Corrections

6/14: An earlier version of this news release said that “on May 25, Egypt blocked the websites of 62 media outlets it accused of being favorable toward the Muslim Brotherhood, including Al Jazeera and at least four other Qatari government-linked outlets.” We have corrected this to read as “on May 24, Egypt blocked the websites of 21 media outlets it accused of being favorable toward the Muslim Brotherhood, including Al Jazeera and at least four other Qatari government-linked outlets. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an independent Egyptian rights group, said the block had grown to 62 sites as of June 12.”

6/15: An earlier version of this news release incorrectly stated that Saudi Arabia was among that countries that had publicly declared a ban on online criticism of the country’s policy toward Qatar or of expressing sympathy to Qatar. In fact, Saudi authorities have not publicly announced such a ban. The earlier version stated “on June 7 and 8, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates announced that any speech critical of their governments’ measures against Qatar or sympathetic to Qatar would be prosecuted as crimes.” We have corrected it to read as “on June 7 and 8, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced that any speech critical of their governments’ measures against Qatar or sympathetic to Qatar would be prosecuted as crimes.” Likewise, an earlier version contained the sentence “On the same day a state-controlled Saudi Arabian media outlet stated that such expression could be considered a cybercrime offense in the kingdom.” This sentence has been removed.  

5/9: An earlier version of this news release identified Mustapha Khalfi as the government spokesman. We have corrected his affiliation to read as “government spokesman and delegate minister for relations with the parliament and civil society.”

The report, press release, and a graphic have been corrected to reflect the following changes:

1. Human Rights Watch identified bomb fragments from the impact crater associated with the attack as consistent with a 250 kilogram Soviet-manufactured chemical munition. We described this munition as most likely a "KhAB-250," an abbreviation of the commonly used Russian term Khimicheskaya Aviatsionnaya Bomba, or “Chemical Aviation Bomb." However, the official nomenclature for this class of weapon is inconsistent, and we have removed the term "KhAB-250" from the report and press release to avoid confusion. We have also updated the report to reflect that the Soviet Union produced several types of chemical munitions, rather than two types as we originally said. A new appendix sets out in further detail the available information about sarin bombs produced by the Soviet Union.
2. The original version of this report incorrectly recorded the measurements of the impact crater in the road in Khan Sheikhoun recorded by Forensic Architecture as 1.62 centimeters in diameter and 0.42 centimeters deep. The unit of measure has been corrected to be meters, not centimeters.
3. Members of the al-Youssef family and other sources provided Human Rights Watch with the names of 25 people from the al-Youssef family they believed to be dead. Two of the people on the list were injured, but survived, bringing the number of the dead to 90, not 92.

4/29: The original news release stated that the draft law subjects anyone who directly or indirectly earns income from reporting news to the public without a license – and their company, agency, or organization – to up to two years in prison; however, the draft law was amended, increasing the penalty to three years.