic details of the case secret, including the names of all the defendants. UAE allies, including the United States and United Kingdom, should send diplomatic representatives to attend the next trial session to monitor due process violations.

“No one knows who is on the list, no one knows who these 84 people are ... even those attending the trial don’t know,” one relative told Human Rights Watch.

At least 60 of the defendants were already convicted in 2013 for their involvement with the Justice and Dignity Committee, according to the EDAC. That raises concerns that Emirati authorities are violating the principle of double jeopardy, which prohibits trying people twice for the same offense after they had received a final verdict.

The prosecutor has not provided any new evidence, and the evidence cited in the hearings is based entirely on the UAE94 trial, the EDAC said.“It is the same case as 2013, there is no new evidence and it is the same allegations,” said one relative.

Family members have also expressed concern about the partiality of the presiding judge. During a hearing on December 21, one family member said, the judge “put sentences in the mouth of the witness.” The judge interrupted and intervened during the testimony by correcting the witness and dictating statements to him, family members and the EDAC said. The EDAC said that at one point, a police officer handed the witness a paper, which the witness then used to answer the remaining questions.

“This is not an independent trial; it is controlled by the government,” an informed source said. “The judiciary is under their hands, and they showed us from the beginning that they don’t care about the system or the laws.”

“A decade after the notorious UAE94 case, this new farcical mass trial proves that the UAE’s rights record has further deteriorated,” Shea said. “Ahmed Mansoor and the rest of these defendants should be immediately released.”

Torture, Ill-Treatment, and Incommunicado Detention

At a hearing on March 14, some defendants asked the judge for reprieve from solitary confinement during Ramadan, but the request was ignored, relatives said. The defendants have requested an end to their prolonged solitary confinement during other hearings, but these requests have been repeatedly ignored and the judge has apparently prevented the requests from being included in the official record, said a relative and the EDAC.

Prolonged solitary confinement may rise to the level of torture under international law.

There have been widespread allegations of other abusive detention conditions. One defendant told the judge that he has been held in solitary confinement for over two years and that security officials have repeatedly assaulted him, family members and the EDAC said. Another defendant said that he was kept naked while in solitary confinement for a week, a family member said.

Other defendants have said that they have not been provided with their prescribed medications and that prison authorities have ignored their requests for medical attention.

During a hearing on March 7, one of the detainees requested to be taken to an ophthalmologist because he could not see from one eye, the EDAC said. He said he had requested this medical attention from the prison administration, but they did not respond.

A relative said that defendants were pulled from the courtroom after they detailed their allegations of torture and physical harm to the judge.

Emirati authorities have also restricted communication with family members. One family member said that since the summer of 2023, they have only received one phone call from their relative, in December. The call lasted “for less than a minute” to inform the family of the new charges and ask them to hire a lawyer. Two other families reported that they have not communicated with their loved one for a year, except for a similar call in December.

The UN Mandela Rules for treatment of prisoners state that “solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority.” The UN special rapporteur on torture has said that indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should also be subject to an absolute prohibition, citing scientific studies that have established that even a few days of social isolation cause irreparable harm, including lasting psychological damage.

Restricted Access to Court Files, Case Information, and Hearings

Emirati authorities have failed to provide lawyers with unrestricted access to key case documents, including case files and basic information. Lawyers have only been able to view case files under the supervision of security officials and take notes.

Lawyers hired by the defendants are prevented from sharing details of the case. “The lawyer told us—the family that hired him—that he is not allowed to tell us anything, the details of the case, what happens during the trial, until the trial is over and the sentence is made,” said a family member.

Other families did not hire a lawyer and instead are relying on representation appointed by the prosecution. The court-appointed lawyer for at least one family is not allowed to speak with the defendant or his family. “Even if the lawyer is able to get some information about the trial, he is not allowed to share this with the family,” a family member said.

Basic information about the case, such as the names of all the defendants, has yet to be disclosed by Emirati authorities publicly or to the defendants’ lawyers.

The charges in the case were not publicly confirmed by Emirati authorities until January 6, when WAM reported that the UAE’s attorney general Dr. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi referred 84 defendants to the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal for trial on charges of “establishing another clandestine organization for the purpose of committing acts of violence and terrorism on UAE soil.” Relatives do not know if this statement contains the full list of charges.

The statement also referred to the trial as public, even though Emirati authorities have severely restricted family members’ access to the courtroom.

Relatives of the defendants tried to attend the second hearing on December 14 but were denied entry, the EDAC and relatives said. Emirati authorities only allowed relatives to watch the hearing in a muted livestream in a separate room, unable to hear and follow the proceedings.

Many families were unable to attend entirely due to expired IDs and passports, which are required to enter the courtroom and surrounding facilities, the EDAC and relatives said.

After numerous complaints from family members, Emirati authorities allowed a limited number of relatives—not more than seven—to attend some hearings inside the courtroom. During these sessions, police officers and security stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the defendants, preventing family members from viewing their loved ones.

“The session was five hours, but he couldn’t see him in the session because there was a lot of police, and if you try to look at the detainees, the police threaten to kick you out,” said one relative.

Relatives also said that their family members saw cameras and listening devices in the room where they were watching the livestreamed hearing and believed that state security was listening to their conversations and reactions.

Double Jeopardy

One relative said: “This is history repeating itself. It is the same trial from 2013, but there was more freedom in 2013 because the family members were able to attend.” Relatives said they believe the new case is a pretext to keep the group detained indefinitely.

Among the defendants recently charged are at least 60 who were convicted in July 2013 in the UAE94 trial. That trial resulted in convictions of 69 critics of the government, including eight in absentia, on charges that violated their rights to free expression, association, and assembly. At least 51 of the UAE94 prisoners are being held beyond the completion of their sentences.

Lebanon: Ministerial Decision Advances Justice

Human Rights Watch — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 01:00:00 -0400

(Beirut) – Lebanon’s Council of Ministers issued a decision on April 26, 2024, instructing the Foreign Affairs Ministry to file a declaration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) registrar accepting the court’s jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute crimes within the court’s jurisdiction on Lebanese territory since October 7, 2023.

Play Video Read a text description of this video

VO:

On October 13, 2023, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed Issam Abdullah, a Reuters journalist. The attack injured six other journalists from Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP),

and Al Jazeera.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

I will always remember his, his wit and his humor. He was the dynamo of the press scene and of Reuters in general.

SOUNDBITE: Carmen Joukhadar Al Jazeera Journalist

I don’t think there is anyone that is funnier than Issam. I don’t think there’s anyone more supportive than Issam.

VO:

Human Rights Watch investigated the attack to determine the cause, who carried it out and its legality.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

I don't know what justice looks like. We lost someone and he’s not coming back. And Christina [injured AFP colleague], her life will never be the same. I don't know how you, I don't know how you replace that. For me, justice, the only type of justice that we can get now is accountability.

VO:

Visual evidence suggests that Israeli forces targeted the journalists, who were filming at a known live position far from military targets. The attacks were likely deliberate and an apparent war crime.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

We’re a group of seven journalists, all wearing press vests, all wearing helmets with cameras, with three live feeds for three international agencies. And we were hit twice directly in a matter of 37 seconds.

VO:

The digital investigations team at Human Rights Watch verified 49 videos and dozens of photos from before, during and after the incident, analyzed satellite imagery of the area,

interviewed witnesses, and consulted with arms and audio experts. Among the visual evidence collated by Human Rights Watch is the feed from the cameras of the journalists who were there that day.

VO:

Just before 5 p.m. on October 13th the seven journalists from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera congregated in Alma Al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, roughly one to two kilometers from the Israeli border.

SOUNDBITE: Carmen Joukhadar Al Jazeera Journalist

For us it was a good location because we were able to film the strikes without putting our lives at risk.

VO:

They were there to report on clashes between the Israeli military and Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups in southern Lebanon.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

When we arrived around 5 p.m. We were really only just filming this this huge pillar of smoke that was coming, rising up beyond a hill to our south, along the border. And maybe about 15 minutes later, we started to see incoming shelling from the Israeli side hitting the

the areas in Lebanon along the border. We were calm, collected, working as safe as you can in this kind of environment.

VO:

Evidence reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that the group of people they were firing on were civilians.

Around 5:54, Elie Brakhia, an Al Jazeera journalist, took a selfie with Issam Abdallah, the Reuters journalist, with the sun setting behind them.  “Good evening,” Elie texted, in Arabic.  

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

So around a little bit before 6 p.m., about one minute before we were hit, there was a what looked to be a tank fire fired from the “Hanita military base (in Israel),” fired across the valley

into a hilltop, basically maybe a kilometer and half away from us.

And I took out my phone to take a video of it. And basically, as soon as I took out my phone to take a video, I was going to inform our newsroom about the development. And as soon as I took out my phone, we were hit the first time. But basically big explosion.

The first one. I looked to my right and I saw my colleague Christina on the ground screaming,

saying, “I can't feel my legs.”

VO:

Human Rights Watch has verified footage from four cameras that caught captured the first attack. The first strike directly hit and killed Issam Abdallah, who was near the short rock wall.

SOUNDBITE: Carmen Joukhadar Al Jazeera Journalist

I see a flame and soil and then I hear the sound. I see Christina and I see Issam. And then I run in the other direction. I go to the car, our car the Al Jazeera car. I sit next to it for a little bit. But then I told myself no, cars are targets. This is what they tell you in training. So as I was running to get away from it......another missile hit the car. And it exploded, all of it.

And this is what caused all the shrapnel in my back because I was running to get away.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

Getting hit once or firing once could be a mistake. But there were two direct it was two direct shots at us. You can't say that's a mistake.

VO:

Audio analysis, witness testimony and satellite images reviewed by Human Rights Watch suggests that at least one munition was fired from Israeli territory, approximately 1.5 kilometers to the southeast. Analysis of the video taken in the minutes before the attack further suggests that the group was targeted by the Israeli military.

Three cameras captured the same scene, but in each one light appears to be either static, blinking, or absent, depending on the camera. Experts said this could suggest the

use of infrared targeting or range-finding technology, suggesting the Israeli military was actively observing the journalists and proceeded to target them.

SOUNDBITE: Dylan Collins AFP Journalist

We lost a colleague. My colleague has, life altering injuries, and I want to know, I want to know who pulled the trigger.

SOUNDBITE: Carmen Joukhadar Al Jazeera Journalist

Today it was us. Tomorrow it will be someone else. Justice is that those who committed all these crimes are held accountable.

VO:

Since Human Rights Watch began this investigation, two journalists, Rabih Al-Maamari and Farah Omar were reportedly killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Tayr Harfa, some 2.3 kilometers from where Issam Abdullah was killed.

At least 61 journalists have been killed in the hostilities in Israel and Gaza, according to the Committee to Project Journalists. The committee said the first month of hostilities marked “the deadliest month for journalists” since they began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.

Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law against direct attacks. Targeting journalists constitutes a breach of the Geneva Conventions.  

Intentionally or indiscriminately attacking civilians is a war crime.  

Human Rights Watch documented two Israeli strikes in Lebanon on October 13, 2023, that killed a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdullah, and injured six others and concluded that the attack was apparently deliberate and thus a war crime. In another Israeli military strike in Lebanon in November, Human Rights Watch documented that the killing of three children and a grandmother was also an apparent war crime. Human Rights Watch has also exposed the Israeli military’s use of white phosphorus in operations in Lebanon since October 7.

Rocket and missile attacks and armed clashes between the Israeli army and various Palestinian and Lebanese armed groups, including Hezbollah, have been ongoing since October 8, the day after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.

Acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction through a declaration is distinct from ratifying the ICC’s founding treaty to become a formal member of the court. But filing a declaration would give the court’s prosecutor a mandate to investigate serious crimes committed in Lebanon, regardless of the nationality of the suspects.

The following quote can be attributed to Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch:

“The Lebanese government has taken a landmark step toward securing justice for war crimes in the country. The Foreign Affairs Minister should swiftly file a declaration accepting the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction and create a pathway for victims of war crimes, including those committed by Israeli forces, to obtain justice. This is an important reminder to those who flout their obligations under the laws of war that they may find themselves in the dock.”

US Universities Should Respect Right to Protest

Human Rights Watch — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 18:30:00 -0400

Click to expand Image Pro-Palestinian student protesters at a demonstration at Columbia University on the third day of "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in New York, US, April 19, 2024. © 2024 Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Pro-Palestine university campus protests have spread across the United States, with harsh crackdowns at some institutions, including Columbia University, the University of Texas, and Emory University. These include mass suspensions, evictions from university housing, and arrests of students, faculty, legal observers, and journalists covering these events.

Columbia University students set up tents on campus on April 17 to express solidarity with the Palestinian people. Student groups said they were protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has killed over 34,000 people and left well over a million displaced and starving. Protesters also demanded that the university divest holdings in companies profiting from the assault on Gaza and Israel’s unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Also on April 17, Columbia’s President Minouche Shafik testified at a congressional hearing on antisemitism. On April 18, she suspended the protesters, revoking their access to campus. In a letter to the New York Police Department, Shafik said Columbia “provided multiple notices and warnings and informed the encampment participants that they must disperse or face immediate discipline.” Shafik said the protesters were violating Columbia’s rules and policies, and raised safety concerns. She said the encampment posed a “clear and present danger” and asked the police to help remove the protesters.

The Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, 54 members of Columbia Law School’s permanent faculty, and the Knight First Amendment Institute, among others, criticized Shafik’s decisions, with the Knight Institute condemning the “alarming decision to call on the NYPD to dismantle a student encampment.”

The university previously suspended Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, after administrators claimed the groups “repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events.” In response, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the organization Palestine Legal filed a lawsuit in March against the university for its “unlawful suspension” of these groups for “engaging in peaceful protest.”

Shafik told the US Congress that Columbia updated policies and procedures to address rising antisemitism on campus. She described as a central challenge “[t]rying to reconcile the free speech rights of those who want to protest and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of harassment or discrimination.”

There have been troubling reports of antisemitic incidents in and around Columbia University’s campus. Allegations of antisemitic acts and speech by individuals, as well as acts of Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination, should be investigated and addressed on the merits in a case-by-case basis, through fair and transparent processes.

As protests spread to campuses across the country, university administrations should be careful not to mislabel criticism of Israeli government policies or advocacy for Palestinian rights as inherently antisemitic or to misuse university authority to quash peaceful protest. Instead, universities should safeguard people’s rights to assembly and free expression.

Guinea Massacre Trial Enters Final Stage

Human Rights Watch — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:49:34 -0400

Click to expand Image Eleven men accused of responsibility for the 2009 massacre and mass rape of pro-democracy protesters by forces linked to a former military junta, stand during their trial in Conakry, Guinea, September 28, 2022. © 2022 Souleymane Camara/Reuters

The last major phase in Guinea’s landmark domestic trial about the brutal massacre of peaceful demonstrators in 2009 concluded on April 23. That last phase, known as the “confrontations,” began on April 15 as judges and all parties posed questions to some of the accused – including Guinea’s former president – as well as victims and witnesses, with a view to reconciling inconsistencies in earlier statements.

The trial involves one of the most brutal events in Guinea’s history. On September 28, 2009, Guinean security forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrators in a stadium during a pro-democracy rally, leaving more than 150 dead. Security forces raped and gang raped more than 100 women, then attempted to cover up their crimes.

Before the confrontations phase, the trial experienced a number of delays following the prosecution’s March 4 request asking judges to reclassify the charges from ordinary crimes to crimes against humanity. Civil parties, which are victims with a standing in the case, supported the request.

Judges heard from all parties on the issue of reclassification during three days of hearings.

Defense counsel argued reclassification would lead to a retroactive application of law, since crimes against humanity were incorporated into Guinea’s law after the acts in question were alleged to have been committed. However, the prosecution and civil parties pointed to Guinea’s ratification in 2003 of the International Criminal Court statute, arguing that, because of ratification, crimes against humanity were part of Guinea’s domestic legal obligations at the time.

On March 20, the judges decided they would rule on the request when they reach a verdict, leaving the question open as the trial moves toward a conclusion. While defense counsel appealed this decision, seeking to have the reclassification issue decided earlier, according to media reports the appeal was dismissed. This paved the way for the trial to resume.

The prosecution, again supported by victims, also sought a “judicial transfer” – a physical visit by the court to alleged locations of mass graves, where scores of bodies connected to the stadium massacre are claimed to have been buried. The judges rejected the request, without providing an explanation.

Closing submissions are set to begin on May 13, after which the judges will proceed to deliberate on a verdict.

African Governments Falling Short on Healthcare Funding

Human Rights Watch — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 10:38:58 -0400

Click to expand Image Empty beds in a ward at the Kiambu Referral Hospital, Kenya, as doctors and medical practitioners strike to demand payment of their salaries and other grievances, April 23, 2024. © 2024 Monicah Mwangi/Reuters

(Washington, DC) – African governments are falling far short in their commitments to prioritize public spending on health care, contributing to widespread inequalities in healthcare access and outcomes, Human Rights Watch and the Kampala-based Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) said today. As the 23rd anniversary of African Union states’ historic commitment approaches, new data reveal alarming stagnation, widening regional inequalities, and pointing up the need to correct course.

On April 27, 2001, African Union (AU) governments adopted the Abuja Declaration, in which they set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their national budgets to improve health care. But recent analysis of two decades of data found that only two of the AU’s 55 member countries — Cabo Verde and South Africa — met this target in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

“It is disappointing that African countries have failed to meet health spending targets they set,” said Allana Kembabazi, the ISER program manager. “The impact of this is felt in lives lost as a result of underfunded, poor-quality public health systems. Covid-19 underscored that it is more important than ever for governments to finance health care.”

Despite the global surge in public healthcare spending amid the pandemic in 2021, on average African governments spent only 7.4 percent of their national budgets on health care, less than half of what they had pledged 20 years earlier. Overall, about 95 percent of people in Africa lived in a country that did not meet this spending target that year.

Domestic General Government Health Expenditure (GGHE-D) as % General Government Expenditure (GGE)

Source: World Health Organization, Global Health Expenditure Database (Domestic General Government Health Expenditure (GGHE-D) as % General Government Expenditure (GGE))

Data: Public Healthcare Spending as Percent of General Government Expenditure in Africa, 2021 Country percent Algeria 8.8% Angola 8.8% Benin 1.6% Botswana 14.6% Burkina Faso 9.8% Burundi 7.3% Cape Verde 15.7% Cameroon 2.8% Central African Republic 6.4% Chad 4.8% Comoros 4.7% Congo (Brazzaville) 8.2% Côte d'Ivoire 5% Democratic Republic of Congo 4.3% Djibouti 4.2% Egypt 6.7% Equatorial Guinea 5.3% Eritrea 2.3% Eswatini 12.3% Ethiopia 7% Gabon 9.5% Gambia 7.5% Ghana 8.2% Guinea-Bissau 4.6% Kenya 9.3% Lesotho 7.9% Liberia 3.7% Madagascar 5.3% Malawi 5.8% Mali 5% Mauritania 8.3% Mauritius 10.2% Morocco/Western Sahara 7.2% Mozambique 8.2% Namibia 11.2% Niger 8.7% Nigeria 4% Rwanda 9.5% São Tomé and Príncipe 13.1% Senegal 4.4% Seychelles 10.2% Sierra Leone 6.9% South Africa 15.3% South Sudan 2.1% Sudan 7.9% Togo 2.6% Tunisia 12.4% Uganda 4.9% Tanzania 5.1% Zambia 9.3% Zimbabwe 5.2%

Despite making clear commitments to prioritize national public healthcare spending in 2001, African governments’ allocations to health care grew minimally over the subsequent two decades, at about one-third the global average. By 2021, Africa’s regional average had become the lowest in the world.

When adjusted for inflation, seven AU countries spent less per person on health care through public means in 2021 than they did in 2000, the year before the Abuja Declaration. Madagascar effectively reduced its per person spending by 62 percent over this period, followed by Benin (-62 percent), Eritrea (-55 percent), Central African Republic (-44 percent), Chad (-37 percent), Sudan (-36 percent), and Cameroon (-8 percent).

Under international human rights law, including under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, states have duties to use the maximum of their available resources toward the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights, such as the right to health.

Decreases in healthcare funding should be examined as potentially deliberate retrogressive measures, which would violate countries’ obligations on the right to health unless they are fully justified. Human rights bodies, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in its 2021 General Comment No. 7, have made clear that the bar for justifying deliberate retrogressive measures is quite high, for example, the existence of an armed conflict is not alone sufficient to justify retrogression.

African governments should commit to enacting policies, including through their budgets, that make good on this commitment, the human rights groups said. African governments should also seek to increase public revenues, including through policy measures to reduce tax abuses and illicit financial flows, as well as by considering progressive taxes.

For some countries, low levels of public healthcare spending may also reflect a confluence of external factors, including climate-related weather events and environmental changes, the cost of servicing external public debt, and public spending limits set by International Monetary Fund lending programs.

To address these external factors, international and other financial institutions and wealthier income governments—particularly those that have contributed most to climate change—should fulfill their human rights obligations to provide international assistance and cooperation by ensuring that African governments have adequate fiscal space and policy autonomy to meet spending benchmarks vital for the realization of the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

“African governments once led by example with the Abuja Declaration,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They need to do so again by making good on those commitments to finance more resilient, more sustainable, and more rights-realizing healthcare systems for all.”

Africa’s High Teenage Pregnancy Rate Demands Strong Response

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:01:00 -0400

Throughout 2024, the African Union will mark the “AU Year of Education.” The aim is to renew collective commitment and joint action by African countries towards the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education, as well as the Continental Educational Strategy for Africa, designed to make education a reality for all children and young people in Africa.

However, tens of thousands of African girls drop out of school every year, many because they are pregnant or have a young child. A study commissioned by the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child found that one in every five adolescent girls in Africa becomes pregnant before reaching the age of 19.

Many will not return to school because they face huge barriers and have little to no support from schools at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives. Many are denied access to basic sexual and reproductive health services, such as antenatal and postnatal care, contraception, and abortion care. This impacts both girls’ and their children’s survival and development.

The African Committee study is clear: If governments don’t take swift action to tackle and prevent high adolescent pregnancy rates and address barriers faced by girls in attending school, they will continue to fail many girls, as well as future generations. Young people’s progress in education is interlinked with their access to comprehensive sexuality education, as well as access to quality sexual and reproductive health interventions.

To successfully mark the AU Year of Education and advance their education commitments, AU member countries should protect girls’ rights to education while also protecting adolescents’ sexual and reproductive rights. The AU should develop and adopt guidelines on protecting the rights of pregnant and parenting students, which should serve as a model of positive practice across the continent.

Lebanon: Stepped-Up Repression of Syrians

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Beirut) – Lebanese authorities have arbitrarily detained, tortured, and forcibly returned Syrians to Syria in recent months, including opposition activists and army defectors, Human Rights Watch said today.

Between January and March 2024, Human Rights Watch documented the forcible return of a Syrian army defector and an opposition activist by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the General Directorate of General Security, the Lebanese security agency that controls entry and residency status for foreigners. In a separate case, the Lebanese military’s intelligence unit briefly held and allegedly tortured a Syrian man who had participated in a solidarity protest for women in Gaza. Other Syrian refugees are fighting to remain in Lebanon despite deportation orders and an increasingly hostile environment exacerbated by officials’ scapegoating of the refugee population.

“Lebanese officials have for years imposed discriminatory practices against Syrians in the country as a way of coercing them to return to Syria, which remains unsafe,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Arbitrarily arresting, torturing, or deporting Syrians who face a well-founded risk of persecution if returned are additional blights on Lebanon’s refugee record.”

In March, a United Nations report indicated that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is aware of “13,772 individuals deported from Lebanon or pushed back at the border with the Syrian Arab Republic in approximately 300 incidents in 2023,” including 600 people in one day on November 8. It further stated that “local authorities in 27 municipalities took measures limiting the ability of Syrian refugees displaced in south Lebanon from finding alternative shelter.” The reference was in relation to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in South Lebanon following the cross-border hostilities between Israel and Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups that have been ongoing since October 2023.

Since the killing of a local political party official on April 7, 2024, which the Lebanese army alleged was carried out by a group of Syrian nationals, Lebanese ministers and political officials have reiterated calls for the return of Syrians in Lebanon, fueling ongoing violence against Syrians. In April, Syrians in Lebanon were reportedly beaten and faced demands across Lebanon to leave their homes, with governorates and municipalities imposing discriminatory curfews, unlawfully restricting Syrians’ right to freedom of movement.

Human Rights Watch spoke to Mohammed Sablouh, the head of the legal support program at the Cedar Centre for Legal Studies and a lawyer representing three Syrian men, and reviewed correspondence between Sablouh and Lebanese judicial authorities. Two of his clients, Rafaat al-Faleh and Muaz al-Waer, were deported to Syria between January and March, while Yassin al-Atr, a Syrian opposition activist, currently faces a deportation order from the General Security Directorate. Human Rights Watch also spoke to people close to both al-Atr and al-Faleh, who requested to remain anonymous for security reasons, and to another lawyer, Diala Chehadeh, who is representing a Syrian man arrested by Lebanese military intelligence and reportedly tortured.

On April 9, Human Rights Watch sent letters with research findings and questions to the LAF and the General Security Directorate but has not received responses.

The military deported al-Faleh, a Syrian army defector, in January after detaining him at a military checkpoint near Tripoli on January 10, Sablouh said. Originally from Daraa, al-Faleh had fled to Lebanon in 2021, said an individual familiar with his case. A Lebanese driver who was with al-Faleh at the time of his arrest later informed al-Faleh’s family that the army had arrested him because he was not carrying legal residency papers.

In late January, a family member in Syria received a call from an official who identified himself as a member of Syria’s military intelligence, said people close to al-Faleh. The official said he was seeking information about al-Faleh and his political affiliations and informed al-Faleh’s relative that he would soon be handed over by Lebanon to the Syrian authorities.

An official who identified himself as a member of the Syrian government-allied Syrian Social Nationalist Party, tasked with investigating Syrian army defectors in Lebanon, called al-Faleh’s family a few days later and told them that Lebanon had deported al-Faleh to Syria and that he was being held at the infamous Branch 235 of Syrian Military Intelligence, better known as the Palestine Branch, in Damascus. His family has not been able to find out anything about him since.

In March, the General Security Directorate deported al-Waer, who had been serving a prison sentence in Lebanon, shortly after he completed his sentence, his lawyer said. The deportation prompted four other Syrian inmates in Roumieh prison, including two of his brothers, to attempt to hang themselves, apparently out of fear of being deported. Videos of the hanging attempts were widely shared on social media. Sablouh said that family members only found out about al-Waer’s deportation when he was permitted to call his mother at the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.

The General Security Directorate in January ordered the deportation of al-Atr, a Syrian opposition activist jailed in Lebanon since 2017, who faces trial in Lebanon on charges of terrorism, said his lawyer and an individual familiar with his case. The deportation order was issued despite a separate military court decision, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, that ordered his release from prison on bail and barred him from leaving the country.

Originally from al-Qusayr, al-Atr fled to Lebanon in 2012 after taking part in anti-government protests. In 2011, Syrian authorities arrested his father, whose situation and whereabouts remain unknown. The day after Lebanon issued the deportation order, people in al-Qusayr told al-Atr’s family that officials from Syria’s State Security and Political Security apparatuses were asking around about him. “The officer told our contact in Qusayr that ‘Yassin’s time is finished in Lebanon. They didn’t know how to discipline him […] But we know how to,’” a person close to al-Atr told Human Rights Watch.

Although Lebanese authorities halted his deportation due to public pressure, his lawyer said he remains in detention and faces the threat of deportation. The Lebanese Army had detained al-Waer in 2015 and al-Atr in 2016, accusing them of taking part in hostilities by armed groups in Arsal, near Lebanon’s border with Syria, against the army. Their families deny that they took up arms or took part in the armed hostilities. Al-Atr is set to appear again before Lebanon’s military court on May 23.

Chehadeh told Human Rights Watch that members of the Lebanese Military Intelligence, dressed in civilian clothing, arrested her client while he was participating in a solidarity protest with women in Gaza in the Sin el-Fil area, near Beirut. Chehadeh said that the agents approached her client, whose name is withheld at the lawyer’s request, and demanded his residency papers.

She said they held him for several hours at the military intelligence directorate and allegedly tortured him, including beating him with an electric cable. She said that her client confessed under torture to belonging to a terrorist organization. He was released later that day. A forensic medical exam conducted on the same day, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, shows that he had bruises and marks on his neck, shoulder, arms, chest, and hands, resulting from “being beaten or hit ... with a hard, cable-shaped object.”

In a separate case, Lebanese authorities in March ordered a Syrian opposition activist, Jumaa Lehib, to leave Lebanon within 21 days when he went to renew his residency papers with General Security. Lehib, who is from Idlib, fled to Lebanon in 2011 after Syrian authorities detained him over his participation in protests. General Security issued the deportation order even though Lehib is registered with the UNHCR and faces a serious risk of persecution if returned.

Sablouh said that General Security officials have repeatedly attempted to intimidate him because he defends refugees at risk of deportation.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups previously reported that the army summarily deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, to Syria in 2023, in violation of Lebanese law and Lebanon’s international human rights obligations. Deportations of Syrian opposition activists and army defectors violate Lebanon’s obligations as a party to the UN Convention Against Torture and under the customary international law principle of nonrefoulment—that is, not to forcibly return people to countries where they face a clear risk of torture or other persecution.

Other governments providing funding to the LAF and General Security Directorate should press them to end unlawful deportations and other violations of Syrians’ rights, Human Rights Watch said. Donor governments should also develop a public human rights impact assessment of their funding and press Lebanon to allow an independent reporting mechanism to ensure that funding does not contribute to or perpetuate human rights violations.

“The Lebanese army and General Security are targeting people who have already suffered far too much and could face even worse punishments by Syrian authorities if returned,” Kaiss said. “Donor countries providing funds and other assistance to Lebanon’s security and military services should ensure that any funds or equipment provided to Lebanon are not being used to commit rights violations.”

Burkina Faso: Army Massacres 223 Villagers

Human Rights Watch — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

(Nairobi) – The Burkina Faso military summarily executed at least 223 civilians, including at least 56 children, in two villages on February 25, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.

These mass killings, among the worst army abuse in Burkina Faso since 2015, appear to be part of a widespread military campaign against civilians accused of collaborating with Islamist armed groups, and may amount to crimes against humanity. Soldiers killed 44 people, including 20 children, in Nondin village, and 179 people, including 36 children, in the nearby Soro village, of Thiou district in the northern Yatenga province.

Burkinabè authorities should urgently undertake a thorough investigation into the massacres, with support from the African Union and the United Nations to protect its independence and impartiality.

“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “The repeated failure of the Burkinabè authorities to prevent and investigate such atrocities underlines why international assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into possible crimes against humanity.”

From February 28 to March 31, Human Rights Watch interviewed 23 people by telephone, including 14 witnesses to the killings, 3 local civil society activists, and 3 members of international organizations. Human Rights Watch verified videos and photographs shared by survivors of the aftermath of the killings and injured survivors.

On February 24 and 25, Islamist armed groups carried out several attacks across the country on military targets, including barracks and bases, and on civilian infrastructure, such as religious sites, killing scores of civilians, soldiers, and militia members. Burkinabè Defense Minister Mahamoudou Sana, in a February 26 statement to the media, denounced what he described as “simultaneous and coordinated” attacks by Islamist fighters, but made no mention of the mass killings of civilians in Nondin and Soro.

On March 1, Aly Benjamin Coulibaly, prosecutor of the high court in Ouahigouya said in a statement that he received reports of “massive deadly attacks” on the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soro in Yatenga province on February 25, with a provisional toll of “around 170 people executed,” and others injured, and that he ordered an investigation. On March 4, Coulibaly said that he had visited the sites of the incidents along with the judicial police on February 29, but indicated that he was not able to locate the dozens of bodies he had been told were there.

Villagers said that on February 25, military forces first stopped in Nondin, then in Soro, five kilometers away. They believe that the killings were perpetrated in retaliation for an attack by Islamist fighters against a Burkinabè military and militia camp outside the provincial capital, Ouahigouya, about 25 kilometers from Nondin, earlier that day. “Before the soldiers started shooting at us, they accused us of being complicit with the jihadists [Islamist fighters],” said a 32-year-old woman survivor from Soro who was shot in the leg. “They said we do not cooperate with them [the army] because we did not inform them about the jihadists’ movements.”

On February 25, the Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), the government-run national television network, reported “a major attack” by Islamist fighters around 7 a.m. “against the mixed battalion” military base in Ouahigouya. It said that soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (Batallion d’Intervention Rapide, BIR), a special forces unit involved in counterinsurgency operations, “chased the fighters fleeing towards Thiou” and “neutralized the maximum of those who could not” flee. The report, which made no reference to civilian casualties, stated that soldiers requested that aerial drones do not follow the fighters they were chasing, and to “leave this group to them,” perhaps indicating that they did not want the drones to record what followed.

Witnesses said that between 8:30 and 9 a.m., about 30 minutes after a group of armed Islamist fighters passed near the village yelling “Allah Akbar!” (God is great), a military convoy with over 100 Burkinabè soldiers arrived on motorbikes, in pickup trucks, and in at least two armored cars in Nondin’s Basseré neighborhood located near the asphalted National Road 2. They said the soldiers went door-to-door, ordering people out of their homes and to show their identity cards. They then rounded up villagers in groups before opening fire on them. Soldiers also shot at people trying to flee or hide.

Villagers described a similar scenario in Soro, where soldiers arrived about an hour later and shot people who had been rounded up or who tried to hide or escape. “They separated men and women in groups,” said a 48-year-old farmer. “I was in the garden with other people when they [soldiers] called us. As we started moving forward, they opened fire on us indiscriminately. I ran behind a tree, and this saved my life.”

Human Rights Watch obtained two lists of the victims’ names compiled by survivors and others who helped bury the bodies. Witnesses said that survivors and people from nearby villages buried the bodies in Nondin in three mass graves and those in Soro in eight. Some bodies in both villages, they said, were buried individually since they were recovered days later in the bush.

Click to expand Image Reported number of bodies and location of the eight mass graves visible on a video shared with Human Rights Watch. Six of the mass graves are clearly visible on satellite imagery of March 15, 2024. Two others are hidden by the shadows of buildings. Image © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. Graphic and analysis © 2024 Human Rights Watch

On February 26, a group of family members of victims from Nondin and Soro went to the gendarmerie brigade in Ouahigouya to make a statement, leading the high court prosecutor to announce an investigation.

On March 21, following a brief visit to Burkina Faso, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement that he received “assurances” from the Burkinabè president “that steps are being taken to ensure” that the conduct of security forces “fully complies with international humanitarian and international human rights laws … against the backdrop of reports of serious violations by security forces … which need to be thoroughly investigated and acted upon.”

Human Rights Watch has previously documented serious abuses by the Burkinabè army during counterterrorism operations, including summary executions and enforced disappearances as well as indiscriminate drone strikes.

All parties to the armed conflict in Burkina Faso are bound by international humanitarian law, which includes Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law. Common Article 3 prohibits murder, torture, and ill-treatment of civilians and captured fighters. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. Commanders who knew or should have known about serious abuses by their forces and do not take appropriate action may be prosecuted as a matter of command responsibility.

Burkina Faso is a state party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provide for the right to life and prohibit extrajudicial executions. Burkina Faso in 2004 ratified the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court.

Crimes against humanity are a series of offenses, including murder, that are knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. “Widespread” refers to the scale of the acts or number of victims. A “systematic” attack indicates a pattern or methodical plan.

The Burkina Faso government has an obligation to exercise criminal jurisdiction over those who carry out grave international crimes. War crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes of universal jurisdiction, which allows other countries to prosecute them regardless of where the crimes were committed or the nationality of victims and perpetrators.

“The Burkinabé army has repeatedly committed mass atrocities against civilians in the name of fighting terrorism with almost no one held to account,” Hassan said. “Victims, survivors and their families are entitled to see those responsible for grave abuses brought to justice. Support from AU or UN investigators and legal experts is the best way to ensure credible investigations and fair trials.”

For witness accounts and other details, please see below. The names of those interviewed have been withheld for their protection.

Armed Conflict in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso forces have been fighting an insurgency by the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) since the armed groups entered the country from Mali in 2016. The two armed groups control large swathes of territory, attacking civilians as well as government security forces.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project, recorded violent events linked to this conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 8,000 people in 2023 and over 430 in January 2024 alone.

On November 26, 2023, the JNIM attacked military barracks in the besieged northern town of Djibo, Sahel region, and broke into homes and a camp for internally displaced people, killing at least 40 civilians. On February 25, the ISGS claimed responsibility for an attack on a church in the town of Essakane, Sahel region, that killed 15 civilians.

Islamist armed groups have also besieged cities, towns, and villages across Burkina Faso, blocking food, other necessities, and humanitarian aid to the civilian population and causing starvation and illness among residents and displaced people, violations of international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes.

Since 2022, Burkina Faso has experienced two military coups. The military authorities have relied heavily on militias to counter attacks from Islamist armed groups. In October 2022, the government began a campaign to bolster these militias by recruiting 50,000 civilian auxiliaries, called Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, VDPs).

Since the fighting expanded, the military has been linked to mass killings of civilians for which no one has been held accountable. On April 20, 2023, soldiers killed 83 men, 28 women, and 45 children, burned homes, and looted property in and near the village of Karma, in Yatenga province. The authorities announced an investigation but have not followed up.

On November 12, the European Union called for an investigation into a massacre in the Centre Nord region in which about 100 people were reportedly killed. The government said that on November 5, unidentified gunmen killed at least 70 people, mainly older people and children, in Zaongo village, and that the incident was being investigated. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any progress in the investigation. Human Rights Watch spoke to witnesses who said the army was responsible for the massacre in Zaongo, which international media corroborated.

On December 19, 2023, media reported that hundreds of civilians were killed in several villages around the town of Djibo, Sahel region. The authorities said that Islamist armed groups were responsible, but local sources, including some who spoke to Human Rights Watch, pointed to responsibility by the army.

The conflict has forced two million people from their homes and led to the shutdown of over 6,100 schools since 2021.

In September 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger created a mutual defense pact, the Alliance of Sahel States, and, in January, the three countries decided to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African (ECOWAS) regional bloc. On March 6, the army chiefs of the three countries announced the creation of a joint force to fight Islamist armed groups.

A Retaliatory Attack

Nondin and Soro are among the many villages within Thiou district that the JNIM has besieged. On February 25, JNIM fighters attacked a government militia base next to a military camp in Ouahigouya, killing and injuring several militiamen.

Witnesses and residents believe the killings were perpetrated in retaliation for allegedly collaborating with the Islamist armed groups.

A 50-year-old farmer from Nondin said:

I was sitting in front of a kiosk when the jihadists came back from Ouahigouya shouting victory, and “Allah akbar!” When they arrived, they split into two groups. One continued toward Thiou and the second took the rural path that starts from our neighborhood and crosses the whole village to go to the village of Sim. About 30 minutes later a group of heavily armed soldiers came, followed by another group … They said: “Out! Come out! You support the jihadists! You’ll see!”

A 43-year-old man working in a gold mine just outside Soro said:

I saw the jihadists passing by and yelling “Allah Akhbar!” Thirty minutes later, the first group of soldiers came and stopped by the mine. One asked me: “Why didn’t you inform us when you saw the terrorists passing by?” I replied that there is no telephone network here, so we couldn’t call. They didn’t say anything and continued toward Soro.

“They [soldiers] said we collaborate with the jihadists,” said a 36-year-old in Soro. “They said we didn’t inform them about the movements of the jihadists.”

Killings in Nondin

Survivors described scenes of horror with soldiers ordering people out from their homes, rounding them up, and executing them. They said soldiers killed several dozen people in less than an hour, shooting at groups or individuals running away.

A 61-year-old man, who was injured and lost 11 family members, including his wife, son, brothers, and nephews, said that masked Burkinabè soldiers speaking Moré, a language widely spoken in Burkina Faso, “with an accent from Ouahigouya,” came to his courtyard and ordered his family out of the house:

They made us sit down … and then they opened fire on us. They shot “Pa! Pa! Pa!” They shot us like that, killing all the members of my family. I was injured in the armpit because I raised my hands to ask for “mercy.” One bullet passed through the armpit, and another bullet pierced my right thigh.

A 60-year-old farmer who hid in his home said:

They showed no mercy. They shot at everything that moved, they killed men, women, and children alike. Some [soldiers] wore masks on their faces. They were heavily armed. I saw a soldier asking a woman for something and then executing her point blank.”

A human rights defender who visited the morgue of the regional hospital in Ouahigouya on February 26 said:

I saw more than 20 bodies of whom at least 5 [were] women. The driver of the ambulance told me these were the bodies of the people killed in Nondin and of the VDPs killed at their base in Ouahigouya the previous day. I also spoke to some relatives of the victims from Nondin. The morgue is very small and could not take more than six bodies. The other bodies were in an adjacent room. Some bodies were covered, others not. I could clearly see the marks of the bullets on the bodies, some in the chest, others in the abdomen, legs, head.

Witnesses said that survivors and people from nearby villages buried the bodies in Nondin in three mass graves. In the absence of photographs or videos, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the location of these graves on satellite imagery.

Killings in Soro

Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated six photographs and six videos filmed in Soro and shared with researchers by survivors showing scores of bodies of men, women, and children scattered between houses or gathered in large piles in open areas. One of these videos shows three piles of bodies. The person taking the video films the bodies of 11 children, then walks a few meters to film at least 18 male bodies, and then continues to film nearby another pile of at least 20 bodies, many of them female. The videos also show several dead animals, with at least 7 dead livestock in a walled-off enclosure. None of the videos and photographs Human Rights Watch verified show weapons and all the bodies are in civilian clothing.

Witnesses said that soldiers in Soro gunned people down after rounding them up, or as they attempted to flee or were caught hiding in homes, granaries, and behind walls.

A 32-year-old woman said that the military parked their vehicles by the main road and entered the village with motorbikes or on foot, then rounded people up, and ordered them to show identity cards:

They separated us by men and women, in groups. They only asked us one question: “Why didn’t you alert us of the arrival of the jihadists?” And then they added, answering themselves: “You are terrorists!” Then they started shooting us with live ammunition. I was shot in the right leg and fell unconscious. I didn't know what happened next until people … came to help me, after the soldiers left. Some dead people fell on me.

A 36-year-old farmer who was injured in his right hand said:

We gave them our identity cards, but they started shooting at us. They fired live bullets. When I realized that, I let myself fall and it was at that moment that I received a bullet in my right hand. Then I saw blood flowing from my neighbor's body so I took a little of it to put it on my head so that the soldiers would think I was dead. I laid still, thinking that they would still come by to check if there were any survivors and that it was over for me, but they didn't come back because they were in too much of a hurry. I stayed where I was … until they left.

Witnesses said soldiers rounded up people in three groups of men, women, and children, and shot them point blank, finishing off those who were still alive.

A 25-year-old man who lost 16 family members, including his wife, mother, and father, said:

They [soldiers] were agitated and talked through walkie-talkie in Moré language, with a distinctive accent from our area.… They received instructions from the walkie-talkie.… I understood: “Get everyone out!” … As soon as we got by the main road, they sprayed us with gunfire. They shot at everyone. People started falling over each other.… I was injured in my left shoulder. The bullet passed through my armpit and broke my arm.… I think the soldiers wanted to ensure there were no survivors because before leaving they shot several rounds at people who were already on the ground.

A 22-year-old woman who was injured in her right leg, abdomen, and shoulders, along with her 7-month-old daughter, who was injured in her left foot and arm, said:

I was home with my daughter. Suddenly the village began to swarm, there was noise everywhere. I didn't leave the house until the soldiers broke in. Two soldiers arrived in front of my door on two motorcycles, they were dressed in Burkinabè military uniform and wore helmets. They asked me to go out, shouting at me in Moré language, saying: “Are you deaf or what? Haven't you heard that everyone is outside?” I took my daughter, I went out. The soldiers took me to the place where they had gathered the entire population of Soro. They made me sit among [a group of] women. A few minutes later, they opened fire on us. I was seriously injured; I don't remember anything until my arrival at the hospital.

Residents described digging mass graves to bury the bodies on February 25. A 23-year-old man said:

There were about 10 of us. On February 25, we dug two mass graves, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The next day, we dug 6 more mass graves. In the first one, we put 39 bodies of men; in the second one, we put 51 bodies of women and children; in the third one, we put 12 bodies of men; in the fourth, we put children ages 6, 7, and 8 there.… I don't remember how many of them, but they were between 9 and 10 children; in the fifth one, we put 14 bodies of men; in the sixth one, we put 15 bodies of women. For the seventh and eighth graves, I was too tired to watch. I did not help burying the bodies inside these last two graves, but I know there were about 20 for both.

Click to expand Image Screengrab of a video showing one of the eight reported mass graves in Soro. The person who recorded the video said it contains the bodies of 10 children. Human Rights Watch also geolocated a photograph showing the bodies of nine boys on the ground at the same location. March 2024 © 2024 Private

Human Rights Watch reviewed and geolocated a video sent by a survivor and recorded on March 9 in Soro showing eight mass graves. For each one, the survivor gave the number or an approximate number of bodies it contains, a total of about 170.

Human Rights Watch geolocated these eight mass graves based on satellite imagery from March 15. Six mass graves are clearly visible on the satellite imagery while the two others are hidden by the shadow of buildings.

Trauma

Survivors described symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, including fear, anxiety, inability to speak and focus, loneliness, and insomnia.

“I struggle to express how I feel and recall what happened,” said the 22-year-old survivor from Soro. “My mind is cloudy; my look is empty.”

“Those who survived, like me, have been pulled out from a bunch of dead bodies,” said the 25-year-old man from Soro. “I have lost 16 family members; they have all been exterminated. Now it’s just me. I am all alone. I am lost and shaken.”

“I do not know how I feel,” said a 50-year-old survivor from Nondin. “I have trouble sleeping. I have nightmares. I see the corpses again, the babies, the women, lying down. I hear the gunshots.”

The authorities should promptly provide adequate reparations, including compensation, livelihood support, and access to long-term medical and psychological health care for survivors of both attacks, Human Rights Watch said. International donors, including the European Union, should increase support for the provision of medical and psychosocial assistance to victims of serious human rights and international humanitarian law violations.

Justice and Accountability

Survivors of the attacks in Nondin and Soro said they want to know who ordered the killings and to see those responsible held accountable. However, the widespread nature of military abuse and related entrenched impunity left them with little hope for justice.

“We want justice,” said a 25-year-old trader from Soro. “We want perpetrators to be punished.”

“We want the truth to be established,” said a 50-year-old man from Nondin. “We want to know why this was done to us and we demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice.”

A human rights activist, who on February 26 accompanied family members of people killed in Nondin and Soro to the gendarmerie in Ouahigouya to give a statement, said: “I knew it was a necessary and crucial step to undertake in our campaign for accountability, but it was also very painful because somehow I know that there won’t be any follow-up.”

A 43-year-old man from Soro said:

We went to the gendarmerie in Ouahigouya and gave our version of the facts. We want justice to be done, but we are disappointed. We no longer know who to confide in, when even our own soldiers massacre us and there has been no justice for other massacres.

Iran: Popular Rapper Sentenced to Death for Dissent

Human Rights Watch — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:00:00 -0400

(Beirut) – An Iranian court has issued a death sentence to the imprisoned popular rapper Toumaj Salehi on speech-related charges, Human Rights Watch said today. The legal proceedings and sentence against Salehi, 33, are a cruel and outrageous assault on fundamental freedoms and the right to a fair trial.

Amir Raeesian, Saheli’s lawyer, told the Shargh media outlet on April 24, 2024, that Branch 1 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court had sentenced his client to death on the charge of “corruption on earth.” In November 2023, Iran’s Supreme Court struck down Salehi’s six-year prison sentence related to this case, referred the case back to the court of first instance, and released him on bail. Iranian security forces rearrested Salehi 12 days later.

“Iran’s revolutionary court judges act like they are empowered to assault citizens’ basic rights and make a mockery of any existing legal safeguards,” said Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Toumaj Salehi’s outrageous verdict is just latest manifestation of Iran’s brutal justice system. He should be released immediately.”

On October 30, 2022, the authorities violently arrested Salehi, a musician and vocal critic of the government, amid protests following the death in morality police custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini the previous month. The authorities held Salehi in solitary confinement and brought multiple charges against him including “corruption on earth,” a vague charge that can carry the death penalty. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that government security forces beat Salehi in custody.

On July 10, 2023, Branch 1 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court ruled that the threshold for the “corruption on earth” charge against Salehi had not been substantiated, and instead sentenced him to six years in prison under article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code. Article 286 punishes crimes against national security or disruption of public order on a large scale with up to five years in prison or a death sentence if it meets the threshold of “corruption on earth.”

On November 18, Raeesian told Shargh that Salehi had been released on bail after the court struck down the sentence and referred the case back to the court of first instance. Upon his rearrest on November 30, the authorities opened a new case against him for accusing his interrogators of abuse in a video published online. On January 1, HRANA reported that Salehi had been sentenced to one year in prison and a two-year travel ban as punishment in the new case.

On April 18, Branch 1 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court held a new trial for Salehi. Raeesian said that the authorities added charges in the case, and the court ultimately convicted Salehi and sentenced him to death for the “corruption on earth” charge. Raeesian alleged that the ruling had significant legal errors, including contradicting the supreme court verdict. He said that they will appeal the verdict.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because it is inherently cruel and irreversible.

Since the crackdown against protests, Iran’s judicial authorities have drastically increased the use of vaguely defined national security charges against protesters that carry the death penalty, including for destroying public property. Following grossly unfair trials in which many defendants have not had access to legal counsel of their choice, the authorities issued 25 death sentences in connection to the protests. As of April 2024, the government has executed eight who were convicted in connection to the protests The Supreme Court has overturned another 11 death penalty convictions.

Among those arrested during the protests was a Kurdish-Iranian rapper, Saman Seyedi, known as “Yasin.” He was sentenced to death on “enmity against the state” charges, including for alleged “weapon possession and conspiracy to threaten national security,” but the Supreme Court struck down the sentence. On April 21, HRANA reported that Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court had sentenced Seyedi to five years in prison.

“The Iranian government has made unfair courts a cornerstone of its vicious repression of popular dissent,” Sepehri Far said.