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August 8, 2014 News

Dispatches: “Torture,” No Longer A Four-Letter Word?

Is some sense of sanity finally slipping into the torture debate in the US? Yesterday, after years of criticism for failing to call it by its name, the New York Times finally decided it would use the word “torture” to describe when US interrogators use…

September 16, 2009 News

US Attorney General Opens Torture Investigation

On August 24, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a federal prosecutor to review cases of post-9/11 detainee abuse and determine whether or not a criminal investigation is warranted. Human Rights Watch has collected information on some 330 cases…

February 19, 2009 News

UK: European Court Rebuke Over Indefinite Detention

Revise Policies to Ensure Fair Hearing

(London) - The ruling today by the European Court of Human Rights on the United Kingdom's detention policy for foreign terrorism suspects confirms that indefinite detention violates basic rights, Human Rights Watch said. The court ruled that the…

December 24, 2008 News

A Trial Sends a Message Around the World

On October 30, 2008, justice for victims of atrocities committed during the course of Liberia's long and brutal years of armed conflict took a major step forward in a very unlikely location: Miami, Florida. On that afternoon, an American jury issued its…

October 1, 2007 News

Majority of US Senators Vote to Restore Habeas Corpus

On September 19, a majority of US senators voted to approve an amendment that would restore the right to habeas corpus, one of the oldest and most important checks on the arbitrary exercise of government power. Last year’s Military Commissions Act…

July 1, 2007 News

Council of Europe Confirms Secret CIA Prisons

On June 8, the Council of Europe released a report confirming allegations first made by Human Rights Watch in 2005 that the CIA used locations in Poland and Romania for the secret detention of terror suspects. During several years of research, we combed…

May 1, 2007 News

UK Court Rules Diplomatic Assurances Not Reliable in Deportation Cases

UK efforts to deport terrorism suspects to countries where they risk torture suffered a major blow on April 27 when a British court ruled that two men, alleged members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, could not be sent back to Libya, despite the al-…

February 1, 2007 News

US/Liberia: Chuckie Taylor Indicted for Torture

On December 6 the US Department of Justice took a major step in bringing its first-ever criminal charges for torture committed outside the United States against Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, Jr. The son of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor and a…

July 1, 2006 News

United Kingdom: Parliamentary Committee Denounces British Torture Practices

The Joint Committee on Human Rights of the U.K. Parliament last month released a report criticizing the U.K.’s compliance with the U.N. Convention Against Torture, particularly its use of diplomatic assurances. Human Rights Watch played a significant…

June 1, 2006 News

United States: Committee against Torture Denounces U.S. Practices

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) issued a strong critique of the United States' record on torture, which included calling for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. The Committee is the first international body to hold…

March 1, 2006 News

United States: U.N. Confirms Abuses at Guantánamo

A report by U.N. human rights experts confirms what Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations have long documented-that the United States is violating international human rights law and the Geneva Conventions by indefinitely detaining,…

October 4, 2005 News

United States: Soldiers Provide Accounts of Torture

In a new report by Human Rights Watch, United States soldiers have for the first time come forward to describe torture and other abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq, and the failure of superior officers to stop it. Human Rights Watch's report has…

September 9, 2005 News

Chad: Habré Henchmen Ousted from Government

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the Chadian government declared that it would remove all accomplices of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré from their posts in Chad's government. This action follows Human Rights Watch's July report identifying the 41…

May 31, 2005 News

Sweden: United Nations Confirms Sweden Violated Torture Ban

In two recent reports, Human Rights Watch has exposed the increasing reliance by Western governments on a practice called "diplomatic assurances," which enable those governments to return terror suspects to their home countries, many of which are known to…

April 27, 2005 News

Torture Worldwide

Torture is common in China’s criminal justice system. Recent HRW research suggests that abuses are particularly likely in Tibet and Xinjiang. In Tibet, authorities have subjected religious figures and activists to mistreatment in detention. In…

April 14, 2005 News

United States: HRW-backed Torture Amendment Passes the House

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed an amendment offered by Representative Edward J. Markey that reaffirms the government's opposition to torture and prohibits the use of U.S. funds for the practice of "extraordinary rendition." The…

December 31, 2002 News

HRW Challenges Alleged Torture of Al-Qaeda Suspects

On December 26, the Washington Post reported that persons held at a CIA interrogation center in Bagram air base in Afghanistan were being subjected to "stress and duress" techniques such as "standing or kneeling for hours" and "being held in awkward,…

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