Human Rights Watch

Click to expand Image Maldives police detain a journalist during a protest against the Maldives Media and Broadcasting Regulation Bill outside government offices in the capital, Malé, on August 27, 2025. © 2025 Anoof Junaid/Dhauru

(Bangkok) – The Maldives parliament is considering a new law that could silence independent media amid an escalating crackdown on basic rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should withdraw the Maldives Media and Broadcasting Regulation Bill, which would provide the Maldives government broad discretionary powers to control and regulate the media.

The draft media law is part of a broader effort by the administration of President Mohamed Muizzu to stifle dissent. The government has also proposed laws to reinstate the death penalty for drug-related crimes and to strip island councils of their administrative powers, undoing a central component of Maldives democratic governance established during the country’s democratic transition in 2008. 

“President Muizzu has been chipping away at human rights since taking office in 2023, with media freedom being first in the crosshairs,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Maldives government should abandon its thinly disguised attempts to quash dissent and instead focus on improving respect for basic rights.”

On August 18, Abdul Hannan Abubakr – a parliament member who, despite being a registered independent, is closely affiliated with the government – submitted the media bill to the People’s Majlis, the Maldives parliament. Under the legislation, the current Maldives Media Council and Maldives Broadcasting Commission would be replaced with a standalone media commission. This new body would be comprised of seven members, three of whom would be appointed by the president to oversee media operations. The parliament would have the power to remove commission members elected by media outlets at any time with a no-confidence vote, fueling fears about the commissions’ independence. 

The commission would be empowered to order media outlets to issue correction notices on online content and impose fines from 5,000 Maldivian rufiyaa to 25,000 Maldivian rufiyaa (US$325 to $1,623) on journalists and media workers who fail to comply with their orders. The commission could suspend media outlets at will and block newspaper websites and halt broadcasts while complaints are investigated.

The government has moved quickly to adopt the measure. On August 24, Maldivian National Day, President Muizzu used his annual address to promote the media bill. Although Muizzu said that he has no intention of controlling the media, the law includes provisions that would make the vaguely worded “spreading fake news” a criminal offense. 

On August 27, the People’s Majlis, which had been in recess, held an extraordinary parliamentary session to discuss the media bill, for which a majority of members voted in favor. 

However, on August 28, a parliamentary oversight committee decided to open a 10-day window for public opinion, including three days of consultations with media outlets starting August 31. The same day President Muizzu met with a group of leading journalists to discuss their concerns with the bill.

Since the bill was submitted, local journalists have staged protests outside the People’s Majlis, saying the law would “dismantle free press” in the country. The demonstrations escalated on August 27. Police forcibly removed journalists peacefully protesting outside the President’s Office building by dragging them into police vehicles. Journalists told Human Rights Watch that the police arrested five of the protesters and read them their rights before releasing them with a warning. The Maldives Police Service issued a statement later that day denying that any protesters were arrested.

Mohamed Junayd, a member of the Maldives Journalists Association’s executive committee, told Human Rights Watch that the bill, if enacted, would “take the Maldives back to the pre-democratic era, as it would completely dismantle the self-regulatory framework enacted after the first democratic elections.” He said that the law appears designed “to usher in an unchecked executive power that can run amok without any criticism or dissent, including the power to amend the country’s constitution in a day.” 

The 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranked Maldives 104th, dropping in recent years from 72nd in 2021. Journalists and media outlets in the Maldives already exercise significant self-censorship, particularly on sensitive topics due to concerns about physical and online violence, including receiving death threats for their reporting. Junayd expressed concern that the draft media law would push journalists to further self-censor out of fear of being prosecuted under the bill’s “vague provisions.”

The government’s efforts to crack down on independent media appears part of a wider agenda by the ruling People’s National Congress, which holds a supermajority in parliament, to restrict fundamental rights and freedoms in the Maldives. On July 28, the parliament proposed amendments to the Decentralization Act that would effectively strip island councils of their administrative powers to address local issues. 

On July 30, President Muizzu announced on social media that he had requested cabinet members to review proposed amendments to the Drug Act “with a view to imposing the death penalty for those convicted of smuggling or trafficking drugs.” The amendments were initially proposed in December 2024 and have since been discussed by the Judiciary Committee on August 5 and 6, with the parliamentary proceeding expected to resume after the recess. Maldives has had a de facto moratorium on the use of the death penalty since 1954. 

Imposing the death penalty for drug trafficking would violate the Maldives’ obligations under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obligates countries that have not abolished the death penalty to reserve its use “only for the most serious crimes,” which United Nations experts widely agree do not include drug-related offenses. Rights groups including Human Rights Watch have called on the Maldives government to reject the introduction of the death penalty and to abolish the inhumane practice. 

“The Maldivian government should immediately withdraw the media bill and abandon efforts to reinstate the death penalty and strip island councils of their administrative powers,” Pearson said. “President Muizzu should reverse his administration’s increasingly authoritarian direction and instead commit to promoting and protecting human rights, including a free and independent media.”

Click to expand Image An Afghan woman walks by Taliban security personnel along a market in the Baharak district of Badakhshan province, February 26, 2024. © 2024 Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty Images

In a new joint letter, 107 organizations reiterated their call for the United Nations Human Rights Council to act where it has long failed and establish an independent investigative mechanism for Afghanistan to advance accountability for past and ongoing grave crimes.

The Taliban’s oppressive rule continues as they enter their fifth year in power, including their systematic assault on the rights of women and girls, which Human Rights Watch has called the crime against humanity of gender persecution, and UN experts have described as “gender apartheid.” Taliban authorities have also increasingly restricted civic space, committing arbitrary punishment and violent reprisals against anyone deemed a threat.

Afghan and international rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, the UN expert on human rights in Afghanistan, and the UN Human Rights Office have all emphasized the need for further action to address the entrenched impunity at the heart of the crisis. The UN expert warned earlier this year that “the international community’s failure to hold the Taliban accountable has emboldened them.”

A dedicated investigative mechanism – like those for Syria and Myanmar – would be a key tool in advancing accountability, ensuring evidence is collected and preserved for future prosecutions, identifying alleged perpetrators, and preparing case files to support proceedings before national and international courts.

It would be distinct from, but complementary to, the UN expert on Afghanistan, whose vital work –documenting and reporting on abuses, supporting civil society, and advocating for victims and survivors – is a lifeline that needs to continue.

Some countries have cited concerns about the mechanism’s scope or costs. But several cost-saving options exist, and momentum to establish the mechanism is growing. In March, a cross-regional group of countries joined the call urging for the mechanism’s creation, and earlier this month, 24 more UN human rights experts added their voice to the appeal.

In addition to increasing support for the International Criminal Court’s ongoing Afghanistan investigations, the European Union – “penholder” on Afghanistan at the Human Rights Council – has a crucial role to play for justice.

The EU has faced well-founded criticism over perceived double standards in its human rights policies. By putting forward a resolution to establish this mechanism, the bloc has a chance to demonstrate principled leadership and advance the prospect of justice for decades of egregious crimes in Afghanistan. It shouldn’t miss it.

Click to expand Image Hannibal Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in Tripoli, Libya, June 30, 2010. © 2010 REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny

(Beirut) – Lebanese authorities should immediately release the son of Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal Gaddafi, whom they have wrongly imprisoned for nearly a decade, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should provide Gaddafi with appropriate compensation for holding him arbitrarily and investigate and hold to account those responsible for his ordeal. 

Hannibal Gaddafi remains in long-term, arbitrary, pretrial detention since his arrest by Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces in December 2015 on apparently unsubstantiated allegations that he was withholding information about the disappearance of Lebanese cleric Moussa al-Sadr, who was disappeared in Libya in 1978 along with two companions. Al-Sadr’s fate remains a sensitive political issue in Lebanon. Judicial authorities have not taken any steps to bring Gaddafi to trial or provided a legal justification for his continued detention. 

“Gaddafi’s case is emblematic of a fractured judicial system that has lacked independence and is susceptible to political interference by Lebanon’s powerful factions,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Lebanese authorities should put an end to Gaddafi’s near decade-long detention and release him immediately.”

A Human Rights Watch researcher visited Gaddafi on August 12, 2025, at the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces' Information Branch Headquarters in Beirut, where he is being held. It was the first visit to Gaddafi by an international human rights organization while in Lebanese detention. 

One of Gaddafi’s lawyers, Nassib Chedid, who organized the visit, was present during the one-hour meeting, which took place in an office. No prison authorities or guards were present, but Human Rights Watch was unable to verify whether prison authorities were surveilling or electronically monitoring the meeting, and Gaddafi was aware that Human Rights Watch would publish the information he provided. Human Rights Watch had previously made inquiries about the case but received no response from the government.

The researcher did not tour the prison or visit Gaddafi’s cell, which according to Gaddafi is a windowless but ventilated room underground. Gaddafi said he receives enough food and has been able to get basic health care but that he experiences “systemic weakness due to malnutrition and vitamin deficiency.” He also said that he has suffered mental health consequences due to his long-term isolation in a cell below ground, without natural sunlight, and lack of regular access to his family. 

Gaddafi said that his physical health has also deteriorated in recent years, including back pain, a broken nose, and severe head pain from a skull fracture he sustained while being tortured by the armed people who initially kidnapped him along the Syrian border in late 2015.

Prior to his detention, Gaddafi had been primarily living in Syria with his family after fleeing Libya in 2011, during the uprising against his father’s government. But in 2015, armed men kidnapped Gaddafi in Syria near the Lebanese border after reportedly luring him to what he believed was a newspaper interview. Instead, the men transferred him to Lebanon, where they tortured him, demanded information on Sadr’s disappearance, and demanded a ransom, one of Gaddafi’s lawyers previously stated. Lebanese authorities freed Gaddafi from his captors but reportedly arrested him within days.

In December 2015, a Lebanese judicial investigator, Judge Zaher Hamadeh, issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi, accusing him of concealing information about al-Sadr and his two companions’ 1978 disappearance in Libya, when Hannibal was 2 years old. Hamadeh formally charged Gaddafi in 2016, accusing him of concealing information on the disappearance, according to two of his lawyers.  

Gaddafi told Human Rights Watch that he has access to his legal team, including a French lawyer. But his wife and children were denied entry to Lebanon and deprived of contact with him for the first seven years after his arrest, until 2022, when authorities granted them access. Currently, family visits are permitted, but “heavily restricted,” and there is “no regular or guaranteed schedule or access,” Gaddafi said. Additionally, Gaddafi said that requests to access his legal team and family “are often denied, delayed for days, or ignored without justification.”

Detention conditions in Lebanon are dismal. The prison system is severely overcrowded, with occupancy levels over 300 percent in some facilities, according to a 2024 report by the Beirut Bar Association’s Prisons Committee. More than 80 percent of prisoners have yet to be sentenced, according to the same report.

Human Rights Watch wrote in April 2025 to Lebanon’s Interior Minister Ahmed al-Hajjar, Justice Minister Adel Nassar, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, requesting detailed information on Gaddafi’s judicial status, and calling for his release. Human Rights Watch had previously written to the Lebanese Internal Security Forces director-general, Major General Imad Othman, and to Judge Zaher Hamadeh, the judicial investigator in charge of the case, in July 2023, requesting detailed information on Gaddafi’s judicial status and health. Human Rights Watch did not receive a response to any of the letters. 

Judge Zaher Hamadeh, who remains in charge of the case, has not acted upon calls to release Gaddafi despite repeated requests, most recently by one of his lawyers, Charbel Milad el-Khoury, on June 9.

The Lebanese justice minister and investigative judge should urgently respond to the release requests and end Gaddafi’s continued unlawful detention, Human Rights Watch said. 

In July, the justice minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity reportedly accused Lebanese political officials of not cooperating on his case. In a response to a letter sent by Libyan authorities, Judge Hamadeh reportedly stated that any considerations about Hannibal’s release should be predicated on Lebanon receiving information and the results of investigations by Libyan authorities into the disappearance of Imam Sadr. Gaddafi said that he has not been in contact with Libyan authorities or mediators.

The recent adoption by Lebanon’s parliament of a law organizing the judiciary promises wide-ranging judicial reforms, yet unaddressed gaps continue to threaten the independence of the judiciary and make it susceptible to continued political interference, Human Rights Watch said. 

Under international law, detention is subject to strict due process. Officials must inform the detained person about the reasons for their arrest, base detention on clear domestic law, promptly take the person before a judge, and charge or release them. Officials must provide regular judicial rulings on the legality of detention, respect the right to a speedy trial or release from detention, and provide regular opportunities to challenge the lawfulness of a long-term detention. Failure to respect such procedural safeguards makes a detention arbitrary. Under international law, pretrial detention should be the exception, not the rule.

Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Lebanon ratified in 1972, specifies that “[n]o one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.” Article 8 of Lebanon’s Constitution states that “No one may be arrested, imprisoned, or kept in custody except according to the provisions of the law.” Lebanon’s penal code also prohibits arbitrary detention and stipulates prison terms for officials who do not comply with conditions for lawful detention. 

“Gaddafi’s unlawful detention needs to end,” Kaiss said. “He and all other detainees and prisoners should be granted their rights in accordance with the law.” 

Click to expand Image Refugees at the Mae La refugee camp in Mae Sot, Thailand, March 5, 2025. © 2025 Valeria Mongelli/Anadolu via Getty Images

On August 26, Thailand’s cabinet approved measures allowing Myanmar refugees living in camps along the border to work legally. For many, it will be the first formal employment of their lives. 

About 108,000 refugees live in the nine camps that have sheltered people fleeing Myanmar military abuses since the 1980s. Nearly half were born there. 

The new work permits will only be available to about 80,000 refugees registered with the Thai government, an estimated 42,000 of whom are working age. Refugees will be required to apply for permission to leave the camps and for work permits valid up to one year. 

For decades, the Thai government barred camp refugees from working legally, moving freely, or accessing public services, leaving them largely dependent on foreign aid. Desperation in the camps soared this year following drastic US government aid cuts to core food and healthcare services, with monthly rations slashed first to US$2.30, then to zero.

In July, I spoke with eight refugees who described feeling hopeless and forgotten after decades restricted to the camps. All were eager to work outside them if allowed. “If we could have some sort of status to grant us protection, to live and work freely and make money, then we wouldn’t be a burden on Thailand or the international community,” one refugee said. 

The cabinet decision comes at a critical juncture not only for the refugees, but also for the Thai labor force, which is facing shortages due to an aging population and the exodus of at least 100,000 Cambodian migrant workers following recent border clashes.

Thai authorities should ensure the permit application process is transparent, accessible, and prompt, with protections in place to avoid exploitation or extortion by brokers. If properly implemented, the work policy will build refugees’ self-reliance and independence, boost local economies, and be a rights-respecting, prosperous model for refugee populations elsewhere in Thailand and in the region. 

“As young people, we want to make a living, we want to use our knowledge and skills,” another refugee told me. “If there’s any chance for us to leave the camp to work, to get a job and provide for our families, I would take it.”

Click to expand Image The Brazilian Senate in Brasilia, February 1, 2021. © 2021 Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images

Today, Brazil’s Senate passed a long-awaited bill to protect children’s rights online. The bill now heads for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s signature into law.

If enacted, this legislation would impose sweeping digital safety and privacy safeguards for children. It would compel tech companies to design products with young users’ best interests in mind and provide children with the highest levels of privacy by default.

Two of the bill’s strongest provisions respond to concerns directly raised in recent Human Rights Watch investigations. One provision prohibits online services from using children’s personal data in ways that “cause, facilitate, or contribute to the violation of their privacy or any other rights guaranteed to them by law … and the[ir] best interests.” In June 2024, we documented how children’s personal photos had been used to build powerful artificial intelligence tools later exploited to create abusive deepfakes of other children.

Another safeguard in the bill bans profiling children – tracking children’s online behavior to predict their characteristics, behaviors, and interests – to target them with behavioral advertising. This reflects recommendations in April 2023 and May 2022 Human Rights Watch investigations, which documented that children in Brazil and around the world had been secretly surveilled in their online classrooms and across the internet through invasive profiling and behavioral advertising techniques.

Passage of this bill reflects strong political will to protect children online. Before being approved by the Senate today, the bill had unanimously passed the Senate in December 2024 and cleared the Chamber of Deputies last week with support from all but one political party, Novo.

This broad support enabled the bill’s passage despite fierce opposition from tech companies, which successfully weakened some of the legislation’s original proposals. These include banning “loot boxes” in video games – features that encourage children to spend money for randomized rewards – and requiring companies to exercise a duty of care towards children. It is also unclear how one provision – mandating that children’s social media accounts be linked to their guardians’ accounts – might be implemented in a way that preserves children’s privacy and their right to seek information.

President Lula should sign the bill without delay and provide Brazilian children the protections they need to learn, explore, and play safely online.

Click to expand Image Members of the media protest a police raid on the office of a news portal and homes of journalists and writers linked to it, at the Press Club in New Delhi, India, October 4, 2023. © 2023 Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

This month the Indian government banned 25 books on the Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, saying they “excite secessionism.”

The action by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi reflects a wider attempt to silence dissent in response to unusually sharp criticisms over its policies. After the news outlet Wire and others questioned the government’s handling of a deadly militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir in April, Modi supporters in Assam state filed criminal complaints against the website for its reporting.

Assam police then filed two cases against Wire, including under a vaguely worded criminal law provision that replicates the British colonial-era sedition law, which the Supreme Court suspended in 2023 because of its rampant misuse to silence government critics. Several journalist organizations condemned the charges and the Supreme Court stepped in to protect Wire journalists from arrest.

The court also protected the well-known political analyst Sanjay Kumar after police in Maharashtra state accused him of defamation and forgery, a day after he had publicly apologized for data error while evaluating election fraud. The political opposition has criticized the Election Commission of India for alleged partisan actions.

Indian authorities have long used vague legal provisions as a political tool to silence critics, but since the BJP took office in 2014, the crackdown on freedom of expression has escalated. Comedians, artists, and students have been among those targeted, while human rights activists and outspoken academics remain particularly vulnerable. An independent report released in May, examining over 400 criminal cases against journalists between 2012 and 2022, found “widespread misuse of vague and overly broad criminal laws” such as defamation, sedition, and public order provisions, mostly to target any criticism of public officials.

Religious minorities are especially at risk. Assam’s BJP chief minister described the police’s arrest of 97 people for their social media comments on the Kashmir attack as taking action against “anti-national and anti-Hindu culprits.” The news website Scroll reported that over 90 percent of those detained were Muslim.

BJP leaders have frequently evoked nationalism when confronted with their deteriorating rights record. The government needs to refocus its efforts on protecting fundamental rights instead of clamping down on them.

Click to expand Image Two men near a wooden boat known as a pirogue, traditionally used for fishing in Mauritania and West Africa, on a beach in Nouakchott, Mauritania, June 28, 2022. Pirogues have been frequently used by migrants seeking to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach Spain’s Canary Islands. © 2022 Lauren Seibert/Human Rights Watch Mauritanian security forces committed serious human rights violations between 2020 and early 2025 against migrants and asylum seekers.The European Union and Spain, bilaterally, have continued to outsource migration management to Mauritania, despite its rights violations.Recent steps by the Mauritanian government may improve protection for migrants and their rights. These should continue, and the EU and Spain should ensure that their migration cooperation with Mauritania prioritizes rights and saving lives.

(Nairobi) – Mauritanian security forces committed serious human rights violations between 2020 and early 2025 against largely West and Central African migrants and asylum seekers, often when they were seeking to leave or transit the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. However, recent steps and commitments by the Mauritanian government may improve protection for migrants and their rights.

August 27, 2025 “They Accused Me of Trying to Go to Europe”

Migration Control Abuses and EU Externalization in Mauritania

Download the full report in English

European Commission Response to Human Rights Watch

Mauritanian Government Response to Human Rights Watch

The 142-page report, “‘They Accused Me of Trying to Go to Europe’: Migration Control Abuses and EU Externalization in Mauritania,” documents abuses by the Mauritanian police, coast guard, navy, gendarmerie, and army during border and migration control, including torture, rape, and other violence; sexual harassment; arbitrary arrests and detention; inhumane detention conditions; racist treatment; extortion and theft; and summary and collective expulsions. The crackdowns and rights violations were exacerbated by the European Union and Spain, bilaterally, continuing to outsource migration management to Mauritania, including through years of support to Mauritania’s border and migration control authorities.

“For years, Mauritanian authorities followed an abusive migration control playbook – sadly common across North Africa – by violating the rights of African migrants from other regions,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But Mauritania’s recent reforms show that a new approach is possible. The government should build on these efforts, scale up monitoring of security forces, and halt collective expulsions.”

Between 2020 and mid-2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 223 people by phone and in person during visits to Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and EU institutions in Brussels. In addition to 102 migrants and asylum seekers from Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, Human Rights Watch interviewed government, United Nations, and EU officials; members of nongovernmental and civil society organizations; relatives of abuse victims; witnesses; experts; lawyers; community members; and others.

Human Rights Watch examined injuries from alleged abuse; collected photos, videos, and documents to corroborate accounts; and, in 2022 and 2023 in Mauritania, visited migrant detention centers and Dar Naïm prison, which held people on migrant smuggling charges.

Human Rights Watch documented violations by Mauritanian security forces between 2020 and 2025 against 77 migrants and asylum seekers – men, women, and children – and a Mauritanian man, who said police tortured him during migrant-smuggling-related interrogations in 2022.

Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights Watch

Increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers between 2020 and 2024 attempted the “Atlantic Route” by boat from northwest Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, with many departing from Mauritania. Some have fled conflict or persecution in their countries – including many from Mali, where armed conflict has worsened alongside government repression – while others aimed to escape poverty and find work. In 2024, a record 46,843 people arrived by boat in the Canaries. About 11,500 people arrived between January and July 2025.

Mauritania has also long attracted West and Central Africans seeking work, and it hosts about 176,000 registered asylum seekers and refugees, the majority from Mali. Some migrants seek to transit Mauritania toward Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Morocco, or Algeria.

In 2024, Mauritania signed a new migration partnership with the EU in exchange for €210 million in funding to reduce irregular migration, comparable to other EU deals with Tunisia and Egypt. Spain increased its bilateral support to the same end, while maintaining deployment of Spanish police and civil guard in Mauritania to assist authorities with migration control.

Click to expand Image Men from Senegal and Niger held at the police-run migrant detention center in Le Ksar district, Nouakchott, Mauritania, September 2, 2023. Multiple West and Central African migrants detained at the Ksar center between 2020 and 2024 described mistreatment including insufficient food, overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and being forced to sleep on the floor. In July 2025, the government said the Ksar center was temporarily closed for “rehabilitation” to improve conditions. © 2023 Lauren Seibert/Human Rights Watch

Dozens of people who had been held in Mauritania’s police-run migrant detention centers described inhumane conditions and treatment, including lack of food, poor sanitation, adolescent children at times detained with unrelated adults, and some beatings by guards.

Between 2020 and mid-2025, Mauritanian police expelled tens of thousands of African foreigners of multiple nationalities – generally without formal legal procedures or an opportunity to challenge their expulsion – to remote locations along the borders with Mali and Senegal, where limited aid, plus worsening insecurity in Mali’s Kayes region, has put people at risk. In the first half of 2025, Mauritania expelled over 28,000 people, the government said.

Marco Gibson, a Liberian man, said Mauritania’s military arrested him with a group of over 40 migrants near Mauritania’s northern border in December 2024, as they were leaving toward Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara: “The Mauritanian army … beat us with sticks … [and] a rubber whip…. I’ve never seen such a brutal attitude.” Following detention, police expelled him and around 20 others, including children, to Mali’s border town of Gogui, in the Nioro du Sahel area of Kayes region, he said. Days later, an Islamist armed group attacked Nioro.

Human Rights Watch has documented police use of prolonged, painful restraints, limited food and water, and other mistreatment during expulsions, as well as cases of children, asylum seekers, and people with valid legal status in Mauritania among those expelled.

The report also highlights the negative impacts of Mauritania’s interceptions and forced returns of migrant boats, supported by the EU and Spain, while search-and-rescue in the Atlantic remains insufficient, contributing to ongoing deaths.

By funding, equipping, and collaborating with Mauritanian forces for years to bolster border and migration controls without ensuring adequate human rights safeguards, the EU and Spain incentivized repression of migration and share responsibility for abuses in Mauritania, Human Rights Watch said. In some cases, Spanish forces were present during abusive arrests and detention of migrants by Mauritanian authorities. The EU also funded renovations of two former migrant detention centers, set to open this year to receive migrants intercepted or rescued at sea.

In a reply to questions from Human Rights Watch, the Mauritanian government said it “reject[s] allegations of torture, racial discrimination, or systematic violations of migrants’ rights.” It cited recent steps to improve respect for rights, including a “ban on collective expulsions” and new standard operating procedures (SOPs) adopted in May 2025 to regulate disembarkations and “management” of migrants, with strong rights and protection guarantees.

The European Commission, in its reply to Human Rights Watch, said its partnership with Mauritania was “solidly anchored” in respect for rights and cited EU support for the SOPs and other rights-focused initiatives.

“The Mauritanian government’s steps to improve respect for migrant rights are much needed,” Seibert said. “By going further to end abuses, Mauritania could potentially lead the way toward rights-respecting migration management in North Africa. For their part, the EU and Spain should ensure that their migration cooperation with Mauritania prioritizes rights and saving lives, instead of supporting security crackdowns that lead to abuses.”

Click to expand Image U.S. President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. © 2017 Reuters

(Washington, DC) – US military personnel could face legal liability for assisting Israeli forces who commit war crimes in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Direct participation by US forces in military operations in Gaza since October 2023, including by providing intelligence for Israeli strikes and conducting extensive coordination and planning, has made the United States a party to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. As a warring party, US forces could be jointly responsible for participating in laws-of-war violations by Israeli forces, and US personnel implicated could be held individually responsible for war crimes. 

“The direct US participation in military operations with Israeli forces means that as a matter of international law, the United States has been and currently is a party to the armed conflict in Gaza,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “US military and intelligence personnel and contractors assisting Israeli forces who commit war crimes may at some point find themselves facing criminal prosecution for atrocities in Gaza.”

Under international humanitarian law, the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza is a non-international armed conflict. International law does not set out specific criteria for determining when a country assisting another country in a non-international armed conflict itself becomes a party to that conflict, though direct participation in combat operations is a clear example. 

US officials have acknowledged that since hostilities between Palestinian armed groups and Israel began on October 7, 2023, the United States has provided Israel with extensive actionable intelligence used to strike targets in Gaza, along with extensive coordination, planning, and intelligence gathering with Israeli forces to target Hamas leaders.

US administrations have indicated publicly that the US has been involved in the hostilities. In October 2024, then-President Joe Biden said that he had “directed Special Operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track [Yahya] Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza. With our intelligence help, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders.”  

After Israeli forces resumed airstrikes across Gaza on March 18, 2025, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told the media in an interview that “the Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight.” The Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 400 people were killed that night, mostly children and women.  

Under international humanitarian law, each party to an armed conflict has an obligation to respect and ensure respect for the laws of war by its armed forces and others acting on its instructions or under its control. Governments must exert their influence—to the degree possible—to stop violations of the laws of war, investigate alleged war crimes by their forces, and appropriately prosecute those responsible.

During the hostilities, Israeli forces have carried out a range of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide in Gaza. Since taking office in January, the administration of President Donald Trump, instead of pressing to stop laws-of-war violations, has issued statements or taken actions that indicate support for or complicity in unlawful acts by Israeli forces. 

On January 25, President Trump proposed that regarding Gaza, he would “just clean out that whole thing,” effectively endorsing the mass forcible deportation of the Palestinian population from Gaza, a war crime, crime against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. 

The Trump administration has fully backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distributions have resulted in near-daily mass casualty incidents. The GHF system is run by two US private subcontracted companies and claims to be independent of any government. Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on Palestinian civilians seeking assistance at these sites, causing hundreds of casualties, including in acts that amount to war crimes. 

In addition to being a party to the conflict, the United States has responsibilities under international law for internationally wrongful acts. The International Law Commission, a United Nations expert body mandated to advance the development of international law, in 2001 adopted the Draft Articles on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts. The draft articles, which are widely accepted as reflecting customary international law, provide that a state bears responsibility under international law if it “aids or assists” another state to commit an internationally wrongful act “with knowledge of the circumstances.” 

The commission’s explanatory notes to article 16 of the Draft Articles clarify that assistance alone can trigger state responsibility if it contributes “significantly” to the commission of a wrongful act and when a state provides material aid subsequently used to commit human rights violations. The sale and supply of arms from one state to another, completed with the requisite “knowledge of the circumstances” of the internationally wrongful act, is a recognized article 16 violation. 

Both the Biden and second Trump administrations have provided massive arms sales and other security assistance to Israel. According to the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor, the United States has transferred at least $4.17 billion in arms to Israel between October 2023 and May 2025. The Security Assistance Monitor also assessed, based on State Department reports, that there had been, as of April 2025, 751 active Foreign Military Sales cases with Israel, valued at $39.2 billion. This was despite being aware that Israeli forces were repeatedly committing serious laws-of-war violations, including war crimes. 

In December 2023, Biden referred to Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing,” yet the administration continued its military assistance, providing at least $17.9 billion in the ensuing year. By March 2024, the United States had approved more than 100 military sales, including of thousands of small-diameter bombs, precision-guided munitions, bunker-buster bombs, and other munitions and materiel. In early January 2025, the Biden administration informed Congress of plans to sell Israel an additional $8 billion in weapons.

The Trump administration has ramped up military support, including approving the release of a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that Biden had temporarily withheld. On March 1, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the Trump administration had approved nearly $12 billion in security assistance to Israel and that he was using emergency authority to expedite the delivery of $4 billion of this assistance.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and dozens of media reports—including by the New York Times, the Washington Post, AFP, CNN, and NPR—have identified US weapons being used in Israeli attacks. 

The US government’s provision of arms to Israel, which have repeatedly been used to carry out apparent war crimes, has made the United States complicit in their unlawful use.

Human Rights Watch has long called on the United States and other governments to do more to prevent further atrocities by the Israeli government, including by ending arms sales and military assistance, imposing targeted sanctions on Israeli officials, and suspending preferential trade agreements. 

“International law holds a country legally complicit when it knowingly assists another nation to commit serious laws-of-war violations and other abuses,” Yager said. “The US public should know that US weapons provided to Israel are directly enabling atrocities in Gaza, deeply entangling the United States in the laws-of-war violations that Human Rights Watch and others are documenting.”

Click to expand Image Eighteen-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and the blockade in Gaza City, Gaza, July 21, 2025.  © 2025 Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images

In July, major news organizations published the image of 18-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a Palestinian child so emaciated that his bones protruded through his back, while his mom cradled him in her arms. Instead of a diaper, he wore a black plastic bag. 

Some online commentators have sought to downplay the image’s power by pointing to a pre-existing medical condition. But Muhammad is starving as the result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. This is a war crime that is affecting the entire population and, based on my research, is inflicting particularly profound suffering on children with disabilities like Muhammad. 

Humanitarian workers told me that restrictions on aid prevent them from bringing in special food that some children with disabilities or medical conditions need, while medical workers warned that children with disabilities are less likely to get care due to the Israeli government’s systematic assault on Gaza’s health care infrastructure. 

In mid-August, in Geneva, I joined the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for its session focused on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, governments are required to protect people with disabilities in situations of risks, including armed conflicts. The messagefrom disability groups was clear: governments need to press Israeli authorities to allow unimpeded, disability-inclusive humanitarian access and not leave children like Muhammad to suffer the consequences of intentional starvation.

There are countless examples of Palestinian children with disabilities thriving with adequate nutrition and health care. In just one example, 6-year-old Fadi al-Zant, who has cystic fibrosis and was severely malnourished, was evacuated to the United States from Gaza last year and survived. Osman Shahin, a 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who had lost 7 kilograms, regained weight after his family left Gaza for Bosnia.

But Muhammed and other children in Gaza do not have that chance. Between April and mid-July alone, more than 20,000 children in Gaza were hospitalized for acute malnourishment, 3,000 of them severely. Starvation of civilians is not an accident of war, it is a deliberate policy.

Muhammad’s image should move world leaders to use all their leverage with Israel, including an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, to stop Israeli authorities’ mass starvation policy. Muhammad’s disability does not make his starvation less cruel or unlawful; it makes it all the more urgent for countries to act now.

Click to expand Image UN Regional Coordinator Carol Flore-Smereczniak. © United Nations

Earlier this week, Burkina Faso’s junta expelled the top United Nations representative in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, declaring her “persona non grata” following a new UN report on violations against children in the country.

Flore-Smereczniak is the second senior UN official to be expelled by the junta, after Barbara Manzi was declared persona non grata in 2022, highlighting the junta’s growing intolerance for independent scrutiny.

The junta’s spokesperson accused Flore-Smereczniak of helping draft the April report, which documents the impact of Burkina Faso’s armed conflict on children. The junta dismissed the findings, which implicated Burkinabè authorities, pro-junta militias, and anti-government Islamist armed groups.

The report found 2,483 grave violations against 2,255 children, including killings, kidnappings, and the recruitment or use of children by armed groups and security forces between July 2002 and June 2024. Islamist armed groups committed 65 percent of the abuses, and the rest were by Burkinabè security forces and the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires for the Défense de la Patrie, VDPs), civilian auxiliaries assisting the armed forces.

The report also found a concerning increase in attacks on schools and noted that “the detention of children due to their alleged association with armed groups” was of great concern. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented abuses by all parties to the conflict against boys and girls since 2016, including attacks against students, teachers, and schools.

The junta has repeatedly criticized the UN in recent months. In March, the foreign minister condemned the UN’s “inappropriate” use of expressions such as “non-state armed groups to define the terrorists who bring grief to our brave people,” and its referring to VDPs as “militias.” In July, the foreign minister called on the UN to "refocus" their interventions in Burkina Faso to bring them in line with the “vision” of the country’s leader.

Since taking power in a 2022 coup, military authorities have systematically cracked down on the media, the political opposition, and dissent. Instead of trying to conceal abuses, the junta should engage with the UN to develop a plan to end them.

Click to expand Image The UN General Assembly Hall, New York, September 24, 2024. © 2024 Michael Kappeler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

Over the past two weeks, United Nations member countries started substantive negotiations for the first-ever UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation; a historic process that reflects major shifts in global economic policymaking and geopolitics. The treaty could replace the current patchwork system that deprives governments of considerable revenue and undermines their capacity to support human rights.

The treaty’s terms of reference, adopted by the UN General Assembly last August, establishes a framework convention and two protocols, focuses on cross-border services and on dispute prevention and resolution.

That governments around the world are debating tax challenges in the UN General Assembly, where each country has one vote, itself marks a shift towards fairer representation in international economic decision-making. The United States withdrew during the first round of negotiations in February 2025 and expressed its intention to reject the outcomes of the process. But dozens of other governments, including European Union members and others initially skeptical about the treaty, worked to find common ground during this first of eight negotiation sessions. The draft treaty will be submitted for adoption in 2027, during the UN General Assembly’s 87th session.

The convention and protocols should reach agreement among countries on how to fairly share taxing rights, the authority to impose taxes on income, assets, and economic activities, in a world where corporations commonly operate across borders. While governments had a range of views, there was “significant agreement,” as UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua noted, that “current international tax rules do not deal adequately with new business models.” 

Member states appeared keen to change rules that give governments taxing rights only when companies have a physical presence in their country, which doesn’t reflect today’s globalized and digitized economic reality. Proposed reforms, such as enabling governments to tax any company with a “significant economic presence” in their territory, could generate new revenues for all countries, which is especially critical to help developing countries close financing gaps for health care, education, social security, and other rights.

In a world of extreme inequality, mounting economic pressures on governments, and a fractured multilateral system, the negotiations for a UN tax treaty offer a ray of hope. When governments are willing to come together, it is possible to find potential avenues for advancing shared interests, including tax reforms that better align with human rights.

On August 17, police in Kazakhstan detained veteran human rights defender Bakhytzhan Toregozhina and held her for several hours apparently in connection to a criminal investigation on charges of participating in a banned extremist organization. She was picked up following social media posts she had made in support of Marat Zhylanbaev, an opposition activist who has been in prison on politically motivated charges since his conviction in November 2023 and is in deteriorating health.

Click to expand Image Bakhytzhan Toregozhina at the 17th annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award Ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 8, 2023. © 2023 Chuck Kennedy/US State Department Photo

Over the last two months, Toregozhina has posted regularly to her Facebook page, expressing concern about Zhylanbaev’s health. Between late May and mid-August, Zhylanbaev held an extended hunger strike to protest the fact of and conditions of his imprisonment. Toregozhina posted on July 25 that Zhylanbaev was faint, could not walk, and his body weight had dropped to “45 kilograms.” 

The Kazakh authorities swooped in; not to check on his health and ensure adequate medical attention for Zhylanbaev or to investigate his claims of poor prison conditions. And certainly not to remedy the injustice of his imprisonment in the first place (The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in April 2025 found Kazakhstan in breach of multiple human rights obligations over Zhylanbaev’s detention and called on the Kazakhstan government to facilitate his “immediate” release).

Instead, the authorities decided to target Toregozhina, someone who has fought tirelessly to bring attention to Zhylanbaev’s wrongful imprisonment, accusing her of “disseminating knowingly false information” about Zhylanbaev.

On July 31, an Almaty administrative court found Toregozhina guilty of the charges and fined her 78,640 Tenge (about US$145). The court concluded that her post about his health and body weight “created conditions for violating public order, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens or organizations or legally protected interests of society or the state.” 

Targeting one of Kazakhstan’s most well-known rights defenders for her peaceful activism is a clear case of intimidation and harassment.

Instead of shooting the messenger and penalizing Toregozhina for her human rights work, Kazakh authorities should recognize her posts for what they are: an important public record of rights violations perpetrated in Kazakhstan that the government itself should be working to address.

Click to expand Image Tamils perform rituals in memory of their deceased family members on the strip of land in Mullivaikkal where civilians were trapped in 2009 during the final weeks of the civil war in Sri Lanka, May 17, 2024. © 2024 Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo

(Geneva) – Sri Lankan security forces still harass families of victims of forced disappearances and misuse the country’s draconian counterterrorism law a year since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office with promises of reform, Human Rights Watch said today. The United Nations Human Rights Council should renew the mandates for the UN to collect and analyze evidence of abuses in Sri Lanka, along with continued monitoring and reporting on the situation.

On August 13, 2025, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that there had been almost no progress in accountability for widespread abuses by government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the 1983-2009 civil war, and that “the structural conditions that led to past violations persist.” Tens of thousands of victims of enforced disappearances, many last seen in military custody, remain unaccounted for.

“President Dissanayake pledged that he would adopt more rights-respecting policies, but very little has changed, particularly for Tamil victims of abuses,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The families of the disappeared continue to face threats, including for engaging with the UN, while prospects for justice in Sri Lanka are as remote as ever.”

In June, the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, visited the Chemmani mass grave near Jaffna, from which the bodies of over 100 people including children believed to have died in army custody have been recovered, and called for “robust investigations by independent experts with forensic expertise who can bring out the truth.” Over several decades, about 20 mass grave sites have been discovered in Sri Lanka, including those linked to the brutal security forces crackdown during the 1987-1989 uprising in southern Sri Lanka by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front or JVP), the formerly militant leftist party that is now the largest constituent of the Dissanayake government. None of these sites have been adequately investigated.

In 2020, the government withdrew its support for a UN Human Rights Council resolution adopted by consensus biannually since 2015 to advance justice. In 2021, the Council created the Sri Lanka Accountability Project to gather information and evidence for use in possible future trials. Many families of victims have braved possible retaliation by the authorities to share evidence with the project.

In the predominantly Tamil Northern and Eastern Provinces, the areas most affected by the war, there has been no apparent reduction under the Dissanayake administration in police and intelligence agencies’ efforts to monitor and intimidate victims’ families and human rights defenders.

A woman whose son was forcibly disappeared in army custody in 2008 said that in June, Terrorism Investigation Division police officers questioned her at her home for three hours. They asked her about her visits to Geneva, where she has engaged with the Accountability Project and the Human Rights Council.

“Many mothers [of the disappeared] are mentally affected by the [police] inquiries, monitoring, and intimidation,” she said. She believes that surveillance, including by the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has increased. “The monitoring by the CID is tighter now,” she said. “Sometimes they approach our children to get information about us. That is a type of threat.”

The police sometimes discourage people from attending events for war victims, and intimidate people there by filming memorial events. In August, counterterrorism police summoned Kanapathipillai Kumanan, a prominent Tamil journalist and rights defender, for questioning. One activist said that the authorities also “create isolation” by paying informers in communities to report on activists, while threatening others not to associate with certain campaigners or organizations. The monitoring is often directed at those who engage with the UN, including around the recent visit by Türk.

The Sri Lankan authorities continue to use counterterrorism powers to arbitrarily detain members of minority communities and harass activists. Police from the Terrorism Investigation Division have repeatedly questioned administrators of nongovernmental organizations about their funding. Administrators say they are sometimes unable to receive bank transfers due to the misapplication of rules purportedly intended to counter terrorist financing. In September 2023, the International Monetary Fund found that “broad application of counter-terrorism rules” restricted civil society scrutiny of official corruption.

Sri Lanka is being evaluated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization that combats money laundering and terrorist financing. Activists have raised concerns that the government is violating FATF’s code, which calls for “focused, proportionate and risk-based measures,” and warns against “unduly disrupting or discouraging” legitimate work by nonprofit organizations.

Since 2015, successive Sri Lankan governments have pledged to repeal the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which has been used to enable arbitrary detention and torture since it was introduced as a temporary measure in 1979. The pledge has also been a condition of Sri Lanka’s beneficial trading relationship with the European Union since 2017. Dissanayake made the same commitment during his election campaign.

However, the PTA is still being used to detain people without any evidence of involvement in terrorism. According to data in an August 2025 UN human rights report on Sri Lanka, 38 people were arrested under the law in 2024, and 49 in the first four months of 2025.

Mohamad Liyaudeen Mohamed Rusdi was arrested under the PTA on March 22 with a detention order signed by Dissanayake. When he was released on April 7, Dissanayake signed an unprecedented “restriction order,” including to report regularly to the police. Rusdi’s alleged crime was pasting a sticker opposing Israeli government policies. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka found a “total lack of evidence that Mr. Rusdi had committed any offense” and said it was “a stark example of the inherent dangers of the PTA and the propensity of law enforcement officials to deploy the PTA’s provisions in bad faith.”

Police held Mohamed Rifai Suhail, a 21-year-old student, for nine months without charge because he criticized Israel on social media. Although the police are required by law to notify the Human Rights Commission of all PTA detentions, they did not do so.

The Sri Lankan government should immediately and publicly direct security agencies to end the surveillance and harassment of victims’ families and activists, and announce a complete moratorium on the use of the PTA, Human Rights Watch said. The government should invite international experts to assist in the excavation of the Chemmani mass grave.

Sri Lanka should also support a resolution at the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session, scheduled to begin on September 8, to renew the Accountability Project and the UN’s ongoing monitoring and reporting for two years.

“Families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka have been fearless in their campaign for truth and justice, but they face government harassment every step of the way,” Ganguly said. “Foreign governments should press harder for credible investigations of mass graves and the prosecution of those responsible for serious crimes in Sri Lanka, wherever they can be brought to justice.”