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.
Lebanese authorities and the European Union must respect their obligations under international law and not forcibly return refugees to Syria as long as the conditions for safe, voluntary and dignified returns are not met, eight civil society organizations, including Amnesty International, said today ahead of European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen’s visit to Beirut.
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.
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.
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.
“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.