Search Results

Sort by
News

Nordic Countries: Repatriate Nationals from Northeast Syria

Potential Complicity in Unlawful Detention of ISIS Suspects, Children

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden should promptly repatriate their nationals unlawfully held in life-threatening conditions in northeast Syria, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the four governments today.…
Children fly a kite at al-Hol camp in northeast Syria. 
News

Norway Arrests Highlight Impact of Pandemic on Sex Workers

Governments Should Include Sex Workers in Public Health and Financial Support Responses

Norwegian police have arrested sex workers over accusations that they violated quarantine restrictions. Although not accused of any crime, the workers, from other European countries, face detention and expulsion from Norway. Media reports suggest some…
People demonstrate in support of sex workers, April 14, 2018. 
News

A Nordic Comeback on Human Rights

Encouraging Signs They Are Set to Take More Leading Role

The Nordic countries proudly express steadfast commitment to human rights as a priority in foreign policy, but have been disappointingly inconsistent in practice. Sweden launched a feminist foreign policy in 2014 – a laudable approach that failed…
An Icelandic flag hangs outside a shop in Reykjavik, October 27, 2016.
News

Building Momentum to Hold Companies to Account

  In 2020, you should be watching for a growing trend of national legislatures requiring companies to live up to their responsibilities to workers, communities, and the environment. Millions of adults and children around the world suffer…
Children pan for gold
News

100 States Support Norway’s Initiative to Protect Schools

The news this week that Ukraine has become the 100th country to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration—a Norwegian initiative to make schools safer even during war—has me thinking about two schools at almost opposite ends of Europe. They…
Damaged school in Nikishine Rebel fighters deployed inside the school between September 2014 and February 2015 and exchanged intense fire with Ukrainian forces.
News

Europe Poll Supports Killer Robots Ban

Failing Diplomatic Talks Show Need for a Different Path

(Geneva) – Almost three in every four people responding to a new poll in 10 European countries want their governments to work for an international treaty prohibiting lethal autonomous weapons systems, Human Rights Watch said today. At…
201911arms_robots_stunt
News

Syrian Refugee Children’s Uncertain School Aid

Murky Money Trail, Missed Targets, Missing Data

(Beirut) – Millions of dollars in aid money pledged to get Syrian refugee children in school last year did not reach them, arrived late, or could not be traced due to poor reporting practices, Human Rights Watch said today. The 55…
Syrian children in an informal refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley.
Report

Following the Money

Summary Since 2011, violence in Syria has forcibly displaced at least 1.6 million school-age children to other countries in the region. Before the conflict, more than 90 percent of Syrian children attended primary school and 70 percent…
News

Which Norway Will Visit China?

Failure to Press Rights Would Bode Ill for Future Relations

Norway has long been an international human rights champion, leading on the international campaigns to ban landmines and cluster munitions, and more recently taking a pioneering role in the Safe Schools Declaration, which protects children from wartime…
News

Steps Towards Justice For Syria

Seeking justice for the ongoing grave human rights abuses in Syria has proven largely elusive. Now the shield of impunity is beginning to crack. Several countries, including Sweden, Germany, and France are in the process of investigating some…
Syrian Man Carries Children After Barrel Bomb Attack
News

Dispatches: Norway’s Transgender Rights Transformation

Thanks to a new healthcare law voted in by Norway’s Parliament yesterday, the country’s transgender people will be able to self-declare their appropriate legal gender. In the past, they needed to undergo compulsory psychiatric evaluations, diagnoses, and…
A general view inside the Norwegian parliament in Oslo August 1, 2011.
News

Norway/Russia: Don’t Jeopardize Asylum Seekers

Fast-Track Returns Put Refugees at Risk

(Moscow) – Norway should stop using fast-track procedures to return asylum seekers to Russia based on the presumption that it is a safe country of asylum for them, Human Rights Watch said today. Russian and Norwegian authorities plan to meet on February 3…
Refugees and migrants gather near a checkpoint on the Russian-Norwegian border in Murmansk region, Russia on October 30, 2015.
News

Whatever Happened to Winning Hearts and Minds?

Listening to the debate in Europe on the threat from the extremist group Islamic State (IS) and returning fighters feels like Groundhog Day. Its black-and-white presentation, the existential nature of the alleged threat, the notion that governments should…
News

From Sagene to Sanaa

Sometimes, stories reverberate across the generations. From Olav Brakstad, now in his 90s, I learned about the day in 1940 when German soldiers moved into his high school in Eidsvoll, using some of the buildings as a field hospital and classrooms as…
News

Burma: Telecom Winners Should Safeguard Users

Companies Should Create Strong Rights Precedent

(Washington, DC) – Burma’s new telecom license winners should make a public commitment to strong human rights policies and broad transparency measures, Human Rights Watch said. Firms should say how they plan to protect users from illegal surveillance and…
News

Divided We Fall: Intolerance in Europe Puts Rights at Risk

An Afghan migrant is stabbed in the heart on the streets of Athens. Black-shirted paramilitaries linked to Hungary’s third-largest political party march through a Roma neighborhood shouting, “You will die here.” A neo-Nazi gang commits a string of murders…
News

Colombia: Make Victims’ Rights Central to Peace Talks

Peace Without Justice Not Sustainable

Colombia will only achieve sustainable peace by protecting victims’ right to justice, Human Rights Watch said today in advance of peace talks between the Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. The talks will…
News

Confronting Terrorism

Only those who have stood close to the devastating impact of terror will know how deep the immediate shock and fear runs. I saw the horrendous effects in Norway this July — just as Americans saw them in New York and Washington 10 years ago. Traveling the…
News

Q&A: Human Rights in Europe in the Aftermath of the Norway Attacks

(London) – Human Rights Watch today released the following questions and answers in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Norway:   The terrorist attacks in Norway on July 22, 2011, which killed 77 people and injured more than 150 others, were a horrifying…