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Human Rights Watch
Burkina Faso: Judicial Officers Feared Forcibly Disappeared
(Nairobi) – Burkina Faso authorities should urgently investigate and publicly report on the whereabouts of six judges and prosecutors as well as one lawyer who are feared to have been forcibly disappeared, Human Rights Watch said today.
The abductions of the judicial officers and lawyer since October 10, 2025, could amount to enforced disappearances and possible unlawful conscriptions into the armed forces. Their cases, as well as those of four journalists who were detained and later released between October 13 and 18, appear linked to a wave of repression by the Burkinabè military junta against the judiciary and the media.
“Burkina Faso’s human rights situation has become increasingly defined by abductions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and unlawful conscriptions of junta critics and activists,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The military junta should urgently locate and report on the seven missing people and release them if they have not been credibly charged with an offense.”
Several media and knowledgeable sources consulted by Human Rights Watch reported that between October 10 and 15, men in civilian clothes abducted the judicial officers, Urbain Meda, Seydou Sanou, Benoit Zoungrana, Moussa Dianda, and Alban Somé, from their homes in the capital, Ougadougou. On October 13, Arnaud Sempebré, a lawyer, was also reported missing.
Meda, Sanou, Zoungrana, and Dianda all worked at the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal, while Somé worked at the first instance court in Ouagadougou.
All of the judicial officers and the lawyer had been involved in a three-year case in which traders and customs officers had been charged with smuggling fuel to Islamist armed groups. A colleague of the judicial officers and other local sources said the abductions followed a July ruling by the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal that confirmed the first instance court’s verdict not to proceed with a criminal case. Sempebré, the lawyer, was representing those acquitted in the case.
The Burkinabè bar association stated on October 20 that it officially requested information about Sempebré’s whereabouts, to no avail, and had called for his immediate release.
Media and social media reported that unidentified men on October 20 abducted Jean-Jacques Wendpanga Ouedraogo, a former attorney general of the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal. Social media sources said he was released the following day. Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify this information. In August 2023, Ouedraogo ordered into custody Amsétou Nikiéma, known as Adja, a traditional healer reportedly close to the military, who had been charged with assault and battery, among other offenses.
A member of the Burkinabè judiciary expressed concern that those abducted were being punished for the ruling in the smuggling case. “For three years, members of the notorious intelligence services have been abducting critics with impunity,” he said.
The junta has previously targeted judicial officers, Human Rights Watch said. In a July 2024 speech, the junta leader, Ibrahim Traoré, sharply criticized the justice sector, attacking judges and prosecutors whom he called “corrupt,” “crooks,” and “sellouts,” and condemned justice-sector unions that had publicly opposed a change in the judiciary’s Superior Council.
The change, initiated in 2023, grants the council the authority to appoint prosecutors but only on recommendations from the justice minister. The unions had opposed this change, saying that it would undermine the independence of the judiciary and place prosecutors under executive influence.
“We have a serious problem [with the justice sector],” Traoré said. “We have initiated reforms … some tried to boycott … but … we will go ahead with or without them. The battle [against the judicial officers] will be launched.”
In August 2024, the junta unlawfully conscripted into military service seven judges and prosecutors, misusing a 2023 emergency law. At that time, a coalition of three justice system unions reacted with a statement and condemned the requisitions as “acts of humiliation and intimidation of judicial officers.”
Since the October 2022 military coup, Burkina Faso’s junta has increasingly cracked down on peaceful dissent, political opposition, and the media, shrinking the civic space in the country. Security forces have arbitrarily arrested, detained, forcibly disappeared, and unlawfully conscripted dozens of journalists. Some of them have been released, while others remain missing, such as the investigative journalist Serge Oulon.
Local and international media and nongovernmental organizations reported that between October 13 and 16, members of the intelligence services detained Michel Wendpouiré Nana, deputy editor of the newspaper Le Pays; Ousséni Ilboudo and Alain Zongo, the editor and publisher of the newspaper l’Observateur Paalga, respectively; and Zowenmanogo Dieudonné Zoungrana, director of the newspaper Aujourd’hui au Faso.
The authorities released them between October 14 and 18. The reasons for their arrests were not revealed. In late September, Zoungrana took part in an interview with Traoré. A Burkinabè activist shared the interview transcript on social media before it was aired by national television, raising concerns that Zoungrana was detained because the interview had been leaked.
Burkina Faso is a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Enforced disappearances are defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts.
“Independent courts and a free media are essential checks on the government’s power,” Allegrozzi said. “Burkina Faso authorities need to immediately halt any interference in the judiciary, ensure that judges and prosecutors can carry out their duties without fear, and stop the harassment of journalists and media outlets.”
Brazil Resumes Key Dialogue over Equality
This week Brazil is hosting the 4th National Conference on the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People, an ambitious effort to chart new directions for public policy on equality and inclusion. Beyond its national scope, the conference underscores Brazil’s reemergence as a key voice in global equality debates. And as many countries, including in the Global North, roll back support of LGBTQIA+ rights, the conference shows how the Global South can lead in renewing commitment to equality and human rights.
The conference seeks to convene government, civil society, and grassroots actors from across Brazil and shape a new National Plan for the Promotion of Human Rights and Citizenship of LGBTQIA+ People. Discussions are organized around themes of confronting violence, promoting decent work and income generation, advancing intersectionality and internationalization, and adopting a national policy on the rights of LGBTQIA+ people. Together, they reflect a comprehensive vision that links democracy, participation, and equality, and are expected to set the stage for renewed federal commitments and stronger policy implementation in the years ahead.
The first edition of the conference, held in 2008 under the theme “Human Rights and Public Policies: The Path to Ensure the Citizenship of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Travestis, and Transexuals,” was groundbreaking in embedding the rights of LGBTQIA+ people within Brazil’s broader social policy agenda. The second and third editions followed in 2011 and 2016. Former Brazilian President Michel Temer issued a decree to hold the conference, but it never happened. His successor President Jair Bolsonaro revoked the decree and adopted openly hostile rhetoric toward LGBTQIA+ populations.
The conference’s return comes at a pivotal moment. Violence against LGBTQIA+ people remains alarmingly high in Brazil, particularly against trans and gender-diverse people. Legal protections are robust, but enforcement remains a challenge. Meanwhile, lawmakers and gender-critical social movements continue to threaten hard-won rights, including around gender and sexuality education and gender-affirming care.
The conference can also serve as a model and galvanize other Latin American countries to strengthen their own participation, partnerships, and normative frameworks on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.
But advancing policy frameworks is only the beginning. Ensuring effective implementation, holding institutions accountable, and translating conference resolutions into equality demand sustained political will and resourcing. Brazil’s renewed engagement offers hope that transformative, inclusive policymaking in the Global South can shape not only national futures but also support the global struggle for human rights.
Malaysia: Abducted Refugee Detained in Myanmar
(Bangkok) – The Malaysian government should press Myanmar’s junta for the immediate release of a refugee family abducted from Kuala Lumpur in July 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. More than two years after her disappearance, Myanmar junta authorities announced on October 17, 2025, that they were detaining Thuzar Maung, a Myanmar pro-democracy activist, along with her husband and three children.
The junta said that Thuzar Maung, 48, and her family members were arrested for “illegally reentering” Myanmar and that an arrest warrant had been issued for her under Myanmar’s counterterrorism law in January 2023. Malaysian authorities should urgently reopen their investigation into the abduction of Thuzar Maung and her family from their home in Kuala Lumpur, which may amount to transnational repression, a cross-border violation of human rights against a country’s nationals.
“The Malaysian authorities should publicly press Myanmar’s junta to free Thuzar Maung and her family and investigate how this prominent refugee ended up in Myanmar,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Malaysian government is failing to protect refugees at risk, including children, and the role of Myanmar’s junta and possibly other governments needs to be fully explored and brought to light.”
Maung is a longtime advocate for democracy in Myanmar and for refugee and migrant rights in Malaysia. She fled Myanmar for Malaysia in 2015 to escape growing violence against Muslims. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, recognized her and her family as refugees. At the time of her abduction, she had over 93,000 followers on Facebook, where she would post criticism of abuses by the Myanmar junta following the February 2021 military coup.
The junta reported that the Myittha Township Court in Mandalay Region had issued an arrest warrant for Thuzar Maung under the junta-amended section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and section 512 of the Criminal Procedure Code for providing support to the opposition National Unity Government, which it has declared as a “terrorist organization.” Section 52(a) carries a prison sentence of three to seven years.
The announcement includes a photo allegedly of the five family members in custody with their eyes blacked out. It states that action will be taken “against those living abroad contacting terrorist groups, opposing the state, and providing financial support to terrorist groups.” No information was provided regarding the date of their arrest, any legal proceedings against the family, or where they are being held, meaning they remain forcibly disappeared.
On July 4, 2023, unidentified men abducted Thuzar Maung with her husband, Saw Than Tin Win, and her daughter and two sons from their home in Ampang Jaya, Kuala Lumpur. A friend on the phone with Maung at the time heard her yell that unknown men were entering the house, before being disconnected. CCTV footage captured a car with fake license plates entering their gated community before the call and exiting three hours later, at which point all of the family’s phones had been turned off.
On July 21, 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and other UN experts wrote to the Malaysian government, urging the authorities “to urgently advance an immediate, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation of the alleged enforced disappearance” of the family. The working group expressed concern that Thuzar Maung had been targeted for her human rights activism and that the risk of forcible return “would put their personal safety, liberty, integrity and life in danger and expose her to the serious risk of arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, summary execution, and lack of a fair trial.”
In September, the Malaysian government responded that the police investigation had found no physical evidence or witness testimony to suggest that the family was abducted or forcibly disappeared and that there was no record of their leaving the country. Instead, Malaysia detailed the family’s alleged history of leaving rental houses without notice. It also stated that it had sought assistance from the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, to inform Myanmar junta authorities of the family’s disappearance.
Since the 2021 coup, Malaysian authorities have summarily deported thousands of asylum seekers to Myanmar despite the risk to their lives and freedom, without assessing their asylum claims or other protection needs. Immigration raids and arrests have surged over the past year, with 34,000 between January and mid-May alone.
Malaysian authorities have forcibly returned foreign nationals, including asylum seekers and refugees, at the request of their home governments. Governments wrongfully designating nationals living abroad as “terrorists” reflect what UN experts said was their “profound concern regarding the reported rise in transnational repression” across Southeast Asia. Civil society supporting Myanmar nationals in Malaysia, including UNHCR-registered refugees, told Human Rights Watch of growing fears of arrest and forced returns.
The Myanmar junta has arrested an estimated 30,000 activists, journalists, humanitarian workers, and others since the coup, including thousands under the Counter-Terrorism Law. With millions of Myanmar nationals having fled the country, the junta has engaged in transnational repression to crack down on activists outside its borders, such as requesting deportations, revoking passports, and conducting digital surveillance.
Malaysia is this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the ASEAN summit and related events starting October 26 in Kuala Lumpur, ASEAN members and partners should urge Malaysia to reopen the investigation into Thuzar Maung’s disappearance and, more broadly, to end its abusive treatment of migrants and refugees. ASEAN as a bloc should ensure that regional instruments enshrine the rights of refugees, dissidents, activists, and other targets of transnational repression.
“ASEAN members and partners at the Kuala Lumpur summit should work together to bring an end to horrific crimes of transnational repression in the region,” Pearson said. “Refugees like Thuzar Maung and her family should be safe from harm, and Malaysia and other countries need to act to deter further efforts by the junta to abduct and disappear Myanmar refugees.”
Intersex Rights Advance Based on Evidence, Principle
Intersex Awareness Week is marked annually to recall a small group of protesters who picketed the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1996 for ignoring the rights of children born with sex variations. While the academy has not budged, medical institutions and governments around the world are increasingly recognizing that people born with intersex variations deserve bodily autonomy.
Intersex children are born with chromosomes, gonads, hormone function or internal or external sex organs that don’t match typical social expectations. For over half a century, doctors around the world have routinely performed surgery on newborns to standardize bodies so that they align with social gender norms. These nonconsensual surgeries are medically unnecessary to perform at such a young age. They also carry significant risk of trauma and other forms of lifelong harm, including a loss of sexual pleasure and/or function, incontinence, chronic pain, scarring, and early-onset osteoporosis.
Over 50 evaluations by United Nations human rights treaty bodies on the conduct of various countries have concluded that nonconsensual surgeries to alter the sex characteristics of children born with intersex traits are human rights violations. Countries including Malta, Greece, and Spain, as well as parts of Australia and India, have banned nonconsensual surgeries, while the UN Human Rights Council passed its first resolution on the issue last year and issued a comprehensive report this year.
In January, the US Department of Health and Human Services published a landmark report on intersex health equity that called for ending nonconsensual surgeries. In August, delegates of the Australian Medical Association unanimously supported a resolution to recognize the harm that medical professionals had inflicted on intersex people. “Recognising this harm is the first step,” a physician said in support of the resolution. “Next we must call for legislated protections, guidelines founded in lived experience and evidence.”
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in October urged that “Member States should enact legislation that explicitly and specifically prohibits any medical intervention on a person’s sex characteristics…without their prior, free, informed, express and documented consent.”
Intersex Awareness Week is a good reminder of how far things have come and how much further they need to go. The evidence of harm inflicted on intersex people is plentiful. Undoing it requires respecting the principle of bodily autonomy and integrity, a core human rights obligation.
EU to Sign Uzbekistan Partnership Deal Despite Rights Abuses
(Brussels, October 22, 2025) – Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will pay a high-level visit to Brussels on October 24, 2025, to sign a partnership deal with the EU setting out a new stage of closer relations and cooperation.
While the new EU-Uzbekistan Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement specifies respect for democratic principles and human rights and fundamental freedoms as an “essential element” of the agreement, Uzbekistan’s rights record has worsened in many areas since negotiations started six years ago, Human Rights Watch said today.
“In signing this agreement without requiring specific improvements to ensure the ability of independent civic groups or media professionals to carry out their work or address the country’s history of impunity for abuses, the EU has missed an important opportunity to bring about positive change,” said Iskra Kirova, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The EU and its member states should now insist that Uzbekistan fulfil its essential obligations under the new deal and be prepared to raise tough issues in bilateral relations.”
In the last several years, Uzbek authorities have ramped up restrictions on independent human rights activism and freedom of expression, targeting activists, bloggers, and others, including with unfounded criminal charges such as “insulting the president online.” At least two bloggers have been put into forced psychiatric detention in violation of their rights to liberty and security and health.
Nongovernmental organizations are subject to excessive and burdensome registration requirements and independent groups are prevented from registering. No progress has been made on a stalled code for nongovernmental groups. In June 2024, parliament passed a law allowing the authorities to designate as “undesirable” and ban from the country any foreigner on overly broad and vague grounds of contradicting state sovereignty or discrediting Uzbekistan. Consensual same sex relations between men remains criminalized.
In July 2022, security forces in Uzbekistan used unjustified, including lethal, force to disperse mainly peaceful protesters in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan’s autonomous republic. Since then, the authorities have largely denied accountability for the deaths and grave injuries that occurred. However, a peaceful Karakalpak blogger and lawyer, Dauletmurat Tajimuratov, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his alleged role in the protests. His allegations of ill-treatment and torture have been ignored.
Although Uzbekistan has eliminated state-imposed forced labor in its cotton sector, risks of forced labor and restrictions on freedom of association for agricultural workers in Uzbekistan persist.
The EU’s signing of the agreement with Uzbekistan takes place amid intensifying engagement between the EU and Central Asian countries with the first EU-Central Asia summit held in April 2025 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The summit declaration put freedom of expression and association, an enabling environment for civil society and independent media, and the protection of human rights defenders at the core of EU-Central Asia relations.
But these commitments have not resulted in substantial human rights improvements, and neither has the preferential EU market access granted to Uzbekistan in exchange for implementation of international labor and human rights conventions. Energy, transport, access to raw materials and security cooperation have instead dominated bilateral relations at the expense of advancements on rights.
Rights protections and the rule of law are essential to secure the EU’s interests in this partnership, including for sustainable trade and security cooperation, Human Rights Watch said. The European Parliament and EU member states that need to ratify the agreement in the coming months should assert that the continued stifling of civic activism, curbs on free expression and assembly, or the risks of forced labour, imperil bilateral relations.
“Signing this agreement is an important milestone,” Kirova said. “The EU should make clear that Uzbekistan’s human rights obligations are non-negotiable and that it will monitor closely and insist on the implementation of all aspects of the deal.”
Russian Forces Deliberately Attack UN Aid Convoy
On October 14, news broke that Russian forces, using drones, had attacked a United Nations interagency convoy delivering humanitarian aid to Bilozerka in the region of Kherson, southern Ukraine. The next day, a Russian-military affiliated Telegram channel posted video evidence of the attack for the world to see.
Click to expand Image Russian forces used quadcopter drones to attack a United Nations inter-agency convoy delivering humanitarian aid to Bilozerka in Khersonska region, in southern Ukraine, October 14, 2025. © 2025 Oleksandr Prokudin, head of Kherson Regional Military AdministrationHaving spent the better part of a year investigating similar Russian drone attacks in Kherson, talking to survivors, and analyzing hundreds of videos like this one from Bilozerka, I was still shocked but not surprised.
Russia’s military is using these, quadcopter drones with cameras that enable the operator to see in real time what they are striking, to conduct a brutal, devastating campaign in the Kherson region. Killing and injuring civilians in their hundreds each month, they are attacking people in their homes, farmers harvesting crops, ambulance teams responding to emergencies, and humanitarian workers trying to aid those most in need.
In its latest monthly report, the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported that short-range drones, similar to those used in the attack on the convoy, continue to be the leading cause of civilian casualties in areas near the front line, with 54 killed and 272 injured during September.
Less than 24 hours after the aid convoy was attacked, a 4-minute video taken by one of the drones was uploaded to Russian military-affiliated Telegram channels, showing in great detail how Russian operators flew at least three drones with explosives, striking two clearly marked UN aid trucks.
Based on a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, no worker was injured, but both trucks were damaged and set ablaze.
Click to expand Image Two screengrabs of the live video feed showing Russian quadcopter drone's moments before impacting clearly marked UN vehicles, October 15, 2025.The Russian drone operators knew they were targeting a UN convoy. That they shared the video for all to see indicates they do not believe they will face any consequences.
They should not count on it. The International Criminal Court (ICC), Ukrainian and domestic authorities from other countries are investigating war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine. The ICC has issued arrest warrants against six senior Russian officials – including President Vladmir Putin.
As Russia, the United States, and others who fear the court’s reach try to undermine the ICC, this brazen, unlawful attack should remind governments of their responsibility to stand up for justice and the institutions that pursue it.
Ecuador: Abusive Response to Protests
(Washington, DC) – Ecuadorian police and security forces have restricted freedom of assembly and at times used excessive force in their response to anti-government protests since mid-September, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since September 18, the country’s largest Indigenous organization has led protests following President Daniel Noboa’s decision to scrap diesel fuel subsidies. While some protesters have engaged in violence, most demonstrations have been peaceful. The government responded by deploying the military, which has used excessive force against protesters on several occasions. The government accused protesters of “terrorism” and froze the bank accounts of environmental and Indigenous groups and leaders.
“The Ecuadorian government should respect the rights of protesters and respond to the grievances that periodically bring Ecuadorians to the streets,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Protesters who engage in violence should be investigated, but that does not justify stigmatizing other demonstrators or using excessive force.”
Human Rights Watch verified 15 videos of protests, showing soldiers or police officers forcibly dispersing peaceful demonstrations and using tear gas and other “less lethal” weapons recklessly and indiscriminately. Researchers also reviewed official documents suspending a media outlet and opening investigations against environmental defenders and Indigenous people. They also sought comment from the Ministries of Interior and Defense regarding allegations of excessive force and protest-related deaths.
On September 12, President Noboa eliminated the country’s longstanding diesel subsidy, raising fuel prices by over 50 percent. He said that the subsidy cost the government nearly US$1.1 billion annually and undermines the “sustainability of public finances.” Mirroring protest movements of past years, various organizations and workers immediately announced demonstrations in response to the decision.
On September 16, President Noboa issued a presidential decree declaring a state of emergency in 7 of the country’s 24 provinces, citing “serious internal unrest” caused by protesters blocking roads. The decree suspended the right to freedom of assembly and triggered deployment of the armed forces. Although the Constitutional Court later limited the measure to two provinces, President Noboa issued a new decree on October 4 covering 10 additional provinces. The court has yet to review it.
Since January 2024, President Noboa has repeatedly relied on states of emergency to deploy the military to Ecuador’s streets and prisons, which has led to increased reports of human rights violations. He also declared that the country is experiencing an “internal armed conflict” in an effort to justify wider and potentially more lethal use of military forces, which the Constitutional Court has called into question.
On September 18, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and other Indigenous movements announced a national strike in response to the diesel subsidy cut, poor access to health care and education, and oil extraction on Indigenous land. Demonstrations have spread nationwide, evolving into broader anti-government protests.
Some protesters have engaged in acts of violence, including damage to public and private property. In September, Indigenous people held 17 soldiers for three days. The government also reported two attacks on official convoys carrying the president. In an email sent to Human Rights Watch on October 17, the acting minister of defense cited “lethal aggressions” against soldiers and cases of “kidnappings [and] torture.”
As of October 18, the Alliance for Human Rights in Ecuador, a coalition of human rights groups, had received 377 reports of human rights violations during the protests, resulting in at least 296 people injured and two deaths.
In one video Human Rights Watch verified, security forces near the Huaycopungo community in Imbabura province are seen firing tear gas canisters at a low trajectory at houses with apparently no crowds present. Tear gas should always be launched in an arc toward open areas, and force should only be used when necessary to achieve a legitimate objective.
Another video in Otavalo shows a security officer firing projectiles from a projectile launcher at close range directly at a protester as he flees. It is not possible to identify the type of projectile used. Using less lethal weapons that way is not justifiable under international human rights standards and creates a risk of serious harm.
Efraín Fueres died at the protests in Cotacachi, Imbabura province on September 28. Human Rights Watch verified three videos shared on social media showing a person human rights organizations, media outlets, and community members said is Fueres. One video, filmed by a static CCTV camera and posted to X, shows Fueres being carried by a group of four people amid dozens of people fleeing what appears to be tear gas.
The people carrying Fueres leave him on the ground and three flee as armored vehicles approach. A person in a blue shirt remains with Fueres. Another returns and appears to carry out hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation, then flees again.
The armored vehicles return and five people in military uniforms get out and beat Fueres and the other man for several minutes. One security force member fires tear gas. The soldiers then leave, and protesters eventually carry Fueres away.
The human rights organization Fundación Regional de Asesoría en Derechos Humanos, known as INREDH, reported that Fueres died from a gunshot wound to the back that damaged his lung. The Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into the apparent illegitimate use of force that caused Fueres’s death.
The Alliance for Human Rights also reported that at least 205 people were detained. Some protesters have been charged with terrorism.
The government has also taken steps to undermine the freedom of expression and association of Indigenous organizations and environmental groups, Human Rights Watch said.
On September 22, the telecommunications regulatory agency suspended UHF Channel 47, operated by the community media outlet Indigenous and Peasant Movement of Cotopaxi (TV MICC), for 15 days. The decision, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, cites a “secret” report indicating that the media outlet supposedly “harm[ed] national security.” Two other community media outlets reported that they have been temporarily suspended under similar circumstances.
Since September 19, the authorities have frozen bank accounts of Indigenous and environmental organizations and leaders, reportedly on the basis of “secret” intelligence reports. The Ministry of Interior alleged that the groups had funded violent protests. A new Social Transparency Law imposes greater oversight on nongovernmental organizations and allows authorities to freeze their bank accounts without a court order. Under the law, the government can also dissolve organizations that commit “grave” infractions, such as carrying out various unauthorized activities.
On September 25, the Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into the “unjustified private enrichment” of over 50 people, including the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and members of environmental organizations, such as Pachamama and Yasunidos.
“The Ecuadorian government should ensure accountability for abuses and recognize the importance of the issues protesters are raising in the streets,” Goebertus said.
Vietnam: Former Political Prisoner Rearrested
(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities arrested a former political prisoner, Huynh Ngoc Tuan, on October 7, 2025, for his comments on social media, Human Rights Watch said today.
Police in Dak Lak province charged him with “conducting propaganda against the state” under article 117 of the penal code. They should immediately release him. Vietnamese law permits the authorities to deny Huynh Ngoc Tuan legal counsel and family visits while the investigation in ongoing, which may take months or even years. If convicted, he faces up to 12 years in prison.
“The Vietnamese authorities have persecuted Huynh Ngoc Tuan for decades because he exposes social injustice in Vietnam,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government simply cannot tolerate any criticism, so they lock him up.”
Huynh Ngoc Tuan’s arrest is among a new wave of arrests that raises serious concern about the government’s intensifying crackdown on freedom of expression prior to the 14th Communist Party Congress expected in January 2026. The party congress, held every five years since 1986, brings together officials who select the politburo, the party’s leadership, the leader of the national assembly, and the country’s president and prime minister. A staged national election, that is neither free nor fair, is scheduled for March.
Huynh Ngoc Tuan, 62, was first arrested in 1992 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for his fiction writing, which the authorities deemed politically unacceptable. After being released in 2002, he resumed his dissident activities, writing a memoir detailing his 10 years in various prisons, and commenting on domestic and international socio-political issues. He campaigned for media freedom, freedom of speech, basic civil and political rights, and democracy, claiming as his motto: “I speak out, therefore I am.”
The authorities have also targeted Huynh Ngoc Tuan’s family. In 2021, his daughter, Huynh Thuc Vy, served 30 months in prison for “disrespecting the national flag.” In June and August 2025, police prohibited Huynh Ngoc Tuan’s son, Huynh Trong Hieu, from leaving Vietnam for “security reasons.” In 2012, Human Rights Watch gave Huynh Ngoc Tuan and Huynh Thuc Vy Hellman/Hammett freedom of expression awards for their “courage and conviction in the face of political persecution.”
In a social media post in July, Huynh Ngoc Tuan called on the Vietnamese government to act consistently with its “international legal commitments, especially in regard to human rights. Repealing repressive laws, ensuring freedom of press, and respecting civil society are not only necessary steps to improve the domestic situation but also a long-term strategy to build a resilient international alliance.”
On October 7, police in Dak Lak province also arrested Y Nuen Ayun, a Montagnard pastor at the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highland and charged him with “undermining the unity policy” under article 116 of the penal code. The authorities accused him of “repeatedly providing fabricated information about religious activities in the Central Highlands, [and] slandering the government for arresting and oppressing people who participated in ‘Christian Protestantism.’”
On October 6 and 8, police in Gia Lai province arrested the land rights activist Vo Thi Phung and her alleged accomplice Nguyen Van Tong for allegedly opposing a groundbreaking ceremony at an industrial park, a development project for which local authorities had confiscated people’s land. The authorities charged both with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state” under article 331 of the penal code.
On October 9, police in Nghe An province arrested a blogger, Nguyen Duy Niem, and charged him with conducting propaganda against the state under penal code article 117. The authorities prosecuted him for allegedly being affiliated with the Collective for Democracy and Pluralism, a pro-democracy group founded in France in 1982 to campaign for civil and political rights in Vietnam. The police had previously arrested Quach Gia Khang in March and Tran Khac Duc in November 2024 for allegedly being affiliated with this group.
During the first 10 months of 2025, the authorities arrested at least 40 people for criticizing the government or for being allegedly affiliated with independent religious or political groups. They were charged with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state” (article 331), conducting propaganda against the state (article 117), or “undermining the unity policy” (article 116).
In late August and early September, police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested the democracy activists Ho Sy Quyet, Tran Quang Trung, Tran Quang Nam, and Nguyen Van Tu. In the arrest notices sent to their families, police did not cite any concrete reason for their arrests.
“Vietnam was just re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva,” Gossman said. “The Vietnamese government should demonstrate it belongs on the council by immediately releasing everyone detained for exercising their basic rights.”
Saudi Arabia: Spate of Executions of Child Offenders
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities on October 20, 2025, executed a man convicted of alleged crimes committed as a child, Human Rights Watch said today. Abdullah al-Derazi had been sentenced to death on terrorism charges related to participating in protests and funeral processions. He was the 300th person executed by Saudi authorities in 2025.
The authorities have been carrying out executions at an unprecedented rate in 2025 without apparent due process, including at least one execution of a known journalist and at least 198 for nonviolent drug-related offenses. A second person, Jalal al-Labbad, who was executed on August 21, was convicted on similar charges related to participating in protests when he was a child.
“With the execution of Abdullah al-Derazi, Saudi authorities reached two horrific milestones: 300 executions in the first 10 months of 2025 and the second execution of a person accused of committing crimes as a child,” said Joey Shea, researcher for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at Human Rights Watch. “These executions should shatter any remaining doubts globally about Saudi Arabia’s dire human rights record.”
Al-Derazi belonged to the country’s Shia Muslim minority, who have long suffered systemic discrimination and violence by the government. Saudi police arrested him in August 2014 after beating him severely in the street, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) reported. Saudi authorities subjected him to prolonged solitary confinement, other forms of torture including beatings and burning his face and around his eye, and forced him under torture to sign a confession, ESOHR reported.
Saudi Arabia’s notorious Specialized Criminal Court sentenced al-Derazi to death in February 2018 for protest-related offenses allegedly committed at age 17 under the country’s counterterrorism law, according to court documents. In 2023, the ESOHR and MENA Rights Group learned that the Supreme Court had issued a secret ruling upholding al-Derazi’s death sentence.
On October 20, 2025, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry announced Al-Derazi’s execution, alleging that he had committed “terrorist crimes” and “establish[ed] a terrorist organization aimed at destabilizing security and firing on security headquarters and security personnel with the intent to kill them, in collaboration with a group from the same organization.”
On August 21, the authorities executed Jalal al-Labbad, who was 15 years old at the time of his alleged offenses. Saudi authorities arrested al-Labbad in 2017 for participating in demonstrations and funeral processions, the ESOHR reported. Al-Labbad's family was not informed of his execution date and reportedly learned about his death through the media, United Nations human rights experts said in a news release on September 5. The UN experts called on the Saudi government to “immediately return Mr. al-Labbad’s body to his relatives and permit an independent medico-legal examination.”
The charges against both men accused of offenses committed as children were based
almost exclusively on their confessions. Human Rights Watch has documentedlongstandingviolations of due process and fair trial rights in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system, including using forced confessions against children sentenced to death, making it unlikely that either al-Labbad or al-Derazi received a fair trial.
Saudi Arabia is a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which strictly prohibits the use of capital punishment for offenses committed by individuals under age 18. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances as a cruel and inhumane punishment.
Saudi courts have sentenced at least six other children accused of offenses to death, including Yousef al-Manasif, Ali al-Mabiouq, Jawad Qureiris, Ali al-Subaiti, Hassan al-Faraj, and Mahdi al-Mohsen. These five remain in danger of execution on similar charges, despite calls by UN experts and human rights groups to halt executions for offenses allegedly committed as children.
In November 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that the detentions of al-Labbad, al-Derazi, al-Manasif, Qureiris, and al-Faraj were arbitrary.
International human rights law, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Saudi Arabia, obligate countries that use the death penalty to only do so for the “most serious crimes” and in exceptional circumstances. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement in November 2022 about the alarming rate of executions in Saudi Arabia after it ended a 21-month unofficial moratorium on the use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses.
“While the Saudi government continues its efforts to whitewash its dismal rights reputation, global celebrities in entertainment and sport offered huge sums there should consider whether they are helping to provide cover for the execution of more men accused of offenses committed as children,” Shea said.
Feminist Foreign Policy During a Global Backlash
When governments convene this week in Paris for a conference on feminist foreign policy, there will be a lot to talk about. The French government’s description of the event laments that progress toward gender equality “is not being made fast enough.” That is an epic understatement.
We are deep in a global backlash against women and girls’ rights. Reproductive rights are under attackaround the world. At the United Nations and other international bodies, anti-feminist governments, increasingly led by the United States, are working to undermine women’s rights, and space to be heard is closing. In Afghanistan, Taliban oppression is driving demands to create an international crime of gender apartheid. We see discussions about whether women should be allowed to vote.
Misogyny is a favorite tool of authoritarians. Too many actors are ceding the field to them. The United States and European countries, including France, have slashed aid, harming the work of many women’s rights groups in countries around the world
Feminist foreign policy was a term coined in Sweden in 2014. Although Sweden later stepped back, by 2024, a dozen more countries from Europe, Latin America, and North Africa had pledged to implement a feminist foreign policy. France published its strategy in March.
The countries that come together in Paris should play a lead role in blocking the erosion of women’s rights, taking an intersectional approach centering the voices of marginalized women, including those with disabilities and on the frontlines of the climate crisis. They should recognize that language is worth fighting for, in UN Security Council resolutions and elsewhere. “Workarounds,” such as avoiding the use of “gender” in resolutions, undermine gains.
But as France also pointed out, at the current pace, the UN predicts we will achieve gender equality in 300 years. Countries implementing a feminist foreign policy should both fight against backsliding and continue insisting on progress.
They should push for all countries to fund protection against sexual and gender-based violence and ensure access to health, education, and housing.
They should insist on women’s rights defenders being heard in Security Council debates, channel support to female peacekeepers, and push for women’s equal participation in peace negotiations, treaty drafting, and other international forums. They should move forward with a planned International Court of Justice case on violations of the women’s rights convention and create an international crime of gender apartheid through a UN crimes against humanity treaty.
We hope the Paris meeting will produce a sense of urgency, unity, determination, and willingness to fight.
EU Launches New LGBTIQ+ Strategy
This month, the European Commission released its LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2026–2030, a renewed and ambitious step in the European Union’s commitment to equality, inclusion, and human rights. Building on the 2020–2025 framework, it reaffirms the goal of making “a Union of Equality” a lived reality, while confronting the surge in anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric and violence across Europe and beyond.
The strategy aims to strengthen the EU’s legal and policy framework against discrimination, calling for the full implementation of the Equal Treatment Directive and stronger safeguards against hate speech, hate crimes, and “conversion practices.” It also reinforces commitments to inclusive education, equitable health care, and recognition of diverse families across member states.
By embedding LGBTIQ+ equality in EU external action, the strategy positions the EU as a global defender of LGBTIQ+ rights. Through the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument and the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme, the EU pledges continued funding for human rights defenders and civil society worldwide, making equality a pillar of EU development and foreign policy. These commitments are crucial as the EU negotiates its next seven-year budget, especially at a time when cuts to foreign aid are hurting LGBTIQ+ organizations worldwide.
The strategy comes at another critical juncture: Within the EU, crackdowns on LGBTIQ+ rights in countries including Hungary,Slovakia, and Bulgaria highlight the EU’s mixed record and the need for more concerted action by the commission to hold member states accountable. These trends mirror a global backlash marked by the spread of anti-LGBTIQ+ and anti-gender narratives, the criminalization of same-sex relations, and the targeting of transgender people. The new EU strategy seeks to anchor LGBTIQ+ equality as essential to democratic resilience, linking internal coherence with external credibility.
Nonetheless, challenges persist. Implementation will depend heavily on member states’ political will, and enforcement mechanisms remain limited. Moreover, while external funding is vital, ensuring that it reaches grassroots actors in repressive contexts will require greater flexibility and direct-access mechanisms.
Overall, the LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2026–2030 is a reaffirmation of the EU’s aspiration to be a global human rights leader. It sends a clear message: protecting LGBTIQ+ rights is central to democracy, social justice, and the EU’s identity at home and abroad. The EU and its member states should honor the ambitions articulated in the strategy in political and financial decisions both domestically and internationally.
Iran: Three Prisoners Dead after Denied Medical Care
(Beirut) – Three women died in Qarchak prison, a Tehran women’s prison notorious for abysmal conditions, between September 16 and 25, 2025, following a lack of medical care, Human Rights Watch said today.
The deaths in custody of Soudabeh Asadi, Jamile Azizi, and 42-year-old political prisoner Somayeh Rashidi highlight Iranian authorities’ violation of prisoners’ right to life by causing or contributing to their deaths through denial of medical care. These cases point to the Iranian authorities’ long-standing policy of denying prisoners’ medical care and are a subset of the brutal treatment that puts Iranian prisoners’ lives at risk.
“Prisons in Iran, especially Qarchak, have become places of torment and death where prisoners’ dignity and basic rights are systematically ignored,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “For decades, the authorities have not only failed to improve conditions but have deliberately used the denial of even the most basic rights, such as access to medical care, as a tool of repression and punishment against prisoners.”
The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules) requires that states provide prisoners access to adequate medical care.
Shahr-e Rey prison, known as Qarchak, is notorious for its inhumane conditions including poor hygiene, severe overcrowding, and inadequate access to basic facilities and medical care. Circumstances are so dire that many prisoners have gone on hunger strikes in protest. Qarchak has become a stark symbol of the Iranian government’s continued violation of prisoners’ human rights.
For years, human rights organizations, activists, and UN experts and bodies have raised concerns about the prison’s conditions and authorities’ denial of medical care. In August 2025, Human Rights Watch again raised alarms about the dire situation of women political prisoners, including ailing detainees who had been transferred to Qarchak’s quarantine section after the June 23 Israeli attack on Evin prison.
Among those transferred in June was Rashidi, who was arrested in April 2025 for writing protest slogans in Tehran, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), a US-based human rights group. Rashidi died in a hospital on September 25, ten days after she was taken to Mofatteh Hospital in Varamin following a seizure in prison, HRANA reported. On September 25, the judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan, confirmed the death of a prisoner identified as “S.R.”
Doctors identified Rashidi’s delayed hospitalization as the primary cause of her irreversible decline, an informed source told HRANA. While she was in prison, Rashidi was sometimes unable to walk or care for herself due to her health problems, according to HRANA. Despite the fact that judicial and prison authorities and medical staff were all aware of Rashidi’s condition, authorities denied her timely and adequate medical care, providing her with sedatives and psychiatric drugs that worsened her symptoms, according to HRANA. Prison administrators even accused Rashidi of faking illness when she became so sick that other prisoners had to carry her to the clinic on September 15, sources told Human Rights Watch.
Consistent with authorities’ long-standing patterns of denial, distortion, and evading responsibility, within several days after Rashidi’s death, the judiciary claimed that she had a history of drug use and neurological disorders and received appropriate treatment in prison.
Rashidi’s death in custody came in the wake of two other women prisoners’ deaths. According to HRANA, Asadi, who was held in Qarchak on financial charges, died on September 16 after authorities denied her medical care and delayed her transfer to a hospital. On September 19, Azizi, who was detained on charges unknown to Human Rights Watch, was taken to the prison clinic with heart attack symptoms. After examining her, doctors told her there was nothing wrong and that she should return to the prison ward where she died shortly thereafter, a source told HRANA.
A woman human rights defender who was formerly held in Qarchak told Human Rights Watch that prison clinic officials sent her back to the prison ward without running any tests despite excruciating chest pain and intentionally delayed her transfer to an external hospital even though her condition was worsening. “They [authorities] expose us all [prisoners] to death,” she said.
The three women’s deaths are the latest in a long-standing documented policy of authorities denying prisoners access to healthcare, sometimes to punish and silence dissent. In an April 2022 report, Amnesty International detailed the circumstances surrounding the deaths in custody of dozens of men and women in 30 prisons across the country since 2010 as a result of denial of medical care. Many cases of denial of medical care and deaths in custody—in particular, prisoners detained for ordinary offenses and those from marginalized communities—goes unreported. Well-founded fears of reprisals by the authorities also severely hinder many families’ attempts to advocate for their loved ones.
On October 9, authorities transferred women political prisoners from Qarchak prison to Ward Six of Evin prison. Activists and human rights organizations have reported that they are held in poor conditions without access to basic necessities. The situation of prisoners returned to Evin prison is concerning given that Israel’s June 23 airstrikes resulted in extensive damage to vital facilities there, including the clinic and visitation hall.
Authorities continue to deny political prisoners in both Qarchak and Evin prisons access to adequate medical care. Sources told Human Rights Watch that Maryam Akbari Monfared, 48, has not been taken to an external facility to receive necessary back and spinal surgery and specialized treatment, without which she is at risk of paralysis. Despite transferring women political prisoners to Evin prison, authorities have continued to hold Akbari Monfared in Qarchak prison in an apparent attempt to punish her. Akbari Monfared has been imprisoned for 15 years on the vaguely worded charge of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) without a single day of leave.
Warisha Moradi, a Kurdish activist on death row in Evin prison, also requires urgent medical care for several medical conditions, a source told Human Rights Watch.
Scores of other ailing prisoners, including women political prisoners such as Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurdish activist, remain deprived of medical care in prisons across the country.
Under international law, states have an obligation to carry out independent, impartial, transparent, effective, and thorough investigations into potentially unlawful deaths, including those occurring in custody. Consistent with historical patterns of impunity, Iran’s authorities have systematically failed to conduct such investigations into cases of deaths in custody, including those of prisoners. In many cases, they have simply denied allegations of intentionally depriving prisoners adequate medical care, sometimes within hours after the death, or blamed them on “suicides” or substance abuse.
Iran’s authorities must immediately provide timely and adequate medical care, including specialized treatment outside of prisons, to all prisoners, Human Rights Watch said.
“The international community should apply unwavering pressure on Iran’s authorities so they address the dire conditions prisoners endure throughout the country, including in Qarchak, and ensure proper medical care for all detainees,” Page said.
Japan Should Defend the International Criminal Court
On October 9, Human Rights Watch with Tokyo-based Human Rights Now and Peace Boat held an event at the Japanese Diet to press the Japanese government to step up its efforts to defend the International Criminal Court(ICC). The ICC, a court of last resort for victims of serious crimes around the world, has been under extreme pressure from the United States.
In February, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions targeting the ICC and its supporters, aimed at shielding Israeli and US officials from the court’s scrutiny. ICC judges in November 2024 had issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a now-deceased Hamas official.
US sanctions have serious effects that could severely undermine victims’ access to justice. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions against the ICC prosecutor, his two deputies, six ICC judges, a United Nations human rights expert, and three leading Palestinian human rights groups. There is concern that the US will sanction the entire ICC.
At the event, which was endorsed by three bipartisan caucuses, Nonpartisan Association for Humanitarian Diplomacy, Parliamentary Association for Supporting Democratization of Myanmar, and Nonpartisan Parliamentary Association for Reconsidering Human Rights Diplomacy, nearly 20 Diet members urged the Japanese government to take stronger measures to protect the ICC.
“Japan’s international credibility relies on our actions,” said Masahiko Shibayama, a former education minister.
Japan has been a strong supporter of the ICC since its inception in 2002. It has nominated three of the court’s judges, past and present, and the current president, Judge Tomoko Akane.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya has raised concerns about the sanctions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio but Japan has yet to speak publicly on this issue. Japanese groups criticized the government for declining to join cross-regional statements backing the court. “[I]t begs the question of what Japan is really doing,” said Diet member Yasue Funayama.
As the ICC faces a grave threat, Japan’s government should use every opportunity to publicly express its support for the court, condemn the US sanctions, and call on President Trump to revoke the executive order. It should help provide the ICC with the resources it needs, protect court officials by ratifying the 2002 Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the ICC, and act to mitigate the effects of US sanctions. Japan should stand up for justice.
Ceasefire or Not, EU Should Keep Pressure on Israel to End Abuses
As European Union leaders and foreign ministers prepare for meetings to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, some of their representatives in Brussels, and Israel’s new ambassador to the EU, have been pushing for the European Commission to amend or withdraw its proposals to sanction “extremist” Israeli ministers and suspend the EU-Israel trade deal. Caving to that pressure would be yet another blow to the EU’s credibility and to hopes for human rights and justice.
Several EU governments have taken unilateral action in response to Israel’s escalating atrocities. While these measures fell short of fulfilling states’ obligations under the United Nations Genocide Convention, they helped generate pressure to reach a ceasefire. Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich risk spoiling those efforts, having already threatened to quit the government in opposition to the ceasefire deal.
Both have called for ethnic cleansing, starvation, and other egregious abuses against the Palestinians, and their statements are evidence of genocidal intent in Gaza. In June, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway sanctioned the two ministers. Some EU governments declared them personae non gratae, yet the EU as a whole has failed to act, unable to reach the unanimity necessary to sanction them.
EU states have also yet to approve suspending the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, despite finding Israel in breach of article 2 of the deal, which identifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as an essential element. The fragile ceasefire in Gaza is no reason to drop consideration of the measure. The EU’s own review, focused on the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, references damning UN reports and a landmark July 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s occupation to be unlawful and marred by serious abuses, including apartheid. Ceasefire or not, those egregious abuses persist and are incompatible with the agreement’s human rights clause.
Targeted sanctions and the deal’s suspension are also included in the annex to the September 2025 New York Declaration on the implementation of a “two-state solution,” spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia. While most EU states backed the UN resolution endorsing the declaration and several recognized a Palestinian state, few have acted on those commitments. Notably, the EU continues to trade with Israeli settlements, despite referring to them as illegal and “an obstacle to a two-state solution” and in breach of clear obligations laid out by the ICJ.
Rather than easing pressure now, the EU should act on its own findings, uphold international law, and end the impunity that fuels Israel’s past and ongoing crimes.
For the US, a 180-Degree Turn on Refugees
The Trump administration is poised to mount a two-pronged attack on refugee resettlement. The first prong is quantitative: refugee admissions would be slashed from 125,000 in the fiscal year that just ended to 7,500. The second is qualitative: selecting who among the world’s 42.7 million refugees would be chosen for rescue.
The US refugee resettlement program historically rescued persecuted people from all racial and religious backgrounds, but according to documents obtained by the New York Times, the administration may now prioritize resettlement for “refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate.” What does that mean? Well, the only groups specifically identified are white, Afrikaner South Africans, who have already been prioritized for admission, and now, specifically, Europeans supposedly persecuted because of their “opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.”
In other words, the Trump administration will prioritize the immigration of people who oppose the immigration of other people. And the racial implications of these policy shifts are easily inferred.
Refugees are defined not only as people with well-founded fears of being persecuted, but also as people who have fled their countries. But have they? US officials looking for 7,500 refugees to resettle will be hard pressed to find teeming camps in Namibia overflowing with white South Africans or right-wing xenophobes from Germany huddled for safety in Swiss camps. That’s because there aren’t any.
Such camps do exist, but they hold Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh, Sudanese refugees in Chad, and Afghan refugees in Pakistan. What has stopped many countries of first arrival from forcibly returning refugees to danger has been third-country resettlement programs that relieve some of the pressure on local host states and remind them that the world is watching.
A prime example is what is happening to Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The Washington Post recently reported on Mursal, a 28-year-old Afghan woman who had a protection letter and resettlement offer from the US government. She is one among the many Afghans who the Pakistani authorities have forced back into Afghanistan since President Trump suspended resettlement. Now in hiding, she told the Post: “Everyone knows we worked with the U.S. … We fear what will happen if someone informs the Taliban’s intelligence unit.”
It’s bad enough that the refugee lifeline has been cut, but the insertion of nonrefugees into the few remaining refugee admission places adds deep insult to even deeper injury.
Chad: Constitutional Change Threatens Rule of Law, Democracy
(Nairobi) – Chad’s new constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits is a serious setback for the rule of law and democracy, Human Rights Watch said today. The change paves the way for President Mahamat Idriss Déby to remain in power indefinitely, further weakening the prospects for a meaningful, democratic change of government in line with international norms, including the rights to vote and political participation.
“By removing presidential term limits, Chad’s authorities have dismantled an important safeguard against authoritarianism,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of reinforcing democratic norms that allow for a competitive political field in periodic, free, and fair elections, the government has cemented the foundations of one-man rule.”
On October 3, 2025, the president finalized the constitutional changes, which had been fast-tracked and approved by both chambers of the parliament after they were voted on in mid-September. The ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (Mouvement patriotique du salut, or known as MPS), which dominates the National Assembly, overwhelmingly approved sweeping amendments to constitutional provisions that remove limits on presidential terms and lengthen each term from five to seven years. Some opposition lawmakers, however, boycotted the vote, describing the process as unconstitutional and illegitimate.
The government defended the reforms as “technical,” but the changes legalize indefinite rule for Déby, who has held power since 2021 following the death of his father, former President Idriss Déby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years.
The abolition of term limits also removes a key constitutional check that guarantees the peaceful transfer of power, Human Rights Watch said. Without this safeguard, one person and one party could dominate the presidency. The move follows a pattern of democratic backsliding across Central Africa, where governments have used constitutional amendments to entrench their rule, a trend analysts refer to as “constitutional coups.” This is despite the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, to which Chad is a party, and which states that “any amendment or revision of the constitution … which is an infringement on the principles of democratic change of government” is an “illegal means of … maintaining power” that should be sanctioned. In Chad, where opposition parties and civil society already face government harassment and intimidation, the change further solidifies MPS rule.
In the run-up to April 2021 elections, held just before the late Déby Itno’s death, security forces violently dispersed peaceful opposition protests in N’Djamena on several occasions, firing tear gas, beating protesters, and arbitrarily arresting opposition members and civil society activists.
Following Déby Itno’s death, the military, which was led by Mahamat Idriss Déby, seized control of the country.
While military authorities promised a transition to democracy after the takeover, instead they followed a familiar script of consolidating power and restricting political freedoms, Human Rights Watch said. The military transition following Déby Itno’s death should never have occurred. According to Chad’s then-constitution, adopted in 2018, in the event of the death of a president, the president of the National Assembly should provisionally lead the country for 45 to 90 days before organizing a new election.
Violence came to a head in October 2022 when protesters demanded a transition to civilian rule. Security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing scores, and arrested hundreds before sending them to the maximum-security Koro Toro prison in the north.
After deadly inter-communal clashes in the Logone Occidental Province, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Succès Masra was arrested in N’Djamena in May 2025 on various charges, including incitement of hatred and complicity in violence. Following a politically motivated trial, he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment and fined one billion CFA francs. He remains in detention today.
Instead of learning from history, Chad’s leaders are rewriting and repeating the same mistakes that have kept the country trapped in cycles of authoritarianism, Human Rights Watch said.
This is not the first time Chad has abolished term limits. The late Déby Itno had scrapped term limits in 2005, allowing him to remain in office until his death. In 2018, a two-term limit was reinstated but with an increase of each term from five to six years. The late president was allowed to run for those two additional terms until his death. His son’s move to remove limits again, only seven years after they were reinstated, underscores how constitutional manipulation has become a tool for perpetuating a hold on power.
The Chadian authorities should consider reinstating presidential term limits and ensure that any constitutional reform process is transparent and inclusive. Opposition leaders who boycotted the parliamentary vote have requested a referendum to ensure popular support for the changes. A similar referendum was held in 2023 to approve a new constitution, ending military rule.
Authorities should also immediately end politically motivated prosecutions, release political opposition leaders like Masra, and guarantee freedom of expression and assembly.
“Repression has become routine in Chad and now the constitution itself is being rewritten to further corrode citizens’ rights,” Mudge said. “With no credible mechanism for leadership turnover, other institutions like the parliament, the judiciary, and the press lose their ability to act as effective checks on executive power.”
China: No Letup in Forced Returns to North Korea
(Seoul) – Chinese authorities since 2024 have forcibly returned at least 406 people to North Korea, where they are at grave risk of persecution and ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Chinese government’s forced return of North Koreans puts them at high risk of torture, wrongful imprisonment, sexual violence, forced labor, and possible execution, in violation of international human rights law. Chinese officials responsible for unlawful deportations face potential criminal liability for facilitating crimes under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian rule.
“Chinese authorities are sending hundreds of North Koreans back to a place where they know returnees will be severely persecuted,” said Lina Yoon, senior Koreas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Beijing should immediately allow the United Nations Refugee Agency access to all those at risk of forced return to North Korea and publish data on all North Koreans detained or deported.”
The 406 cases are based on information from Stephen Kim, the pseudonym of a person with extensive contacts in North Korea and China. Human Rights Watch has long found his network’s reports on forced repatriation to be credible. The new figure brings the total number of forcible returns since 2020 to at least 1,076. No official data is available.
A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in North Korea found that forcibly returned North Koreans are systematically subjected to acts amounting to crimes against humanity, including torture, sexual violence, forced labor, enforced disappearances, and inhumane detention conditions. The commission warned that China’s cooperation in identifying and repatriating North Korean escapees may constitute complicity in these crimes.
Subsequent communications by UN human rights experts have reiterated concerns about forced returns. The UN Human Rights Office found in a September 2025 report that “throughout the past decade, repatriated individuals were subjected to serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance and sexual and gender-based violence,” and called on countries to “respect the principle of non-refoulement [not returning someone to a place where they will be mistreated] and consistently refrain from carrying out forcible repatriations in the light of the real risk of serious human rights violations.”
In November 2024, several UN human rights experts wrote to the governments of North Korea and China expressing concern about reporting that in August 2024 North Korea had executed two women who were among those returned in October 2023 and inquired about others who remained forcibly disappeared. Neither country has reportedly replied.
In its July 2023 submission to the UN Human Rights Council for China’s Universal Periodic Review, the UN Refugee Agency urged China to recognize that some North Koreans need international protection due to the severe treatment faced by returnees, and to ensure that they have access to asylum procedures and documentation allowing legal residence.
Human Rights Watch verified many of the cases of forced returns since 2024. Unless noted, there is no information available on their current whereabouts or condition.
They include 108 North Korean overseas workers who were returned in January 2024 from Helong city in China’s Jilin province, after a protest over unpaid wages reportedly turned violent, to be sent to political prisons upon return to North Korea.
Another 60 North Koreans from Jilin and Liaoning provinces were returned in April 2024; and 212 trafficked North Korean women who had been detained in Kunming city in Yunnan province, Nanning city in Guangxi province, and Pinxiang city in Jiangxi province were returned during 2024. A 36-year-old overseas worker was returned in early 2025, who was working as a computer hacker and had been detained in early 2024 for trying to escape; and five women who had been living in forced marriages in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces were returned in mid-2025.
Chinese authorities also forcibly returned 20 of 22 women detained in Inner Mongolia between December 2024 and July 2025. The two not forcibly returned had been trafficked into forced marriages in China and were pregnant, and were sent to the homes of the Chinese men they had been sold to.
Women who become pregnant under coercive conditions by Chinese men face particularly harsh treatment upon return to North Korea, three former North Korean government officials told Human Rights Watch. The 2014 Commission of Inquiry report found that North Korean authorities routinely subjected these women to forced abortion and infanticide, as the North Korean government considers mixed-ethnicity children a threat to the “purity” of the Korean people.
In addition to those returned, more than 100 North Korean women were being held in detention centers in China’s southern provinces as of July. They had been trafficked into forced marriages and had children, and were trying to reach a safe third country. The authorities planned to return them to the homes of the men they had been sold to ahead of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s scheduled trip to Beijing in September. Human Rights Watch has learned that at least 28 of these women were sent back to the men in China.
The Chinese government has continued to label undocumented North Koreans as illegal “economic migrants” and forcibly returned them based on a 1986 border protocol. Growing repression under Chinese President Xi Jinping, including expanded mass surveillance, has further enabled systematic identification and forced repatriation of North Koreans.
Beijing has rejected international calls to end this practice. During its 2024 Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, China explicitly rejected recommendations to refrain from forcibly repatriating North Koreans.
China, as a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, as well as the 1984 Convention Against Torture, is legally obligated not to forcibly return anyone to a country where they face a real risk of persecution or torture. This prohibition, called nonrefoulement, is also binding on China as a matter of customary international law.
In 2010, North Korea’s Ministry of People’s Security adopted a decree making defection a crime of “treachery against the nation,” punishable by death. North Koreans who left their country without authorization and who face forced repatriation are refugees sur place, people who become refugees by the act of leaving their country without permission regardless of their reasons for leaving or prior persecution.
The Chinese government should immediately stop forced returns of North Koreans, provide asylum to North Korean refugees and allow them to fully integrate in China should they want to, or permit them to seek resettlement in a third country or safely pass through Chinese territory to third countries. Governments and donors should increase support for organizations assisting escapees, especially those providing gender-sensitive protection for women and children at risk of trafficking or repatriation.
“The Chinese government should stop forcibly returning North Koreans and instead call for Pyongyang to end the oppressive conditions that are compelling people to flee North Korea,” Yoon said. “Governments should press North Korea to let people leave freely and they should provide sustained support for the organizations protecting North Korean escapees.”
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