Nursing homes across the United States routinely give antipsychotic drugs to residents with dementia to control their behavior, despite regulatory prohibitions on this misuse of drugs as “chemical restraints.” This abusive practice remains widespread even though the use of antipsychotics is associated with a nearly doubled risk of death in older people with dementia.

The Sri Lankan government has failed to fulfill its pledges to abolish the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). For decades, the PTA has been used to arbitrarily detain suspects for months and often years without charge or trial, facilitating torture, and other abuse.

On January 17, 2018, masked arsonists torched the Ingushetia office of Memorial, Russia’s leading human rights organization. The attack came days after authorities in Chechnya arbitrarily arrested Oyub Titiev, head of the local office of Memorial on bogus drug possession charges.

Forced labor and other rights abuses are widespread in Thailand’s fishing fleets despite government commitments to comprehensive reforms.

Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo used excessive force, including teargas and live ammunition, against peaceful protesters at Catholic churches in the capital, Kinshasa, and other cities on December 31, 2017.

Political leaders willing to fight for human rights principles showed that they could limit authoritarian populist agendas, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018, reviewing events of the past year.

Syringe exchange programs have a proven record of reducing HIV and Hepatitis C infection, preventing overdose, and bringing people into treatment without raising rates of drug use or crime.

Mozambique’s government has failed to hold anyone to account for serious abuses by both state security forces and the opposition Renamo in the year prior to a December 2016 ceasefire.

Ghanaians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) suffer widespread discrimination and abuse both in public and in family settings.

Syrian government and Russian forces have escalated their airstrikes on Eastern Ghouta, a suburb approximately 15 kilometers from the center of Syria’s capital Damascus, killing dozens of civilians in apparently unlawful attacks.