Reports

"Targeting Life in Idlib"

Syrian and Russian Strikes on Civilian Infrastructure

The 167-page report, “‘Targeting Life in Idlib’: Syrian and Russian Strikes on Civilian Infrastructure,” details abuses by Syrian and Russian armed forces during the 11-month military campaign to retake Idlib governorate and surrounding areas, among the last held by anti-government armed groups. The report examines the abusive military strategy in which the Syrian-Russian alliance repeatedly violated the laws of war against the 3 million civilians there, many displaced by fighting elsewhere in the country. It names 10 senior Syrian and Russian civilian and military officials who may be implicated in war crimes as a matter of command responsibility: they knew or should have known about the abuses and took no effective steps to stop them or punish those responsible.

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  • “You Dress According to Their Rules”

    Enforcement of an Islamic Dress Code for Women in Chechnya

    This report documents acts of violence, harassment, and threats against women in Chechnya to intimidate them into wearing a headscarf or dressing more “modestly,” in long skirts and sleeves to cover their limbs.

  • Meeting the Challenge

    Protecting Civilians through the Convention on Cluster Munitions

    This book is the culmination of a decade of research by Human Rights Watch.

  • "Who Will Tell Me What Happened to My Son?"

    Russia’s Implementation of European Court of Human Rights Judgments on Chechnya

    This 38-page report examines Russia's response to European Court judgments on cases from Chechnya. In almost all of the 115 rulings, the court concluded that Russia was responsible for extrajudicial executions, torture, and enforced disappearances, and that it had failed to investigate these crimes.

  • "What Your Children Do Will Touch Upon You"

    Punitive House-Burning in Chechnya

    This 54-page report documents a distinct pattern of house burnings by security forces to punish families for the alleged actions of their relatives.

  • An Uncivil Approach to Civil Society

    Continuing State Curbs on Independent NGOs and Activists in Russia

    This 68-page report describes how current rules allow the state to interfere arbitrarily with the work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and documents the corrosive impact of these rules and other government measures on independent organizations and activists in Russia.

  • A Dying Practice

    Use of Cluster Munitions by Russia and Georgia in August 2008

    This 80-page report is the first comprehensive report on cluster munition use by Russia and Georgia in their week-long conflict over the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

  • "Are You Happy to Cheat Us?"

    Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in Russia

    This 130-page report documents widespread withholding of wages, failure to provide required contracts, and unsafe working conditions by employers at construction sites across Russia.

  • Up In Flames

    Humanitarian Law Violations and Civilian Victims in the Conflict over South Ossetia

    This 200-page report details indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by both Georgian and Russian forces, and the South Ossetian forces' campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of certain ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia.

  • “As If They Fell From the Sky”

    Counterinsurgency, Rights Violations, and Rampant Impunity in Ingushetia

    This 120-page report documents human rights abuses committed by law enforcement and security forces involved in counterinsurgency, including dozens of summary and arbitrary detentions, acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions.

  • Choking on Bureaucracy

    State Curbs on Independent Civil Society Activism

    This 72-page report documents how these regulations have targeted various NGOs that work on controversial issues, seek to galvanize public dissent, or receive foreign funding.

  • Singled Out

    Russia’s Detention and Expulsion of Georgians

    This 78-page report documents the Russian government’s arbitrary and illegal detention and expulsion of Georgians, including many who legally lived and worked in Russia.

  • “We Have the Upper Hand”

    Freedom of assembly in Russia and the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people

    For the second year in a row, on Sunday, May 27, 2007, a small group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists and their supporters tried to stage a peaceful public demonstration in Moscow to claim their rights.

  • The “Stamp of Guantanamo”

    The Story of Seven Men Betrayed by Russia’s Diplomatic Assurances to the United States

    This 43-page report reconstructs the experiences of the detainees after being returned to Russia in March 2004, based on interviews with three of the detainees, their family members, lawyers, and others.

  • Cases Involving Diplomatic Assurances against Torture

    This document sets out developments in the use of diplomatic assurances in select individual cases since the publication of our April 2005 report “Still at Risk: Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard Against Torture.