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Sahel: Top UN Rights Official Visits Burkina Faso, Niger

Governments Should Protect Civilians, Investigate Abuses

(Bamako) – Governments in the Sahel should adopt measures to better protect civilians, ensure that counterterrorism operations respect rights, and fully investigate abuses by all sides, Human Rights Watch said today. The United Nations High…
Map of the Sahel region
News

Cuba: Peaceful Protesters Systematically Detained, Abused

Arbitrary Detention, Ill-Treatment, Abusive Trials Affect Hundreds

(Washington, DC) – The Cuban government has systematically engaged in arbitrary detention, ill-treatment of detainees, and abuse-ridden criminal prosecutions in response to overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government protests in July 2021, Human Rights…
Uniformed police officers shove a man into a car by the head
News

Some Accountability for Attack on Burkina Faso School

Ensure Fair Trials, Support for Victims

Two members of Ansaroul Islam, an armed Islamist group in Burkina Faso, were recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for a 2018 attack on a primary school. Victims of the attack welcomed the verdict, which provided some rare accountability for…
Young student's in a classroom
News

Cuba: Telecommunications Decree Curtails Free Speech

Latin American, US, EU Leaders Should Condemn New Restrictions on Internet

(Washington, DC) – A new decree and accompanying legislation announced by the Cuban government severely restricts freedom of expression online and threatens users’ privacy, Human Rights Watch said today. Governments in Latin America, as well as the…
Cuban Rolando Remedios shows a photo on his mobile phone of him being arrested during the July 11 protests. Remedios was released on August 6. 
News

Letter to the Editor: the Turmoil in Cuba

Just as largely unprecedented mass street protests erupted on the streets in Cuba [“In the streets, Cubans ‘have lost their fear’, ” front page, July 13], the Coast Guard’s interdiction of a boat off the coast of Key West and summary return of Cubans…
A Coast Guard Station Marathon boat crew and 15 migrants aboard 45-foot Response Boat-Medium near Big Pine Key, Florida on July 3, 2021. Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Estrada. Source: United States Coast Guard
News

Cuba Responds to Landmark Demonstrations with Brutal Repression

Internet Outages as Protesters Are Detained, Held Incommunicado

Since July 11, thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets across the country in landmark demonstrations protesting longstanding restrictions on rights, scarcity of food and medicines, and the government’s poor response to the Covid-19 pandemic.…
Plainclothes officers detain a protester during a protest in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, July 11, 2021. 
News

New Pledges to End Child Marriage in Francophone Africa

Governments Need to Match Commitments with Action

Earlier in July, governments, philanthropies, and the private sector pledged almost $40 billion at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris to fight gender inequality over the next five years. The aim is to accelerate progress on women’s and girls’…
A girl holds the hand of a boy in Agadez, Niger on October 9, 2018.
News

Cuba: Clampdown on Artists, Journalists

Arbitrary Detention, Restrictions on Movement, Communications

(Washington, DC) – The Cuban government is committing systematic human rights abuses against independent artists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said today as it released a video on the abuses. In recent months, Cuban authorities have jailed…
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, an artist who has vocally criticized repression in Cuba, speaks during an interview at his home in Havana, Cuba, on May 2, 2018. Police and intelligence officers in Cuba have repeatedly harassed and detained Alcántara.
Video

What Cuba doesn't want you to know about its artists and musicians.

(Washington, DC, June 30, 2021) – The Cuban government is committing systematic human rights abuses against independent artists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said today as it released a video on the abuses. In recent months, Cuban authorities…
News

Armed Islamists’ Latest Sahel Massacre Targets Burkina Faso

More than 500 Civilians Killed by Armed Islamists in the Sahel Since Early 2021

Just after 2 a.m. on June 5, armed Islamist fighters stormed an artisanal gold mining site outside Solhan village in Burkina Faso’s northeastern Yagha province. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the attackers opened fire on everyone that moved,…
A man reads the L'Observateur Paalga newspaper in Ouagadougou on June 7, 2021, about the attacks that happened in Solhan. 
News

Cuba: Covid-19 Rules Used to Intensify Repression

Critics Imprisoned, Fined, Harassed

(Washington, DC) – The Cuban government is using regulations designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to harass and imprison critics, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 26, 2020, Cuban security forces detained 14 government critics in…
Artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Anamelys Ramos present a habeas corpus regarding detained musician Denis Solís, in Havana, on November 10, 2020. Otero Alcántara and Ramos were arrested on November 26.
News

Cuba’s Government Targets Social Media Influencers

YouTubers Have Faced Police Harassment and Death Threats

Cuba’s government has a well-documented history of harassing dissidents, journalists, and opposition party members. Now it has a new target: social media influencers. On October 14, police arrived at the homes of four Cuban YouTubers about to…
Screenshot from a video showing Ruhama Fernández. 
News

UN: Deny Rights Council Seats to Major Violators

General Assembly Members Should Not Vote for China, Saudi Arabia

(New York) – United Nations member countries should not vote for China and Saudi Arabia, two of the world’s most abusive governments, for seats on the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch said today. Russia’s numerous war crimes in Syria’s…
A view of the United Nations General Assembly, at UN headquarters, October 1, 2018.
News

Cuba’s Government Throws Its Repressive Playbook at a Journalist

Camila Acosta Endures a Year of Harassment, Arrest, and Forced Relocation

The Cuban government’s brutal restrictions on free speech fall particularly hard on journalists. Camila Acosta has learned this from experience. In just the one year since August 2019, when she began working as an independent journalist for the news…
Journalist Camila Acosta wears a facemask saying “no to Decree 370,” a 2019 law curtailing free speech in Cuba, on August 1, 2020.
News

Burkina Faso Executions Prompt Broad Call for Inquiry

Donor Countries Urge Investigations into Mass Graves

  Pressure is mounting on the Burkina Faso government to investigate mass executions allegedly committed by state security forces. Human Rights Watch in July 2020 reported on common graves containing at least 180 bodies in the northern town of…
Djibo, Burkina Faso
News

Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools Surge in Africa’s Sahel

First International Day to Protect Education from Attack Addresses Violations Globally

(New York) – The Central Sahel has seen a significant spike in attacks on students, teachers, and schools since 2018, according to a new report released today by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). The report is launched…
A school in northern Burkina Faso is abandoned after an attack by an armed group.
News

Impact of Covid-19 on Children’s Education in Africa

35th Ordinary Session

Human Rights Watch respectfully submits this written presentation to contribute testimony from children to the discussion on the impact of Covid-19 on children at the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of…
Schoolchildren attend class at a school in Norton, west of the capital Harare, Zimbabwe, September 10, 2019.
News

Cuba: Protest Over Police Killing Suppressed

Covid-19 No Excuse for Arbitrary Detention, Communication Restrictions

(Washington, DC) – Cuban authorities committed numerous rights violations in June 2020 against people organizing a protest over police violence, effectively suppressing the demonstration, Human Rights Watch said today. Many Cubans planned to gather…
A man is detained at the site where a protest against the killing of a Black man by police was due to take place in Havana, Cuba, June 30, 2020.