The 2012 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival will be held every Thursday from March 1-29 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The films will also be featured at a special 3-day screening from March 29-31 at The University of San Francisco. Every year Human Rights Watch presents a selection of powerful films with distinctive human rights themes. This year's films put a human face on threats to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the ability of the human spirit and intellect to prevail.

Human Rights Watch Executive Director, Ken Roth, spoke on President Obama's human rights record at the Stanford University Program on Human Rights at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law on April 13, 2011.

You may have seen the Pulitzer prize winning play by Lynn Nottage, Ruined, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre - now read how Human Rights Watch is working with the Congolese Coalition for Transitional Justice to hold perpetrators of serious human rights abuses to account and end a culture of impunity in Congo.

There is new evidence that state governments are finally understanding what a tragic mistake they made during the 1990s when they began trying ever larger numbers of children as adults instead of sending them to the juvenile justice system. Support an end to Juvenile Life Without Parole in California by visiting: http://www.fairsentencingforyouth.org/.

The 2013 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival will be held every Thursday in March at 7:30 PM at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Every year Human Rights Watch presents a selection of powerful films with distinctive human rights themes bringing to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people. We hope you will join us for what is sure to be an inspiring series of films. For more information, click here.

On November 14th and November 15th, 600 supporters in Silicon Valley and San Francisco gathered to celebrate the work of HRW and to honor Abbé Benoît Kinalegu, an extraordinary human rights defender and advocate for human rights in Congo. We also recognized HRW’s Elizabeth Calvin, for her efforts in the passage of California Senate Bill 9, giving a second chance to youth offenders sentenced to die in prison. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, this year's dinners raised $2.5 million to support the work of HRW in over 90 countries around the world. THANK YOU!

If you were moved by the viral video Kony 2012, and the recent landmark guilty verdict at the International Criminal Court of rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for recruiting and using child soldiers in Congo, learn more about the African Great Lakes region and what Human Rights Watch and partner organizations have been doing on the ground to help promote and end to the brutal conflicts.

In August, Senate Bill 9 was JUST ONE VOTE short of passage. It will be voted on again very soon. Legislators need to hear that you support this bill, and that you support fair sentencing for youth in California. Call or write your Assemby Member and the Governor today!

For more than twenty years, Human Rights Watch has worked to protect and empower women. On the ground, and at the highest levels of power, we ensure women's voices are heard. Join us in our global campaign for women's rights.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commuted Sara Kruzan's sentence of life without parole (LWOP) to 25-to-life. Sara was 16 years old when she shot the man who started sexually abusing her when she was 11 and pushed her into prostitution at age 13. For killing him, she was sentenced to LWOP plus four years. She is now in her 30s. Senator Leland Yee has introduced Senate Bill 9 (SB9) that if passed, would permit review of all juvenile life without parole cases in California.