Reports

This 56-page report details how governors and other officials routinely circumvent the criminal justice system when they detain people by administrative order and without judicial review. The practice is used against crime victims, personal enemies and people freed by the courts.

This 80-page report found that while the UAE government has moved to improve housing conditions and ensure the timely payment of wages in recent years, many labor abuses remain commonplace.

This 76-page report details the involvement of soldiers, paramilitary officers, and police in so-called "crossfire killings" and other custodial killings, torture, "disappearances," and arbitrary arrests. It examines a number of cases that have received national and international attention, in which those responsible have not been prosecuted.

This 32-page report documents the Vietnamese government's crackdown on independent trade unions and profiles labor rights activists who have been detained, placed under house arrest, or imprisoned by the Vietnamese government in violation of international law. The report calls on donor governments and foreign firms investing in Vietnam to press the government to treat workers properly.

This 76-page report details 17 cases involving military abuses against more than 70 victims, including several cases from 2007 and 2008. The abuses include killings, torture, rapes, and arbitrary detentions. Not one of the military investigations into these crimes has led to a conviction for even a single soldier on human rights violations.

This 26-page report documents a pattern since late December 2008 of arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, maimings by shooting, and extrajudicial executions by alleged members of Hamas security forces. The report is based on interviews with victims and witnesses in Gaza and case reports by Palestinian human rights groups.

This 95-page report documents serious human rights violations by the Eritrean government, including arbitrary arrest, torture, appalling detention conditions, forced labor, and severe restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, and worship. It also analyzes the difficult situation faced by Eritreans who succeed in escaping to other countries such as Libya, Sudan, Egypt, and Italy.

The 64-page report uses data from 1997 to 2007 from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to evaluate the effects of sweeping deportation laws passed in 1996. It shows that some of the most common crimes for which people were deported were relatively minor offenses, such as marijuana and cocaine possession or traffic offenses.

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. Human Rights Watch field investigations in August, September, and October 2008 documented dozens of civilian deaths and injuries from the use of cluster munitions, including casualties after the fighting ended.

This 89-page report documents the task force's abusive response to alleged rebel and terrorist activity by unlawfully detaining and brutally torturing suspects. Human Rights Watch found that agents of JATT, as it is known, carry out arrests wearing civilian clothes with no identifying insignia and do not inform suspects of the reasons for their arrest.

This 103-page report details the involvement of police and local government officials in targeted killings of alleged drug dealers and petty criminals, street children, and others, and describes the lack of any effort by the authorities to investigate the killings and bring those responsible to justice.

The 68-page report reveals that the backlog of untested rape kits in Los Angeles County is larger and more widespread than previously reported. Through dozens of interviews with police officers, public officials, criminalists, rape treatment providers, and rape victims, the report documents the devastating effects of the backlog on victims of sexual abuse.

This 58-page report documents the extortion, detention, violence, and deportation at the hands of the Kenyan police faced by a record number of Somalis entering Kenya. The new refugees are joining over a quarter of a million fellow refugees struggling to survive in camps designed for one-third that number.

This 52-page report criticizes US and Yemeni proposals to transfer the detainees to a detention center in Yemen where they could continue to be held indefinitely, ostensibly for rehabilitation.

This 71-page report provides witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.