We start today’s Daily Brief with a big announcement about HRW: we have a new executive director!

Tirana Hassan is a lawyer and veteran human rights investigator who has documented human rights abuses in crises and conflicts around the world.  

I don’t think I’m revealing any big secret here by saying HRW staff are very excited by – and pleased with – the news.

Many of us have worked closely with Tirana over the years and know her as someone who intimately understands human rights work and always keeps her focus on the people whose rights we’re helping to defend.

Tirana has decades of experience on the ground in the human rights and humanitarian sectors. She knows the work we do from the bottom-up, and she’s “come up through the ranks,” as it were.

With what I consider the highest compliment in our field, I can say, Tirana “has mud on her boots.”

She began her career as a social worker and spent many years working with women and children in conflict and crisis situations for Médecins Sans Frontières, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, and Save the Children.

Tirana first joined HRW in 2010, covering emergencies across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

She went on to become Amnesty International’s director of crisis response. In that position, Tirana oversaw the development of innovative uses of technology to advance human rights investigations in Myanmar, Syria, and other crisis areas.

She returned to HRW in 2020, becoming our chief programs officer – meaning she led the organization’s research, advocacy, legal, and communications departments.

Tirana then became HRW’s acting executive director in September 2022, after long-time HRW head Kenneth Roth stepped down.

Throughout it all, Tirana has had a proven track record of developing ambitious programs to address critical human rights issues.

We all now look forward to Tirana leading our work with activists, survivors, and civil society to head off the rising threats to human rights around the world.

Congrats, Tirana! Full speed ahead!

(Read more below with Three Questions for Tirana.)

Another school year has started in Afghanistan – and Taliban’s misogynist thugocracy is still blocking hundreds of thousands of girls from attending secondary school.

It’s “a day of grief for Afghan teenage girls and the world,” says Sahar Fetrat, my colleague and assistant researcher in HRW’s Women's Rights Division

“The girls grieve both their right to education and the world’s failure to take action to stop the ban.”

It has now been 553 days that teenage girls are denied their right to education. Afghanistan under the Taliban is the only country that bans girls from secondary school.

Late last year, the Taliban doubled down on their disregard for women and contempt for their fundamental rights by banning women’s university education, too.

This extreme misogyny is not only brutal and cruel to the women and girls denied an education. It’s also highly damaging to the entire country’s well-being.

With half the population kept intentionally uneducated, how can Afghanistan be expected to make any progress?

The country already has one of the highest levels of illiteracy in the world. And the Taliban only want to take the country down deeper into ignorance and despair.

Popular protests in France have captured global attention, as has the government’s excessive response to them.

Since January, millions of protesters have peacefully taken to the streets across the country, opposing the government’s pension reform proposals. There have also been violent confrontations between some demonstrators and police.

Numerous videos, pictures, and testimonies circulating on social and traditional media suggest police have been heavy-handed, disproportionate, and indiscriminate response to protestors.

Rights groups and independent bodies, including the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, have criticized French police for resorting to excessive force and for making questionable “preventative arrests.”  

Of course, police responding to protests with excessive use of force is not new in France. For example, in December 2018, Human Rights Watch documented disturbing injuries during France’s “yellow vest” mobilizations and unrelated student protests.

As demonstrations continue, French authorities need to take a different tack. Police actions should be only those that are necessary and proportionate.

And any time they appear not to be, the authorities should investigate allegations and hold responsible officers to account.

(compiled by Lisa Maier)

• Vietnam: drop charges against rights defender Truong Van Dung (HRW) 
• Israel: protests break out as Netanyahu ousts minister that bucked court overhaul (NY Times) 
• Latin America’s democracies face a common threat from within (LA Times) 
• There’s no greater feminist cause than the climate fight (The Guardian) 

1) When you look around at all the human rights problems in the world, it can seem overwhelming. Where do you get your strength to keep pushing ahead? 

Tirana Hassan, HRW’s new executive director: When I look around, I see people all over the world pushing back to protect their rights and the rights of others, I don’t feel there is any other option but to stand and work with them. If they are not overwhelmed, then that is not a luxury we can afford.

On a personal level, I draw strength and inspiration from my family and our shared experiences. My father, born in India, was forced to move to Pakistan because of anti-Muslim violence in their village during the Partition.

Years later, he thought he’d made a home in Singapore raising a young family, but his academic research on the racial underpinnings of Singapore’s public housing system angered the authorities. We ended up in Australia out of necessity; it wasn’t part of the plan.

Growing up, there was a sense of temporariness. Singapore had been home, then, suddenly we weren’t there anymore. My maternal grandmother, whom I was very close to, was no longer a daily presence.

I never framed these dinner table conversations as conversations on human rights, but I did know there are wrongs and injustices in the world. It happened to people I knew and cared about, and I understood how important it was to do something about and the consequences of inaction.

2) What do you see as major threats to human rights today?

Tirana Hassan: HRW is known for our fact-based, authoritative research on human rights abuses. We tell the human rights stories that need telling and compel governments and actors to make changes.

But all that is much harder today because of the easy spread of disinformation. The truth is up for grabs, and that makes our job incredibly difficult, whether it be tackling climate change’s harmful impact on communities or documenting war crimes.

Our job now is not just to sift through the fog of war but the fog of disinformation – to slice through that – and put the information in the hands of people who control the levers of change. And even that is shifting. There are no good guys and bad guys, no global superheroes – if there ever were.

So, our job is to look at how power is playing around the world and ensure everyone is taking responsibility for and delivering on their human rights obligations.

3) What would you say to Daily Brief readers who are not formally working in human rights but would like to do more to help? What can one person do to make a difference? 

Tirana Hassan: I firmly believe everyone can make a difference. We can’t do this work without people who care enough to follow us and support us in a hundred different ways, from reading to watching to taking action.

This extends to supporting not just Human Rights Watch, but also like-minded organizations and individuals working to hold those who wield power – whether it’s governments, corporations or others – accountable for respecting human rights.

This is the only way we can magnify our impact amid a complex world with increasing threats to fundamental rights. One person can do a lot. But nobody does this alone.

So, to all Daily Brief readers, thank you, thank you, thank you.