• Another black man dies at the hands of the police – this time in Brazil;
  • Court in Mexico stops random checks by immigration agents;
  • Prosecution of two Cuban artists part of a broader pattern of abuse;
  • Hundreds of women demand reform of rape prosecutions in Nepal;
  • Concerns over escalating violence and deaths in Tajikistan’s autonomous region;
  • Victims of Chad’s abusive former president still waiting for reparations.
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A military-style operation in Vila Cruzeiro, an impoverished neighborhood in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, has left at least 26 people dead and five, including a police officer, injured. The May 24 raid was the second deadliest police operation in Rio's history, after a May 2021 raid that left 28 people dead in Jacarezinho, another favela about eight kilometers away. While Rio, in March, adopted a plan to curb police killings – which have a disproportionate impact on Black people – as ordered by the Supreme Court, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro congratulated those who conducted the Vila Cruzeiro raid, sending a message that will only perpetuate impunity. Meanwhile, videos of a Black man dying while trapped in the boot of a police car on Tuesday has gone viral and sparked outrage among Brazilians. The footage shows two officers of Brazil’s Federal Highway Police forcibly keeping Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, in the back of their police vehicle as a dense cloud of white smoke, which appears to be tear gas, emerges from the SUV.  De Jesus Santos eventually stops moving. The Vila Cruzeiro raid and Tuesday’s police killing highlight the need for a thorough police reform and an end to police impunity. 

Immigration agents can no longer randomly stop anyone in Mexico and ask for their papers, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled. The ruling in favor of members of an Indigenous Tzeltal Maya family who had been wrongfully detained and, in one case, tortured by immigration agents who suspected they were undocumented Guatemalan migrants trying to reach the US, is an important victory against Mexico’s abusive, anti-immigration policies. As the US leans heavily on Mexico to stop migrants reaching the border, immigration stops and checkpoints have been a key tool to accomplish this. Usually, they target people who are Black, brown, or Indigenous. The current immigration law, the court said, violates the constitutional rights to equality and nondiscrimination, as it had a disproportionate impact on Indigenous and Afro-Mexican people. It also violates the constitutional right to free movement. Congress must now amend the law.  

Two Cuban artists are set to stand trial next week for a range of charges related to their participation in a peaceful demonstration and an artistic performance, as well as their criticism of President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Maykel Castillo Pérez, a visual artist, and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a rapper, have been in pretrial detention for nearly a year, and could face long prison terms. The prosecution against the two is part of a much broader pattern of systematic abuses against Cuban artists and other government critics and protesters. In recent years, Cuban authorities have jailed, prosecuted, and forced into exile dozens of Cuban artists. Dozens of protesters who took part in overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government protests in July 2021 have been arbitrarily detained and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, in trials in which prosecutors have frequently charged them with vaguely defined crimes. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for the artists’ immediate and unconditional release and urged concerned governments, especially from Latin America and Europe, to monitor the trial. 

Hundreds of protestors have gathered outside the prime minister’s office  in Nepal demanding reform after the latest horrifying allegations of rape in the country. The protesters, mostly young women, are calling on the government to end the one year statute of limitations for rape, which effectively denies justice to rape survivors. A 2021 report on sexual violence in South Asia noted that despite thousands of rape allegations being filed every year in Nepal, almost two-thirds do not end in conviction. Many more cases go unreported, as many rape survivors face death threats, harassment, victim-blamingstigma, and embarrassment. The government should take swift action to remediate the situation.

Tajik authorities should ensure an effective investigation into police use of force leading to civilian deaths and casualties during this month's protests in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region. The protests erupted following months of persecution of local people after the November protests of 2021. The UN special rapporteur on minority issues said that as many as 40 people were allegedly killed in a special “anti-terrorism operation” in the region. The current unrest in the autonomous region is one of the worst since the end of the 1990-1997 civil war in Tajikistan, in which thousands of civilians were killed in what Human Rights Watch has previously described as “ethnic cleansing.” UN Secretary General António Guterres expressed concern on May 20 over the escalating violence and casualties in the autonomous region, calling on all sides to exercise restraint, while the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCD), Deidre Brown, called for “a thorough and transparent investigation into recent events” in the region.

Six years after the historic conviction of the late Chadian President Hissène Habré in Senegal, his victims have yet to receive any reparations. Habré, who died in August 2021, was convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture, including sexual violence and rape, by an African Union-backed Senegalese court and, in May 2016, sentenced to life in prison in a ruling that was widely considered “a milestone for justice in Africa.” In a separate trial in Chad, a court on March 25, 2015, convicted 20 Habré-era security agents on murder and torture charges. Both courts ordered millions of dollars in victim compensation. An appellate court, in 2017, confirmed Habré’s conviction and mandated an African Union Trust Fund to raise the money by searching for Habré’s assets and soliciting contributions. Although the African Union has allocated US$5 million to the Trust Fund, the fund has yet to begin work. Meanwhile, many of the victims who fought relentlessly for 25 years to bring the dictator to justice, are in dire straits. The African Union and the government of Chad should fulfill their obligations to the victims under these court orders, seven human rights and civil society organizations, Human Rights Watch among them, said today. 

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