• Will London Respond to Somalia's Needs?
    May 1, 2013
    50 Countries will meet in London on May 7 to support the nation-building project in Somalia. It is crucial that women, children and displaced people are at the forefront of the debate.
  • Syria’s River of Death
    April 30, 2013
    Syrian men don’t usually cry. But for Yasser, the memory of his son, Mohammed, hurt too much. Sitting in the dark inside his shop on a bustling market street in Aleppo, the 63-year-old, hunched over in his chair, kept asking me: “Why did he deserve to die that way?” Yasser’s grief over his son who was apparently executed is shared by far too many Syrians caught up in this grisly war.
  • This is why Jordan can't be trusted on torture
    April 29, 2013
  • Immigration reform overlooks asylum-seekers
    April 26, 2013
    "Work authorization is not meant to get you rich, it's to let you live," said an Egyptian asylum-seeker who fled to the United States after a radical group beat him and tried to kidnap his wife and daughter. After fleeing persecution in their home countries, asylum-seekers like this man in New Jersey face a new type of maltreatment in the United States: The U.S. government won't let them work during what is often a drawn-out asylum process.
  • NGOs Have a Right to Receive Foreign Funding
    April 26, 2013
    The first lesson taught in the School for Autocrats is to keep people isolated.
  • If all options are open, why not prosecute Abu Qatada in the UK?
    April 25, 2013
    Listening to Theresa May’s statement to Parliament today, it seems the British government is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to deport Abu Qatada to Jordan to face terrorism charges.
  • Blocking Syrian Refugees Isn’t the Way
    April 23, 2013
    The refugee burden that Syria’s neighbors are shouldering is heavy and should not be borne alone. But keeping people fleeing for their lives in buffer zones inside Syrian borders risks trapping rather than protecting them.
  • Burma: the EU has been too quick to lift sanctions
    April 23, 2013
    William Hague congratulated the Burmese government last week for its role in spearheading "remarkable changes" in the country. But his upbeat assessment and heady optimism are premature, as is the EU's haste to lift all economic sanctions on Burma except for the arms embargo.
  • Building a House on a Sand Pile: The Cost of Ignoring Justice in Côte d’Ivoire
    April 22, 2013

    Nearly two years have passed since the end of Côte d’Ivoire’s brutal five-month long post-electoral crisis, which resulted in the slaughter of at least 3,000 civilians and the rape of 150 women.

  • Protect rights of women, girls with disabilities
    April 16, 2013
  • Why So Many Syrians Wish For Rain
    April 16, 2013
    Life in Aleppo is not easy. People here have suffered from shortages of food, electricity and running water, and there has been little humanitarian assistance. The long, cold winter months were particularly rough. The only possible consolation was that there were fewer air strikes because of the cloudy, rainy weather. The government’s jets only seem to fly – and drop bombs – when the sky is blue.
  • Some Hard Truths about the UAE's Soft Power
    April 15, 2013
    When President Barack Obama sits down with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates this week, Bill Clinton’s praise will no doubt will still be ringing in his ears. On a visit to American University in Dubai last week, Clinton described Dubai – one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE – as a “model of shared prosperity” in a gushing speech that gave no indication of the country’s poor and deteriorating record on basic human rights.
  • More must be done to aid the victims of India's violence
    April 15, 2013

    It took two decades for justice to prevail after bomb attacks in Mumbai in March 1993, which injured hundreds and killed 257. Last month, India's Supreme Court ruled on the final appeals in a long trial process.

    But in another episode of brutality in Mumbai, the wait for justice will be much longer.

  • Kerry, confront China on human rights
    April 13, 2013
    This weekend, Kerry will have arguably his best opportunity to demonstrate that commitment to rights in an environment in which tough, effective and audible American diplomacy is needed: China.
  • Will Kenya's new president respect international court?
    April 12, 2013
    Kenya's new president missed the opportunity on day one to declare unequivocal commitment to the International Criminal Court and his administration should do so as soon as possible, says campaign group
  • The Sun Rises on Human Rights
    April 12, 2013
    As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is making waves.
  • The Dark Side of Iran's Drug Policy
    April 12, 2013
  • Ban solitary confinement for youth in care of the federal government
    April 11, 2013
  • Somalia's Displaced: The Reform Test
    April 11, 2013
    The harsh experience of Somalis driven to seek shelter in Mogadiushu 's unsafe camps should be an urgent priority for the country's new government and its foreign donors.
  • Denying Genocide Won't Promote Reconciliation
    April 10, 2013

    A public debate at the UN on April 10 will serve up a revisionist denial of the worst killings in Europe since the end of World War II: the ethnic slaughter in the former Yugoslavia that horrified the world in the 1990s. While the session's ostensible purpose is to take "a closer look at the long-term impact of international criminal justice, in particular as it relates to reconciliation..." it is unlikely much thoughtful discussion will occur. 

  • Keep the Pressure on Putin
    April 10, 2013
    If Vladimir Putin had hoped for an easy time during his two-day Germany visit this week, he must be disappointed. There were some positive headlines on the Russian president’s visit, of course. The Hanover Trade Fair, which he opened on Sunday, featured 170 Russian companies – a record for the fair and a sign of the growing power of Russian business.
  • Waiting for Minds to Change in Cameroon
    April 9, 2013
    “There’s no reason to despair,” Cameroonian president Paul Biya told journalists in January 2013. They had questioned him, at a Paris news conference, on Cameroon’s startling level of arrests and prosecutions for same-sex conduct – by some accounts, the highest number of “homosexuality” prosecutions in the world. “Minds are changing,” Biya reassured the journalists. He mentioned a recent case appeals court ruling overturning the conviction of two transgender people, Jonas K. and Franky D., who had been sentenced to five years in prison.
  • Egypt’s NGO Funding Crackdown
    April 9, 2013
  • It's Not Just About Sexual Violence
    April 9, 2013
    Human Rights Watch first documented sexual violence in conflict in 1993 when we published a report about how Indian security forces in Kashmir used rape to brutalise women and punish their communities, accused of sympathizing with separatist militants. Since then, we have investigated and documented rape in conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Haiti.
  • Urgent need for visible rights reform
    April 9, 2013

    President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent Walk the Talk on the Indian news channel NDTV was illuminating. He claimed that the now-defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had planned to take over all of Sri Lanka — not just the areas claimed for an independent Tamil nation — but that LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran “wanted the whole country.”

  • Is justice gaining a foothold?
    April 8, 2013
    Former Guatemalan strongman Efraín Ríos Montt went on trial in Guatemala City late last month on charges of genocide relating to the massacres of indigenous Mayan people during his rule.
  • Speak Up Against Repression
    April 8, 2013
    The Russian authorities’ inspections of the offices of German political foundations and hundreds of non-governmental organizations in Russia in recent days, including Human Rights Watch, have refocused attention in Germany on the crackdown on Russian civil society since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency last May.
  • In Darfur, Money Won’t Buy You Human Rights
    April 5, 2013
    Darfur desperately needs help – but not just to repair damage from the horrific conflict that erupted in 2003, which killed 300,000 people, destroyed hundreds of villages and pushed 2 million people to camps inside Darfur and across the Chadian border. Darfur also desperately needs to overcome the marginalization and underdevelopment that helped fuel the conflict.
  • Philippines: Manila again drops ball in Human Rights Council
    April 4, 2013
    Last June, the Philippine delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council was an embarrassing no-show during an important vote on human rights abuses in Syria.
  • With new leadership, Italy has a real chance for asylum reform
    April 1, 2013
    Italy has changed in the last three decades from a country of emigration to one of immigration and asylum. Its reaction has been chaotic and confused, and sometimes downright cruel. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in Italy’s response to boat migration.
  • Ghana: People With Mental Disabilities Face Serious Abuse
    March 31, 2013
    This week’s high-level ministerial meeting about gender equality in international development assistance should promote the rights and needs of women with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said today. Specifically, governments should address the marginalization of women with disabilities in the declaration to be adopted on July 1, 2010.
  • What Are the BRICS Building?
    March 30, 2013
    The Chinese call it jin zhuan, or golden brick. The Russians have suggested calling it briuki, an acronym meaning trousers in Russian. And what about the ambiguous S? It originally was just a plural for the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, places where a Goldman Sachs analyst was urging greater investment. Now it stands for South Africa, which joined in 2010 despite having an economy roughly on the order of China’s sixth-largest province.
  • No free pass for Jordan on refugees
    March 27, 2013
    The United States should provide aid to the refugees but ensure that no aid money goes to or through the Jordanian government as long as Jordan sends some refugees back to face death - even as it welcomes others.
  • Russia wants BRICS partners to ignore its transgressions
    March 26, 2013

    Official communiqués on the BRICS summit in Durban are promising new initiatives on trade, economic development and technical co-operation. But Russia wants more from its partners than just trade. With concern rising in Europe over the worst crackdown on Russian democracy since the Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, Vladimir Putin is coming to Africa to find supporters of its world view.

  • China's failing policy in Tibet is 'self-defeating'
    March 25, 2013
    How badly does the Chinese government really want to stop Tibetan self-immolations? A campaigner suggests that the rhetoric from Beijing does not match the reality of draconian policy programmes.
  • New UK Media Curbs May Please Beijing
    March 25, 2013
    British journalism often looks impressive from afar, with trusted media organizations like the BBC and Economist springing to mind. Closer up, its image is far more tarnished, particularly for newspapers, with a murky stew of phone-hacking, bribery and insider influence.
  • Leadership deficit fuels intolerance
    March 25, 2013
    A new report from Human Rights Watch documents how religious minorities, including several Protestant groups, Shia Muslims and Ahmadiyah, are targets of increasingly routine intimidation, threats and violence.
  • Yemen’s Open Wounds
    March 25, 2013
    Yemen has set out on a six-month “national dialogue” to address the key challenges facing the country more than a year after it ousted its longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A draft transitional justice law before parliament is a good indication of how difficult these challenges are going to be. The law would offer little by way of justice for the families of victims of the three decades of dictatorship and rampant human rights violations. Among them are several waves of forced disappearances -- predominantly socialists and Nasserists who were victims of the North-South political strife in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances reported 102 cases transmitted to the government by 1999.
  • Why have we forgotten about Libya?
    March 25, 2013
    All civilians deserve protection, but some civilians deserve more protection than others. Or so it seems in Libya today.
  • Fleeing Syria: Insights on Lebanon’s open border
    March 24, 2013
  • Jordan: President’s Visit Shouldn’t Ignore Refugees in Peril
    March 22, 2013

    During his visit Friday to Jordan, there’s little doubt President Obama will praise it for its hospitality toward some 350,000 Syrian refugees. While praise and support for Jordan’s reception of many Syrian refugees is deserved, the president should not give Jordan a free pass when it comes to its forcible returns of Palestinian refugees to Syria.

  • 'Too Little Justice': Misdemeanor Defendants in the US
    March 22, 2013
    Indigent defendants in Midland, Texas are not receiving proper instructions regarding their right to counsel, a problem leading to uneducated plea bargains.
  • Time for Brics to stop sitting on the fence over Syria atrocities
    March 22, 2013
    Brics should call for the Syrian government to permit the delivery of humanitarian aid across its borders, including from Turkey
  • Seven days – a week in the life of a Human Rights Watch researcher
    March 20, 2013
    Human Rights Watch's Afghanistan researcher focuses on a boy detained for 'moral crimes', a report on torture in Afghan jails, a protest march highlighting violence against women – and dinner in Kabul's best and worst French restaurants.
  • Lawmakers Must Reevaluate Immigration Detention System
    March 19, 2013
    Too many immigrants have been detained unnecessarily, at significant cost to the U.S. taxpayer.
  • U.S. Has Self to Blame for Iraq Failures
    March 19, 2013
    After 10 years, Washington should have learned that it cannot improve a government's human rights conduct when it joins that government in demonstrating indifference to basic rights.
  • 10 years on, Iraq ignores promised reforms in human rights
    March 19, 2013
    On the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, violence and political crisis plague Iraq. The government blames its problems on regional interference, the unceasing threat of terrorism and the specter of Saddam Hussein’s Baathism. Implicit in their thinking is the idea that rights violations are justified by the state’s responsibility to prevent terrorism.
  • Yemen’s Friday of Indignity
    March 18, 2013
    Two years ago on March 18, as popular revolts swept Yemen, gunmen in civilian clothes carried out the deadliest attack on protesters of the country’s 2011 uprising. As state security forces stood by, the gunmen opened fire on protesters amassed for a rally they had named the Friday of Dignity, killing 45 and wounding 200.
  • Leaning In, and Sometimes Falling Over the Edge
    March 18, 2013
    Kimberly N. "leaned in" to her career for years. As a vice president of a large charitable organization, she earned high praise and enjoyed her work. When Kimberley got pregnant, she negotiated a six-week maternity leave, and looked forward to resuming work. Things did not go according to plan.
  • Military commissions don't give victims justice
    March 18, 2013
    More than a decade after the attack on the USS Cole, the victims and family members of those lost in the attack are still waiting for justice.