Torture and Other Abuses Against Venezuelans in El Salvador’s Mega Prison
The 81-page report, “‘You Have Arrived in Hell’: Torture and Other Abuses Against Venezuelans in El Salvador’s Mega Prison,” provides a comprehensive account of the treatment of these people in El Salvador. In March and April 2025, the US government sent 252 Venezuelans, including dozens of asylum seekers, to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, CECOT) mega prison in El Salvador, despite credible reports of serious human rights abuses in El Salvador’s prisons. The Venezuelans were subject to refoulement—being sent to where they would face torture or persecution—arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, inhumane detention conditions and, in some cases, sexual violence.
Mistreatment of Drug Users and "Undesirables" in Cambodia’s Drug Detention Centers
The 55-page report documents the experiences of people recently confined in the centers, who described being thrashed with rubber water hoses and hit with sticks or branches. Some described being punished with exercises intended to cause intense physical pain and humiliation, such as crawling along stony ground or standing in septic water pits.
Arbitrary Detention, Physical Abuse, and Suicide inside a Lao Drug Detention Center
This report examines conditions in the Somsanga Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, which has received a decade of international support from the United States, the United Nations, and other donors. Detainees are held without due process, and many are locked in cells inside barbed wire compounds.
Forced Labor and Other Abuses in Drug Detention Centers in Southern Vietnam
The 121-page report documents the experiences of people confined to 14 detention centers under the authority of the Ho Chi Minh City government. Refusing to work, or violating center rules, results in punishment that in some cases is torture.
The Illegal Arrest, Arbitrary Detention and Torture of People Who Use Drugs in Cambodia
In this 93-page report Human Rights Watch documents detainees being beaten, raped, forced to donate blood, and subjected to painful physical punishments such as "rolling like a barrel" and being chained while standing in the sun.
Incarceration, Ill-Treatment and Forced Labor as Drug Rehabilitation in China
This 37-page report based on research in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, documents how China's June 2008 Anti-Drug Law compounds the health risks of suspected illicit drug users by allowing government officials and security forces to incarcerate them for up to six years. The incarceration is without trial or judicial oversight.
