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Despite Efforts to Shift the Blame, Israeli Policies Are Starving Children
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.
Burkina Faso Expels Senior UN Official Following Critical Report
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.
Progress on the Road to a UN Tax Treaty
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.
Kazakhstan Tries to Shoot the Messenger
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 PhotoOver 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.
Sri Lanka: Police Target Families of ‘Disappeared’
(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.”
Ukraine’s Suffering Reflected in One Family’s Story
On August 15, while United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were en route to their Alaska meeting, 26-year-old Nataliia Makarenko buried her mother, Tetiana Litvin, 60, in Kherson, southern Ukraine. Tetiana had died two days earlier in an artillery strike.
Almost a year ago, Nataliia buried her father, Petro, 67. A Russian drone targeted the minivan he was driving in Kherson, and he died from his injuries. Nataliia was one of dozens of Kherson residents my colleagues and I spoke with last year to document Russian forces’ use of drones to deliberately attack civilians, a war crime. These attacks were designed to instill terror and constitute potential crimes against humanity.
After Petro’s death, Tetiana and Nataliia had evacuated to Chornobaivka, north of Kherson. Tetiana coped with her grief by gardening and caring for the family’s pets.
On August 13 at 5:50 a.m., Nataliia heard shelling. A sudden blast wave hit her. “I tried to get to my mother’s room, but then came the second and third strikes,” she told me. Part of the house collapsed, burying Tetiana. Local authorities reported that the attack injured at least four other village residents. Nataliia had minor injuries.
Because of the drone threat, emergency workers had to leave their vehicle en route and walk to Nataliia’s house. While four workers dug out Tetiana’s body, a radio operator warned of drones overhead.
Nataliia buried her mother next to her father. Also due to the drone threat, the priest performed a brief ceremony standing beside the car, doors open, with the coffin inside.
“I had a family, a mother and a father,” Nataliia said. “They stayed together all their lives. Now they are gone.”
While numerous rounds of negotiations on Ukraine—including the August 18 White House meeting—rarely mention justice, Ukrainian civilian casualties continue to rise, recently reaching their highest monthly numbers since May 2022, according to the United Nations. As stakeholders pursue a quick political deal, Russian forces responsible for grave crimes, including indiscriminate bombing and shelling, unlawful attacks on civilians, torture and ill-treatment in occupied areas and Russian prisons, and the torture and executions of prisoners of war cannot go unpunished.
Nor should Russia’s deliberate drone attacks on civilians in Kherson. Nataliia and Ukrainians like her deserve justice and reparations for all they have lost and endured.
Ecuador: Officials Ignore Rainforest Protection Referendum
(New York) – Ecuador’s government should expedite the closure of the approximately 240 oil wells operating in the heart of Yasuni National Park in the Amazon rainforest, Human Rights Watch said today.
On August 20, 2023, the Ecuadorian people voted to halt all current and future oil drilling in the Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini (ITT) block of Yasuni National Park, one of the most intact sections remaining in the Amazon River Basin. The historic referendum came after decades of organizing led by a coalition of Indigenous peoples, youth, and activists from across the country. Two years later, though, extraction continues, and only a handful of the block’s approximately 240 wells have been closed.
“The Ecuadorian government’s decision to maintain oil production for the next five years in Yasuni National Park ignores the 2023 referendum result, which directly impacts the rights of the peoples who live in the park and all Ecuadorians,” said Richard Pearshouse, environment and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should respect the will of the Ecuadorian people and immediately end oil extraction in the area protected by the referendum.”
Yasuni National Park is home to Indigenous peoples, including the Waorani and Kichwa as well as the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, who live in voluntary isolation. Human Rights Watch has documented how fossil fuel production, which drives catastrophic climate change, harms the rights of communities adjacent to fossil fuel infrastructure.
Even before the vote, in May 2023, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court held that, if voters approved the referendum, the government had to immediately halt oil extraction and shut down all wells by August 31, 2024. In September 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that continued operation of the oil block violated the rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples and ordered the state to close the block by March 2026.
Publicly available reports vary somewhat on the small number of wells that have been closed since the referendum result. The government says it closed five wells in 2024, while media reports say that the government closed 10 wells in 2024 and plans to close another 48 in 2025.
Yet the overwhelming majority of wells in the block are still pumping oil. According to state data, in the first half of 2025 roughly 44,000 oil barrels were extracted daily in the block. The nearly 240 wells in the ITT area are a small fraction of the country’s estimated 5,000 wells.
A group of Ecuadorian economists has suggested practical steps to close the block without harming communities, the environment, and the economy. Waorani leaders have proposed a set of principles for a rights-respecting closure.
The government had cited the country’s security crisis to justify pausing compliance until at least August 2025 and claims it might need five years to close the block, far beyond court-ordered timelines.
In May 2024, President Daniel Noboa created a committee to plan the closure; this committee has been criticized by civil society and Indigenous peoples for omitting their participation. More than a year later, the government has yet to develop a plan to shut down the rest of the wells in the ITT block.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights recently confirmed that governments must set binding, time-bound greenhouse gas emission reductions from fossil fuels and protect the Amazon rainforest.
Ecuador should stop extracting oil in the Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini block and adopt and implement an expedited and rights-respecting plan to close the wells. It should also ensure Indigenous representation and participation in the committee established to plan the closure.
Regional leaders are meeting in Colombia on August 22, 2025, at the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization summit to commit to higher rainforest protection in the lead up to global climate talks. Heads of state, including Ecuador’s president, should commit to pursuing similar measures across the Amazon that protect Indigenous peoples and critical ecosystems from fossil fuels.
“Ecuador has a clear obligation to begin to phase out fossil fuels in a way that respects the will of its people, the courts, and the human rights of affected communities,” Pearshouse said. “Complying with the referendum by closing the wells is long overdue.”
DR Congo: M23 Mass Killings Near Virunga National Park
(Nairobi) – The Rwandan-controlled M23 armed group summarily executed over 140 civilians, largely ethnic Hutu, in at least 14 villages and farming areas in July 2025 near Virunga National Park, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said today. Credible reports indicate the number of people killed in Rutshuru territory since July may exceed 300, among the worst atrocities by the M23 since its resurgence in late 2021.
Between July 10 and 30, M23 fighters summarily executed local residents and farmers, including women and children, in their villages, fields, and near the Rutshuru River across the Binza administrative subdivision (groupement) in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province. Witness accounts, the UN, and military sources indicate that the Rwandan military, the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), were also involved in the M23 operations.
“The M23 armed group, which has Rwandan government backing, attacked over a dozen villages and farming areas in July and committed dozens of summary executions of primarily Hutu civilians,” said Clémentine de Montjoye, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Unless those responsible for these war crimes, including at the highest levels, are appropriately investigated and punished, these atrocities will only intensify.”
From mid-July to mid-August, Human Rights Watch interviewed 36 people by telephone, including 25 witnesses, as well as local activists, medical workers, military and United Nations personnel, and other informed sources. Human Rights Watch analyzed relevant videos and photographs, consulted with forensic pathologists, and corroborated accounts using maps and satellite imagery.
Human Rights Watch compiled a list of 141 people who were either killed or are missing and feared dead. On August 6, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that “at least 319 civilians were killed by the M23, backed by members of the Rwanda Defence Force, between 9 and 21 July in four villages in […] Rutshuru.” This figure corroborates information Human Rights Watch received from other sources. Human Rights Watch also received information that the M23 executed another 41 civilians between July 30 and August 8 in the Binza groupement, but this could not be independently confirmed.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Rwandan authorities on August 7 and Bertrand Bisimwa, the M23’s leader, on August 8 to request information about the killings, but received no responses. The Alliance Fleuve Congo (Congo River Alliance, or AFC), the politico-military coalition that includes the M23, on August 7 rejected the UN’s allegations. On August 11, the Rwandan government rejected the UN’s allegations that the Rwandan military was involved in the operations, and claimed that an armed group opposed to the M23 carried out the killings.
Human Rights Watch documented or obtained credible information about killings in July in the localities of Busesa, Kakoro, Kafuru, Kasave, Katanga, Katemba, Katwiguru, Kihito, Kiseguru, Kongo, Lubumbashi, Nyamilima, Nyabanira, and Rubare. These areas were then under M23 control, and several M23 commanders were identified at some locations.
Click to expand Image Locator map of the area in Rutshuru territory, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the mass killings occurred. Graphic © 2025 Human Rights WatchWitnesses to attacks said that M23 fighters told them to immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organizing funerals. M23 fighters also threw bodies, including of women and children, into the Rutshuru River.
The mass killings appear to be part of a military campaign against opposing armed groups, especially the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR), a largely Rwandan Hutu armed group created by participants in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
In the killings reported to Human Rights Watch, most victims were ethnic Hutu and, to a lesser degree, ethnic Nande. The M23’s targeting of Hutu civilians living near FDLR strongholds raises grave concerns of ethnic cleansing in Rutshuru territory, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch’s research indicates the M23’s military operations were carried out by the 1st Battalion of the 1st Brigade, commanded by Col. Samuel Mushagara and Brig. Gen. Baudoin Ngaruye, respectively. General Ngaruye is under UN sanctions for his role in M23 war crimes. Residents also described the participation of Rwandan military forces in the M23 operation, identifying Rwandan soldiers by their uniforms and their accents. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and military sources confirmed the Rwandan military’s involvement in the operations.
The Rwandan government, which effectively controls the territory the M23 occupies, should allow UN and independent international forensic experts, including the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Congo, to preserve and analyze evidence of war crimes.
The UN Security Council, the European Union, and governments should condemn these grave abuses, impose further sanctions on those responsible for abuses, and press for the arrest and appropriate prosecution of commanders implicated in war crimes. Donor governments providing military assistance to Rwanda should urgently review their programs to ensure they are not fueling violations.
The killings in Rutshuru territory come weeks after a preliminary agreement in a United States-brokered peace deal signed on June 27 between Congo and Rwanda, which requires Congo to implement a plan to “neutralize” the FDLR as Rwanda withdraws from Congolese territory. It also requires the parties to protect civilians, including by facilitating the freedom of movement of the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO. The agreement’s Joint Security Coordination Mechanism should ensure that crimes committed in the context of any anti-FDLR operations are credibly investigated, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Rwanda-backed M23’s mass killings throw into sharp focus the gaps that exist between rhetoric on the international stage and the reality for civilians in eastern Congo,” de Montjoye said. “Governments seeking peace agreements remain bound by the laws of war, and those individuals responsible for war crimes still need to be fully investigated and brought to justice.”
For additional details, international law, and accounts by witnesses, please see below.
Allegations of Mass Killings by the M23
The M23 killings that began around July 10 reportedly started in fields north and south of the road that passes through Kiseguru and Katwiguru in Rutshuru territory. Witnesses and residents said M23 fighters surrounded and blocked off all roads into the area to prevent people from leaving. After July 14, witnesses said the M23 summarily executed people in Nyamilima, 25 kilometers from Kiseguru. Human Rights Watch documented executions by the M23 up until July 30 in Nyabanira, including targeting people who had come to search for or bury their loved ones or find food in their fields.
Human Rights Watch analyzed 21 photographs and videos sent directly to researchers that showed the bodies of victims. Due to the lack of metadata in the files, Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm the location, time, or dates the images were taken. The identities of some victims were confirmed through witness accounts.
The images strongly corroborate executions by machete and gunfire, according to the Independent Forensic Expert Group of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.
In its August 7 statement, the AFC/M23 claimed that some of the localities where the UN reported killings—some of which Human Rights Watch research corroborates—are mainly inside Virunga National Park where farmlands “do not exist.” This attempt to discredit the UN allegations of M23 killings of farmers in those areas do not reflect the facts: satellite imagery and witness accounts indicate that these areas have been used as farmland for years.
Click to expand Image In their August 7 statement, AFC/M23 claimed that "Kanyakiri, Kigaligali, Dubai, Katanga, Lubumbashi, Kasave, Kakoro and Busesa are located mainly within the Virunga National Park, a protected area where all agricultural activity is strictly prohibited. How could farmers have been massacred in fields that don't exist?". While most of the villages are inside the park perimeter, satellite imagery from July 2, 2025, shows that these areas were farmed at the time, the protected and forested area only effectively starting west of the Rutshuru river. Earlier images show the presence of fields since at least 2015. Image © 2025 Planet Labs PBC.Witness Accounts
Three farmers said the attacks on their fields and nearby forest began on July 10 or 11. “I left to hide some tools but when I returned to get my family, I saw the M23 had reached them,” said a farmer who was living in a field near Kiseguru. “I could see them [his family members] from a distance … they were all shot dead.” His wife and their three children—ages 9 months to 10 years old—were killed in front of him.
Another man said that five members of his family were killed in Katanga, about 12 kilometers northwest of Kiseguru. “We woke up on July 11 and [the M23] were there in large numbers.… [T]hey were already on our doorstep.… [T]hey killed people with guns and machetes.”
Villagers described finding the bodies of a 47-year-old man and his four children, ages 11 to 17, in a field about 18 kilometers from Kiseguru, on July 11. “We found him in his field with his head cut off,” said a man who found and buried them. “They were all killed with machetes. Their throats were cut.”
A man whose wife and two children, ages 14 and 21, were killed said that he saw the M23 take his family away from their field in Katanga on July 10, together with two other women and a child. A witness later told him they had seen the M23 execute them at the confluence of the Rutshuru (also called Kitchuru) and Ivi (also called Rive) Rivers, about 10 kilometers north.
A woman who saw M23 fighters kill her husband with a machete on July 11 said that M23 fighters that day rounded up the women and children. “Around 10 a.m., we were forced to walk toward the place where our lives were going to end,” she said. “We walked in silence. If a child started crying, they threatened to kill them. They killed with knives.” She said they were a group of about 70 people, including women and girls: “We walked all day until we reached the confluence of the Kitchuru [Rutshuru] and Rive [Ivi] Rivers in the evening…. They told us to sit on the edge of the riverbank, and then they started shooting at us.” She said the executions took place near Kafuru, and identified 47 people, including children, who were killed. She was able to escape because she fell in the river without being shot. Human Rights Watch received information that the M23 carried out mass killings by the Rutshuru River for several days.
Residents and witnesses said that the M23 continued to execute people until at least July 30.
A woman said that her relative was among the dead in a photograph, analyzed by Human Rights Watch, that showed six bodies:
“He was from Nyabanira and fled here to Kiwanja, but because life is hard here we have to go back to our fields in Nyabanira to find food. If we’re lucky, we come back, if we’re unlucky, we run into the M23 and that’s the end, it’s death. My [relative] went on July 30 to look for food and never came back.… Someone who saw his body came to tell us and gave us his hat. We recognized him in the photo with five other men.”
Human Rights Watch independently confirmed the identities of four men in the photograph. The Independent Forensic Expert Group analyzed the photograph and concluded that visible hand ties were used on three of the men, while a fourth most likely had his hands tied behind him. The group said that all had injuries consistent with gunshot wounds.
An unknown number of civilians were also injured in the attacks. Three medical sources said that the injured, including a 22-month-old child, were taken to nearby medical facilities for treatment. They had gunshot or machete wounds.
Anti-FDLR Operations
The area where the M23 military operations took place borders Virunga National Park and areas where the FDLR have been operating for decades. For years, civilians have been caught in the crossfire of fighting between Congolese government forces and armed groups such as the FDLR.
Many farmers killed in the July operations were either local residents or migrant workers who had travelled from villages and towns further away, such as Tongo and Kanyabayonga, to work in the fertile valley on the edge of the park. Some lived in the fields, where they worked with their entire families.
Residents and an independent source told Human Rights Watch that the M23 had intermittently suspended access to farmland because they were conducting anti-FDLR operations, including on July 10, and told people to move to urban centers. Three residents said that in June, an M23 commander, Col. Claude Imani, gave the farmers authorization to work in the fields again.
Satellite imagery confirms the area was being cultivated again after the beginning of June as many new clearings appear in previously overgrown fields. Farmers interviewed said they each had to pay a one-time US$10 tax to the M23 to be allowed to work in the fields again.
“They are still in our fields, they are saying they are going after the FDLR,” said a man whose wife and two children were killed on July 11. “That’s why they left men’s bodies in the fields, but they took the women and children to kill them by the river.”
Human Rights Watch received credible information that the M23, the FDLR, and other armed groups were fighting in the area both before and at the time of the summary executions. A splinter faction of the FDLR, the Rwandan RUD-Urunana (Rally for Unity and Democracy), controls some areas bordering Virunga National Park, including in Bwisha chiefdom (chefferie) containing the Binza groupement, and has a base near the Ivi and Rutshuru Rivers’ confluence.
On August 11, Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, in a post on X, blamed the killings on fighters from the Collective Movement for Change (CMC)-Nyatura, a Hutu armed group that is opposed to the M23. However, witnesses and residents told Human Rights Watch that fighters from the FDLR and CMC-Nyatura were rarely seen in villages since the M23 captured the area in August 2024, and all interviewed attributed the killings to the M23.
On July 30, M23 officials in Ishasha announced through loudspeakers that those who had recently arrived needed to present themselves to the administration. These included people who had fled killings in neighboring areas, according to two local sources. Men under age 45 were detained and transferred to a building near the border with Uganda, where they were reportedly beaten, and the next day loaded onto trucks. A source who was among the group said the M23 told them they didn’t want them fleeing their villages to come to Ishasha and accused them of supporting the FDLR, the Congolese army, or the government-backed Wazalendo coalition of armed groups.
A video posted on social media on August 1 that Human Rights Watch geolocated and verified shows scores of men being marched along the main road in Ishasha toward the north part of the town where the border post is located. At least some of these men were subsequently released.
The M23 routinely accuses suspected opponents, often without evidence, of collaborating with the FDLR, other armed groups, or the Congolese army. Human Rights Watch documented the M23’s execution on July 7 of a pastor in Katwiguru who was accused of collaborating with the Wazalendo.
In May, the M23 rounded up people in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, and surrounding areas whom the M23 accused of supporting the opposing forces. They took some away by vehicle to unknown locations. Some of those rounded up were originally from Karenga, in Masisi territory, which is also considered an FDLR stronghold.
International Law
All parties to the armed conflict in eastern Congo, including non-state armed groups, are bound by international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on civilians, summary executions, torture, forced displacement, looting, and other abuses.
While “ethnic cleansing” is not formally defined under international law, a UN Commission of Experts has defined the term as a “purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”
Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. Commanders who knew or should have known about serious abuses by their forces and did not take appropriate action may be prosecuted as a matter of command responsibility.
War crimes and other atrocity crimes are crimes of universal jurisdiction, which allows other countries to prosecute them regardless of where the crimes were committed or the nationality of victims and perpetrators.
In October 2024, the International Criminal Court prosecutor announced that his office would renew investigative efforts in Congo with a focus on crimes in North Kivu since January 2022. The court’s investigation should include the M23’s summary executions of civilians and other grave abuses in eastern Congo, Human Rights Watch said.
Brazil: Protect Small-Scale Farmers’ Land Rights in the Amazon
(São Paulo) – Brazil’s agrarian federal agency should reject a proposal to downsize a sustainable settlement in a deforested area of the Amazon region, Human Rights Watch said today. If approved, the reduction would open the door to legitimizing illegal land occupations inside the settlement that are driving deforestation and violence against small-scale farmers who are its legitimate residents, Human Rights Watch wrote in a letter to the agency’s president.
The National Institute for Colonization and Land Reform (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária, INCRA), a federal agency responsible for land reform across Brazil, is currently considering a proposal to reduce the Sustainable Development Settlement Terra Nossa to approximately half of its current size. Established by INCRA expressly to balance land redistribution for smallholders with sustainable forest management, Terra Nossa has become a hotspot for illegal land occupations, deforestation, and violence against its legitimate residents due to failures to fully implement the settlement and enforce the law.
“Downsizing Terra Nossa would reward people illegally occupying land with impunity and could leave legitimate residents vulnerable to further violence,” said Maria Laura Canineu, deputy environment and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The Brazilian government should publicly reject any reduction of Terra Nossa, immediately remove those illegally occupying areas inside Terra Nossa, and support small farmers’ sustainable livelihoods.”
Extending over 150,000 hectares across the municipalities of Novo Progresso and Altamira in southern Pará state, Terra Nossa has the capacity to settle 1,000 families of small farmers, who would grow fruits and vegetables in their individual plots and pursue sustainable economic activities in the collective forest reserve, such as the collection of nuts and fruits.
The proposal to reduce Terra Nossa follows a process of illegal land occupations, deforestation, and violence against its legitimate residents.
Only 298 plots of land for small-scale farming have been demarcated, according to an INCRA report from 2018, which also identified 77 persons that were illegally occupying 117,000 hectares, approximately 80 percent of the settlement’s total area.
Legitimate residents of the settlement live in fear due to intimidation, threats, and killings, as documented by Human Rights Watch over the years. A report published by Human Rights Watch in 2019 described the killing of two people after they expressed their intention to denounce illegal logging. A third person vanished, and residents believe he was also killed. The brother of one of the victims, who was investigating the crime, was killed as well.
People responsible for the illegal occupations have destroyed large areas of forest and converted most of it into pasture. Terra Nossa lost 7,700 hectares of forest—5 percent of its total area—between 2021 and 2024, according to Mapbiomas, a consortium of scientists that monitors changes in land cover and land use in several countries.
In 2023, arson fires destroyed the crops and livelihoods of Terra Nossa’s small-scale farmers with the apparent goal of forcing them to leave the settlement and turn the charred land into cattle ranches, Human Rights Watch found.
According to officials, residents, and INCRA documents, the proposal under consideration would reduce Terra Nossa to 80,000 hectares—which would be an almost 50 percent reduction—and eliminate the settlement’s environmental purpose. At least 16,800 illegally occupied hectares are included in the area that would be cut from Terra Nossa, according to INCRA documents. Such a move could pave the way for those responsible for illegal land occupations to eventually regularize their holdings, which would be impossible without reworking Terra Nossa’s borders.
Despite the INCRA report’s recommendation for the agency to retake the area to combat illegal land occupations, the INCRA leadership has not yet evicted those responsible. In March 2025, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against INCRA demanding that, within 60 days, the agency complete its administrative review of land claims in Terra Nossa, notify those occupying land illegally to leave the area, and request a judicial eviction order for those who refuse to leave after receiving notification.
In response to this lawsuit, INCRA informed the court that as of April 2025, it had completed 37 out of 76 administrative procedures concerning illegal occupation of land and sent those to the Federal Specialized General Attorney’s office, which is responsible for filing lawsuits to obtain judicial orders of eviction. The 37 procedures account for nearly 79,000 hectares, or 52 percent, of Terra Nossa’s area.
The plan under consideration is the second attempt to reduce the size of Terra Nossa. The first one, in 2015, was shut down after the federal prosecutor’s recommendation to cancel it due to the lack of legal or technical grounds. If approved, the current reduction would set a damaging precedent for other settlements in Brazil facing similar land pressures.
“Publicly and unequivocally rejecting the reduction of Terra Nossa and evicting those illegally occupying land are key steps to protect its lawful residents and other settlements across the Amazon,” Canineu said. “By doing so, Brazil will also send the message to those illegally occupying land that they can’t operate with impunity.”
US-Nigeria Weapons Sale Requires Rights Safeguards
The US State Department approved another potential multi-million-dollar weapons sale to Nigeria on August 14, citing support for the country’s efforts to fight terrorism and illicit trafficking. Yet the announcement is conspicuously silent on the Nigerian military’s record of serious human rights abuses and on what safeguards, if any, will be implemented to ensure accountability and prevent further violations.
The proposed sale includes munitions, precision bombs, and precision rockets and related equipment for an estimated cost of US$346 million. It follows another $997 million package approved in 2022, which included 12 AH-1Z attack helicopters. Although the 2022 deal was initially held up in the US Senate due to rights concerns, procurement of the helicopters is reportedly now underway. When considering the new arms deal, Congress should not treat it as a routine security transaction.
Security concerns across Nigeria are real and widespread. In the Northwest, violent raids, killings, and kidnappings for ransom by criminal gangs continue to destabilize communities. In the Northeast, the Islamist armed group Boko Haram and its splinter factions continue their brutal insurgency against the government while terrorizing civilians and committing abuses. In the Southeast, separatist armed groups routinely terrorize and attack communities and kill residents.
However, in responding to these threats, Nigerian security forces have been repeatedly implicated in serious rights violations, including unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture, and conflict-related abuses. The US State Department documented many of these abuses in its own 2024 Human Rights Report on Nigeria, released just last week. Military airstrikes have also repeatedly resulted in the deaths of people mistakenly identified as threats, without accountability. Despite ongoing calls for justice, meaningful reform remains absent.
Under US law, security assistance is prohibited to foreign forces implicated in gross human rights violations. Before this sale proceeds, US lawmakers should ensure US law is followed. They should require clear, enforceable accountability measures for all military operations, including during the use of airstrikes, alongside concrete safeguards to ensure compliance with international human rights law.
The United States should require such conditions before selling weapons to the Nigerian armed forces.
Standing with Sex Workers: Why This Case Matters
At the beginning of September, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court will hear a case that could finally end the criminalization of sex work in the country. It’s a moment decades in the making, which could bring real gains for the safety, dignity, and equality of sex workers.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have joined as amicus curiae, friends of the court, because the evidence in South Africa and globally is clear: criminalizing sex work doesn’t make people safer, and it doesn’t stop human trafficking. What it does is force sex workers into unsafe, hidden environments, where violence and abuse happen with impunity, often at the hands of those meant to protect them.
Too often, sex work is wrongly conflated with trafficking for sexual exploitation. They are not the same. When we fail to make that distinction, we end up with laws and policies that protect neither sex workers nor trafficking survivors.
Our research in South Africa shows that decriminalizing sex work:
Makes it easier for trafficking survivors to seek help without fear of arrest.Allows sex workers to work together and take steps to protect themselves.Opens the door for sex workers to share critical information that can help stop trafficking.Makes it easier for sex workers to access health care, including prevention, treatment, care, and support for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.Reduces violence, exploitation, and discrimination, while strengthening public safety.Opponents argue that continued criminalization is necessary to combat trafficking. But decades of evidence show how punitive laws drive sex work underground, making trafficking harder to detect and prosecute. Decriminalization, paired with strong anti-trafficking measures, is the proven route to protecting everyone’s rights.
This case is about more than a change in the law in South Africa. It, and similar efforts elsewhere, is about whether sex workers will continue to be treated as criminals for consensual work between adults, or whether they will finally be recognized as regular workers entitled to the same rights and protections as any other. It’s about dignity, equality, and bodily autonomy.
We stand in solidarity with sex workers, survivor advocates, and all those fighting for justice. The continued criminalization of consensual adult sex work is not justified, and this moment is our chance to end it in South Africa.
As the hearings approach, we call on the public, civil society, and policymakers to raise their voices. Share this message. Join the conversation. Demand change.
Hearings: 1–2 September 2025
Hashtags: #DecrimSexWork #DecrimInCourt
Australian Foreign Minister’s Vietnam Trip Should Promote Rights
This week, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong will travel to Vietnam to meet her counterpart, Bui Thanh Son. Australia’s relationship with Vietnam is important given Vietnam’s impressive economic growth and its geopolitical position as a bulwark against China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia.
But it’s critical that Australian policymakers don’t lose sight that Vietnam is also one of the region’s most repressive countries. During her trip, Wong should publicly raise human rights concerns, particularly Vietnam’s more than 170 political prisoners, a number of whom need urgent medical care.
For instance, the internet commentator Nguyen Thai Hung, 53, was sentenced to four years in prison for commenting on sociopolitical issues online. He is suffering from tuberculosis. Le Dinh Luong, a 59-year-old Catholic activist who campaigned for human rights, democracy, and in support of political prisoners, is currently serving a 20-year sentence and suffers from spinal degeneration and chronic stomach pain. Other political prisoners who need adequate medical treatment include Can Thi Theu, Le Huu Minh Tuan, Tran Duc Thach, and Hoang Duc Binh.
These cases are stark reminders of Vietnam’s intolerance for dissent. As a recent Human Rights Watch report shows, the prosecution of those who criticize the government on social media has skyrocketed. Article 331 of the penal code on “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” has increasingly been used to target those who use social media to raise issues including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and corruption by the government and the ruling Communist Party. Between 2018 and February 2025, Vietnamese courts sentenced at least 124 people to harsh prison terms under article 331.
The Australian government should recognize that raising human rights concerns only at the annual Australia-Vietnam closed door human rights dialogues—the most recent of which occurred on August 12—is wholly inadequate. So far, two decades of dialogues have failed to show any measurable progress in human rights.
Foreign Minister Wong should use her visit to voice concerns about Vietnam’s worsening human rights record and signal that failing to reverse its repressive trend will harm the bilateral relationship. Ultimately, not only will the Vietnamese people benefit from having a government that is responsive to its citizens’ concerns and respects human rights and the rule of law, but so too will Australia.
US: Excessive Force Against LA Protesters
(Los Angeles, August 18, 2025) – Law enforcement officers responded to protests against immigration raids in and around Los Angeles, California, between June 6 and 14, 2025, with excessive force and deliberate brutality, Human Rights Watch said today.
Officers fired tear gas, pepper balls, hard foam rounds, and flash-bang grenades directly at protesters, journalists, and other observers, often at close range and often without sufficient warning or provocation. Scores of people suffered injuries, ranging from severe bruising and lacerations to broken bones, concussions, an amputated finger, and severe eye damage.
“Sweeping immigration raids have terrorized communities across Los Angeles and driven thousands of people to the streets in protest,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Local, state, and federal law enforcement’s aggressive response to these protests violently oppressed the public’s right to express outrage and the media’s right to report safely.”
The protests were sparked by a dramatic escalation of immigration raids across Los Angeles and the surrounding area, following the Trump administration’s orders to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to increase daily arrests of undocumented immigrants. Heavily armed federal agents have stormed stores, warehouses, hotels, restaurants, farms, car washes, taco stands, and other workplaces and detained those they suspect of being undocumented with the aim of deporting them.
Human Rights Watch observed protests and visited locations of ICE raids in and around Los Angeles from June 10 to 14, and interviewed 39 people, including protesters, journalists, legal observers, volunteer street medics, immigration rights advocates and organizers, and others affected by the raids. Researchers analyzed lawsuits, documentation by the Los Angeles Press Club, media reports, and photos and videos recorded during the protests and posted on social media or shared directly with researchers.
Human Rights Watch documented 65 cases in which law enforcement officers from various local, state, and federal agencies injured protesters, journalists, and other observers. The actual number is most likely much higher. In the three weeks following June 6, more than 280 people contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, most reporting that they had been personally injured by law enforcement agents while engaged in protest activity.
The first major protests began on June 6, when ICE agents raided several locations, including two Ambiance Apparel facilities in the Los Angeles Fashion District. On June 7, a group of protesters encountered armed federal agents and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) deputies in the suburb of Paramount, across from a Home Depot store outside an office park where there were reports of a planned raid.
In a directive issued on June 7, US President Donald Trump claimed the Los Angeles protests “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” called in the National Guard, and authorized the deployment of “any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary.” On June 9, the administration mobilized 700 active-duty Marines to join several thousand National Guard soldiers, who primarily guarded federal buildings. Local and state officials objected to Trump’s actions, though local police themselves acted to aggressively shut down the protests.
Starting on June 6 and at least through June 14, protesters gathered every day outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, where agents detained many undocumented people. Protesters also demonstrated at other government buildings in the surrounding area of downtown Los Angeles.
Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch repeatedly witnessed and documented law enforcement officers forcing protesters to leave certain areas, often with no apparent justification and without delivering clear, audible dispersal orders or warnings. Officers frequently aimed and fired their “less lethal” launchers directly at protesters, sometimes at close range, including using tear gas, pepper balls, hard foam rounds, and flash-bang grenades. These weapons, while less deadly than bullets, can cause serious injury and death.
Human Rights Watch documented 39 cases of journalists injured by law enforcement, most of whom were holding cameras and wearing visible press credentials. Several appear to have been deliberately targeted. On June 8, a police officer fired a kinetic impact projectile directly at Lauren Tomasi, an Australian journalist from 9News, while she was reporting live on television from downtown Los Angeles, leaving a bruise on her leg.
Nick Stern Click to expand Image Photojournalist Nick Stern’s wound and the canister that was lodged in his leg. © 2025 Nick SternA deputy from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department fired a flash-bang device directly at British photojournalist Nick Stern, as he was covering the protest in Paramount and neighboring Compton, on June 7, 2025. Doctors later performed surgery to remove a three-inch canister from Stern’s leg, which had left a gaping hole that exposed muscle tissue.
Ryanne Mena Click to expand Image © 2025 Ryanne MenaLos Angeles Daily News reporter Ryanne Mena was hit with kinetic impact projectiles fired by Department of Homeland Security officers twice, first in her leg on June 6 in downtown Los Angeles, and then to her head in Paramount on June 7, giving her a concussion.
Jeremy Cuenca Click to expand Image © 2025 Jeremy CuencaPolice officers fired kinetic impact projectiles at journalist Jeremy Cuenca in downtown Los Angeles in the early afternoon on June 8, at close range, nearly severing the top of his little finger, damaging his camera, and leaving a large bruise on his inner thigh. Cuenca was in surgery for four hours later that day, as doctors worked to reattach his finger.
Marshall Woodruff Click to expand Image © 2025 Marshall WoodruffOn June 14 in downtown Los Angeles, police officers fired less lethal projectiles at Marshall Woodruff, a filmmaker and photographer documenting police conduct during the protests, hitting him in the face and arm. The injuries caused a fracture to his face, serious bruising on his arm, and severe eye damage. Two months later, Woodruff remains unable to see out of his right eye.
On June 9, a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer shot three people—all known advocates for police accountability—at very close range with kinetic impact projectiles, leaving each of them in serious pain for days, according to two of the advocates and video footage Human Rights Watch reviewed. Before shooting one of them in the groin, the officer said: “I’m going to pop you, as you are taking up my focus.”
A volunteer street medic, who was himself hospitalized after being lacerated by a hard foam round that caused a deep, gaping wound, said he spent several hours in downtown Los Angeles on June 14 responding to people yelling for help. They included protesters hit by projectiles and bleeding from their heads or faces, one with a broken leg, and others with difficulty seeing and hearing because of the flash-bangs and tear gas.
There were some acts of violence against police and property destruction by protesters, primarily in the early days of the protests. Human Rights Watch found evidence that most of the violence by protesters occurred after acts of violence by law enforcement officers, and that only a small portion of the protesting crowd engaged in destructive acts. To the extent individuals engaged in violent or destructive acts, law enforcement officers did not limit their aggressive actions and response to those individuals.
Human Rights Watch found that law enforcement officers committed clear violations of international human rights law. These findings also implicate civil rights protections under the US Constitution, as well as recently amended California state law, which includes strict restrictions on when and how law enforcement officers may use force to disperse protests and provides protections for journalists covering protests.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the LAPD, and the LASD on July 31, but has not received responses.
In a June 23 statement, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the department would conduct a “comprehensive evaluation of each use-of-force incident” and act against any officer “who has fallen short” of the department’s standards. While he said the protests had “most often been marked by peaceful expression,” they were at times “hijacked by violence, vandalism, and criminal aggression” and “officers were justified in taking swift and measured action to prevent further harm and restore public safety.”
Journalists, protesters, and legal observers have filed several lawsuits against the City and County of Los Angeles and the DHS regarding the harm caused during these protests. Past lawsuits regarding law enforcement misconduct during protests in Los Angeles have cost taxpayers millions of dollars in settlements, but secured little to no accountability for the agencies and senior officials responsible for the abuse nor changes in law enforcement practice.
“Law enforcement officers in Los Angeles used brutal, excessive, and unnecessary force against people standing up for human rights and those reporting on the protests,” Sawyer said. “All law enforcement agencies involved should respect the right to free speech and protest, protect journalists, and ensure that those responsible for abuse are held to account.”
Applicable Legal StandardsInternational Law
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the United States is a party, protects the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. US obligations under the covenant extend to authorities at every level of government, federal, state, and local. The Unites States is thus obliged to ensure that all law enforcement personnel respect fundamental rights.
The ICCPR allows only for limited restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly that are “necessary in a democratic society” to protect a narrow range of important interests including public order, public safety, and the rights of others. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, an international expert body that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, issued a General Comment in September 2020 that offers detailed practical guidance on how governments should approach their obligation to respect the right to peaceful assembly.
It emphasizes that restrictions on the right should be carefully tailored; more specifically, they should both be necessary for and proportionate to a permissible ground for restriction. It also emphasizes that restrictions justified on grounds of public safety require the authorities to demonstrate “a real and significant risk to the safety of persons (to life and security of person) or a similar risk of serious damage to property.”
Even when law enforcement personnel may have a legitimate basis to confront or curtail demonstrators, their use of force should be carefully calibrated. Under the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Personnel, law enforcement officials should use nonviolent means before resorting to force and avoid using force to disperse nonviolent protests, regardless of whether the authorities deem the protests illegal.
Using force is only appropriate if other measures to address a genuine threat have proved ineffective or have no likelihood of achieving the intended result. When using force, law enforcement should provide clear warnings, exercise restraint, and act proportionately, taking into account both the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved.
Federal Law
The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech and peaceful assembly and treats these rights as a core pillar of the country’s system of governance. US courts have evolved a deep jurisprudence governing permissible regulation of, and limitations on, the exercise of these rights. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizures by law enforcement, including the use of excessive force during an arrest or other seizure.
State Law
Following the 2020 George Floyd protests, California passed laws restricting the use of less lethal weapons during protests and protecting the rights of journalists and others. Section 13652 of California’s Penal Code forbids law enforcement from using “kinetic energy projectiles” to disperse an assembly, protest, or demonstration, except “to defend against a threat to life or serious bodily injury” or to “bring any objectively dangerous and unlawful situation safely under control.”
Even under those circumstances, such use of force is permitted only when a list of other requirements are met, including making reasonable efforts to identify violent individuals and not shooting indiscriminately into a crowd; not targeting heads, neck, or vital organs; giving clear, audible warnings; allowing people a chance to leave; and attempting reasonable de-escalation techniques. Law enforcement may not use these weapons solely to confront curfew violations, verbal threats, or noncompliance with law enforcement directives. The same provision requires officers to minimize use of these weapons on bystanders, journalists, medical personnel, and others.
Penal Code section 409.7 states that journalists may enter areas closed by law enforcement during protests and that law enforcement officers shall not remove or otherwise interfere with individuals who are lawfully gathering news at these events.
The Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s departments issued directives in late 2021 outlining how officers should comply with these laws.
Law Enforcement Agencies Deployed to Los Angeles ProtestsA range of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were deployed to protests in the Los Angeles area from June 6 to 14.
Los Angeles police officers and sheriff’s deputies were present at nearly all protests and led efforts to police or disperse these protests. Officers from the California Highway Patrol (CHP) primarily blocked entry points to the 101 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles.
Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—including from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—as well as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) engaged with protesters at immigration raids and deployed outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility, along with other federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles.
Following President Trump’s June 7 directive, approximately 2,000 National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles under federal authority. On June 9, the administration sent an additional 2,000 troops and mobilized 700 active-duty Marines to join them. They primarily guarded federal buildings. All but around 250 National Guard personnel have since been withdrawn.
Less Lethal Weapons Used Against Protesters and Observers Click to expand Image Graphic © 2025 Human Rights WatchLaw enforcement officers fired a range of less lethal weapons at protesters. They included chemical irritants, including tear gas, pepper spray, and pepper balls, all of which are designed to temporarily incapacitate people through severe irritation to the eyes, nose, face, lungs, and skin. Officers also fired kinetic impact projectiles, including sponge or hard foam rounds, which are designed to cause pain upon impact without penetrating the skin, and flash-bang grenades, which are meant to disorient people by temporarily disrupting sight and hearing.
Police officers also used horses, batons, shields, and their hands to knock protesters and observers over, push them back, or beat them.
Excessive Force by Law EnforcementHuman Rights Watch documented the 65 cases of individuals injured by law enforcement officers during the protests based on interviews with victims and witnesses, analysis of photos and videos, and reviews of lawsuits, credible media reporting, and documentation by the Los Angeles Press Club.
Most were hit and injured by kinetic impact projectiles, including hard foam rounds, pepper balls, or the canisters delivering tear gas and flash-bang grenades. In many cases, officers fired directly at individuals, sometimes from very close range, and targeted their upper body, head, or groin area. Several others were injured by officers on horseback, using their horses to trample or ram into people and beating people from atop their horses with batons, or when officers not on horseback beat individuals with their batons or hands.
Click to expand Image A cartridge case that contained the propellent for a projected flash-bang round. This item is ejected after being fired by a launcher and is meant to land at the shooter’s feet. Compton, California, June 8, 2025. © AP Photo / Jae HongThe injuries included severe bruising, lacerations, hematomas, concussions, broken bones (including to the ribs, hand, fingers, and nose), near-severing of a finger in one case and an amputated finger in another, severe eye damage resulting in loss of vision in one eye, and large gaping wounds caused by projectiles that entered or hit legs.
Of these injuries, it appears that police officers were responsible for 36 cases, federal agents were responsible for 13 cases, sheriff’s deputies were responsible for 8 cases, and Highway Patrol officers were responsible for 1 case. In seven cases, it is not clear which agency was responsible.
Human Rights Watch also documented many incidents of officers firing tear gas and other chemical irritants into crowds, causing temporary incapacitation. These cases are not included among the 65 injured.
The actual number of injured is likely much greater than those documented, including those with more minor injuries who did not seek medical attention or speak out publicly.
The Los Angeles Times reported on July 10 that the police department was investigating 86 complaints against officers from the recent protests, including 59 cases of possible excessive force and 3 in which people were hospitalized.
Researchers repeatedly observed and documented law enforcement officers using force to disperse protesters and others, without giving clear, audible dispersal orders or a reasonable opportunity to disperse. Protesters and observers also expressed frustration about the lack of clarity about where they were allowed to go. In many cases, a line of officers would forcibly push the protesters in one direction, only for them to meet another line of officers pushing them in the opposite direction. In at least one case, officers clearly “kettled” or contained protesters, without giving them a way to disperse, before detaining them.
Violence by ProtestersHuman Rights Watch researchers were present on June 11, 12, and 13 and saw no acts of protester violence. During protests earlier in the week, particularly on June 8, some protesters threw water bottles and rocks in the direction of law enforcement officers, lit fireworks, set a tire on fire, and wrote graffiti on government buildings, based on accounts from protesters and observers and videos Human Rights Watch reviewed. A few people set five empty Waymos, self-driving vehicles, on fire that day. Some people threw objects at police cars on the freeway. In the most serious incident documented, also on June 8, a video Human Rights Watch analyzed shows an individual throwing a rock from an overpass over the 101 Freeway near City Hall, hitting a police officer’s protective face gear. The officer then runs for cover under the overpass. Witnesses and a Los Angeles Times reporter covering the protest said the crowd had been peaceful until police initiated the use of force.
On June 14, Human Rights Watch observed and documented a few instances in which protesters threw bottles at police officers, after police had charged the crowd with horses and fired large quantities of less lethal ammunition at them. There may have been isolated incidents by individual protesters earlier that day, but otherwise the protest was not violent or destructive.
Los Angeles Police Chief McDonnell said that 52 officers suffered injuries requiring medical treatment, but did not elaborate on the extent of those injuries or how they occurred.
Selection of Incidents Documented by Human Rights WatchBelow is a selection of the incidents documented in which law enforcement officers used force against protesters.
Ambiance Apparel Warehouse and Store, June 6
Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights WatchIn the late morning on June 6, federal agents, including from ICE and the FBI, conducted a series of coordinated raids of workplaces. Masked and dressed in tactical gear, they went to the Ambiance Apparel headquarters on 15th Street and their clothing showroom and warehouse on Towne Street, both in the Fashion District near downtown Los Angeles. They arrested over 40 people, handcuffed them, loaded them into vans and SUVs, and took them to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown.
According to the US Attorney for the Central District of California, federal officials had a judicial warrant to search the business for “fictitious employee documents.” It is unclear how they determined who to detain and take from these workplaces.
Click to expand Image Federal officers confront protesters gathered outside an Ambiance Apparel location in the Fashion District of Los Angeles during an immigration raid on June 6, 2025. © 2025 PrivateAs news of the raids spread, people gathered outside the two Ambiance Apparel facilities to support the workers and voice opposition to the raids, including family members of workers, people living and working in the surrounding community, and labor and immigrant rights advocates. Human Rights Watch spoke to several witnesses who saw the federal agents loading people into unmarked vans and said the agents prevented detainees from speaking with their family members. One person, who watched agents take his father, said the agents were aggressive with the people they detained, even though they were compliant. Advocates yelled out to the detained workers, advising them in Spanish to exercise their right to remain silent.
At the 15th Street facility, some people stood in front of the ICE vans attempting to enter the facility through the front gate. David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW), positioned himself at the gate until federal agents pushed him to the ground, injuring him, and then arrested him. The US Attorney filed criminal charges against Huerta, alleging “conspiracy to impede an officer.” Los Angeles Police Department officers later formed a skirmish line and moved protesters away from the front gate, assisting the federal agents leaving the facility.
Family members and protesters similarly gathered at the Towne Street facility. Masked and helmeted FBI agents, in combat gear and brandishing assault rifles, forcibly cleared the crowd, knocking people down with batons and shields to allow ICE agents and their vans to leave with their prisoners. After the vans left, FBI agents backed away from the facility as the crowd followed them. A couple of people threw plastic bottles at the well-armored and shielded agents, who fired flash-bang grenades at the crowd as they left the area.
Paramount, June 7
On June 7, federal agents in full tactical gear from the DHS, including CBP, deployed outside a commercial park across from a Home Depot store on Alondra Boulevard in Paramount, a southern suburb of Los Angeles. As word spread of the agents’ presence, people from the neighborhood and around Los Angeles gathered in protest. From late morning into the evening, federal agents repeatedly fired tear gas, pepper balls, and hard foam projectiles at the crowd, who mostly stayed across the street, with people often hiding behind trees, based on witness accounts and video footage Human Rights Watch reviewed.
Click to expand Image Demonstrators confront Border Patrol personnel during a protest in Paramount, California, on June 7, 2025. © 2025 AP Photo/Eric ThayerAn immigrant rights advocate said that around noon, federal agents shot him repeatedly with less lethal munitions: “They had just done a round of tear gas. I had a gas mask on and no one else did, so I went … to move the [tear gas] canister away from the families protesting.” He said that he put the canister into a container and turned around to go back, when he “heard lots of shooting and felt the impact on my back.”
They hit him at least four times with what appear to have been 40mm blue-capped foam rounds that left large bruises on his buttocks, lower-left thigh, back of his right knee, and back of his right ankle, based on the injuries seen and photographs Human Rights Watch reviewed. He said they also hit him in the back with pepper balls, which did not leave longer-term marks, but made him feel like his “back was on fire.”
The advocate said there was no dispersal order before the officers fired at him, that his back was to them, and that he was “not even approaching them,” leading him to view the shooting as arbitrary and unwarranted.
Federal agents also injured Ryanne Mena, a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News, shooting her in the head above the ear with a less lethal projectile, then unleashing a large amount of tear gas. “I’ve been teargassed a number of times,” she said. “But nothing like this. I have asthma, and it was really tough for me to breathe or see. My friend [another journalist, who was also hit above his eye with a projectile] helped lead me around the corner to get away from this really big cloud of tear gas. We were just coughing, struggling to breathe.” Mena suffered a concussion and shared her medical report with Human Rights Watch.
Sheriff’s deputies deployed to surrounding streets, where protesters had also gathered.
Nick Stern, a Los Angeles-based British photojournalist, arrived in the area at around 3 p.m., and saw a skirmish line of sheriff’s deputies and a group of about 150 protesters further west along Alondra Boulevard. “We pulled up to the sound of less lethals being fired,” he said. Stern said it appeared that deputies were firing projectiles at the crowd and that some in the crowd responded by throwing plastic water bottles. Later in the day, he said, some protesters also threw stones and set off fireworks. But, Stern said, the protesters were 150 to 200 feet away from the deputies, and so the objects they threw hit the ground without reaching the officers.
Starting around 7:30 p.m., Stern said, “the LASD just launched this barrage of less lethals: high foam impact devices, flash-bangs, pepper balls. It resembled a war zone.” Stern said he was clearly identified as a journalist, holding up his press card and carrying a large professional camera. At 8:50 p.m., he was standing in the street near a group of people. At that moment, Stern said, “no one had stones, bottles, or fireworks at all near me. They were just waving flags.” Then, he suddenly “felt this excruciating pain in my right thigh. I instinctively put my hand down and felt something solid sticking out of my leg.”
A bystander captured the moment on camera. In the video, Stern is standing in the middle of the street, about 150 feet from the police line, when a sudden bang and flash of light erupts just a meter in front of him. Clutching his leg in pain, Stern begins to stagger away.
A group of protesters carried Stern to the curb, where a volunteer medic cut his pants off and applied a bandage to stop the bleeding. Stern briefly passed out. “It was really scary,” he said. “When I came back, I had no clue where I was or who these people were.” They rushed him to the hospital. He had surgery the next day to remove a 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) long, hard plastic object that appears to have housed an explosive warning device or flash-bang.
Stern remained in the hospital for three nights. When Human Rights Watch interviewed him a week after the incident, he was still in pain and largely bedridden.
Downtown Los Angeles, June 6 to 14
Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights WatchAfter the detainees from Ambiance Apparel were taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center on June 6, protesters gathered outside and in the surrounding neighborhood every afternoon and evening through at least June 14. Protests varied in size, with the largest on June 8 and 14. Following are some of the incidents Human Rights Watch documented.
June 8
Thousands of protesters were in downtown Los Angeles on June 8. National Guard soldiers deployed outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, police officers set up lines throughout the surrounding area, and large numbers of California Highway Patrol personnel were on and around the nearby 101 Freeway. Human Rights Watch interviewed six protest participants.
The National Guard fired tear gas at the crowd starting in the early afternoon, two witnesses said. A Los Angeles Times reporter who was present described the protest as “peaceful” until National Guardsmen charged the crowd and launched tear gas and smoke grenades. By 2 or 3 p.m., large groups of protesters had gathered on Alameda Street between Temple and Aliso Streets, on either side of the detention center. At Alameda and Temple, the police arrived in riot gear and started firing less lethal projectiles at the crowd, three witnesses said.
The police actions scattered the crowd as another larger group of protesters marched into the area. Some went to Los Angeles and Temple Streets, by City Hall, where police officers fired kinetic impact projectiles and pushed the protesters back with horses. Two witnesses said they saw officers striking one person with batons.
Meanwhile, another group of protesters was near the 101 Freeway, north of the Metropolitan Detention Center. A witness in that area said that Highway Patrol officers had initially blocked the entrance to the freeway, but then moved. Once the ramp was clear, a few dozen protesters went down the ramp and onto the freeway, unfurling a banner. Highway Patrol officers formed a skirmish line and pushed the protesters off the freeway using force, including tear gas, and arrested some of them.
As police were firing on the protesters near City Hall and addressing the situation at the freeway, a separate group of people vandalized and burned five empty Waymo driverless cars on Alameda Street, just north of the protest. Police did not appear to respond. Later in the day and into the evening, after the bigger protests had largely dispersed, small groups of people vandalized government buildings with graffiti and some people on the street above the freeway threw things, including chunks of concrete, at Highway Patrol cars and officers on the freeway below them.
Two street medics said they treated multiple people for injuries from the projectiles on June 8. One described the spent ammunition propellent cartridges she saw lining the streets. The other said that after treating dozens of injuries, including many head injuries, she was shot in the head with a projectile while in her car near the Federal Building at around 6 p.m. She said she experienced headaches, nausea, blurred vision, and an inability to concentrate for almost a week afterwards. She also said that police shot her husband in the foot, causing him pain for weeks.
June 9
Protesters again gathered in downtown Los Angeles on June 9. Human Rights Watch documented several instances in which police officers fired less lethal munitions at close range at people without justification, causing injuries.
Jeremy Lindenfeld, a reporter, was filming police officers as they rushed toward a group of protesters near Little Tokyo at around 7:30 p.m. “I had my press helmet on, my press badge, and I was videotaping them detain a protester right in front of me,” he said. “They tackled him, got him down to the ground, detained him, and then, a few seconds later … one of the LAPD officers raised the foam baton launcher at me and just fired.” A video shows him backing away from the line of police after the arrest is made. An officer standing a few meters away fires a projectile directly at Lindenfeld, without warning. Lindenfeld said it left him with a bruise on his stomach.
At around 9:30 p.m., a police officer shot three people, all known advocates for police accountability, at very close range with less lethal projectiles, just outside police headquarters. An officer “had his less lethal 40mm pointed at us as we were walking by the headquarters,” one of the advocates said. “We were like, ‘What are you doing? Are you going to shoot us right now?’ Within a minute, he shot my buddy in the leg. He had his hands up when he was shot… I back up into the street, clearly not a threat,” and then the officer pointed his weapon “directly at me and gets me in the stomach.”
The officer didn’t have his name or badge number on his helmet, so the third advocate then approached him, while filming, and asked for his name and badge number. The officer said: “I’m going to pop you, as you are taking up my focus,” and shot him in the groin at close range. Moments later, the officer shot him again as he was backing away.
All three were still in pain several days later. One said: “It felt like I got hit by a 90 miles-per-hour fastball in my stomach. It hurts to move or get up when I’m sitting.”
June 11
On June 11, protesters marched from Pershing Square to Grand Park, across the street from City Hall. Police officers and sheriff’s deputies were there by the time protesters arrived, around 6:15 p.m., with skirmish lines on the steps of City Hall and at the north end of the block by Temple and Spring Streets. The protesters were chanting and standing in the park and on the street. One witness said police gave a dispersal order at Temple and Spring Streets, but that it was not audible in the park where most people were, and it was not repeated.
By about 6:30 p.m., Human Rights Watch observed police officers forming lines sealing off the area and firing flash-bang grenades. Around 6:45 p.m., police officers and sheriff’s deputies were firing what appeared to be pepper balls and other kinetic impact projectiles at people in the park.
At 6:53 p.m., Human Rights Watch saw police officers on horseback moving in on protesters who were fleeing that section of the park. One officer on horseback rammed a protester to the ground using their horse as the protester was moving away with her back turned. Several other mounted officers immediately moved toward her. Other protesters rushed in to assist her. One officer drew a baton, swung it, and struck another officer’s horse on the head, then hit a protester. Another officer fired a projectile at close range toward the protesters.
The officers continued pushing the crowd from the area. At around 7:20 p.m., on Hill Street by 1st Street, researchers saw officers form a line at 1st Street blocking protesters who were being moved down Hill Street from the park by another line of officers, trapping them in a “kettle.” The officers detained dozens of protesters and several legal observers, wearing clearly identifiable green hats, and took them to a police station over seven miles away. Those arrested were given citations and released later that night, said one arrested person and a lawyer who represented the group.
“No Kings” Protest, June 14
On June 14, tens of thousands of people gathered downtown to protest the Trump administration generally, some as part of the national “No Kings” protests, and more specifically to protest the Los Angeles-area ICE raids.
A Human Rights Watch researcher arriving in the early afternoon observed a festive atmosphere until around 3:30 p.m. At that time, a line of police officers moved south down Alameda Street toward the Metropolitan Detention Center, while another group formed a line at Temple Street, indicating they might intend to trap or kettle protesters. The researcher and others left the area up Temple Street to avoid possible detention.
Between 4 and 4:06 p.m., Human Rights Watch saw police officers, led by a line of horse-mounted officers just northeast of the Federal Building, charge at a large crowd of cheering, chanting people gathered on Los Angeles Street. Human Rights Watch heard no dispersal order and observed no violent or destructive acts that might have triggered a lawful dispersal order. Officers pushed those fleeing down Los Angeles Street, pointing less lethal launchers at the crowd, as horses nearly trampled some people. At Los Angeles and Temple Streets, officers fired tear gas and less lethal projectiles into the crowd.
At Los Angeles and Temple Streets, officers fired tear gas and less lethal projectiles into the crowd on June 14, 2025. (C) 2025 Jeremy Lindenfeld/Capital & Main
Click to expand Image Police officers walk through tear gas after dispersing a crowd on N. Main St. during the "No Kings" protest in downtown Los Angeles on June 14, 2025. © 2025 Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesAt Temple and Spring Streets, officers formed a skirmish line and fired a barrage of hard foam projectiles into the crowd. For the next several hours, police officers continued to fire less lethal weapons into crowds as they moved their lines down various downtown streets.
A protester said he had been impressed by the protest’s “happy vibe” until the police, with no discernible dispersal order, attacked the crowd, seemingly at random. As the protester fled, he turned onto 4th Street from Broadway. Police officers shot him in the head with a less lethal projectile. He said it felt like getting hit with a baseball bat. He fell to the ground, losing consciousness. Other protesters helped him get away, and a street medic provided first aid. The protester learned at the emergency room the next day that he had a concussion with extensive bruising to the brain, in addition to a laceration on his ear and numbness in his arm.
Another protester, Sergio Espejo, a 28-year-old data engineer and artist, joined the protest waving an American flag and chanting “peaceful protest” alongside others. After he made his way to the courthouse by City Hall, he saw sheriff’s deputies holding shields arrive on the opposite side of the street. Espejo said the deputies shouted something inaudible on loudspeakers before firing tear gas and throwing stun grenades at the crowd. At around 5 p.m., a sheriff’s deputy fired a flash-bang device that exploded upon impact on Espejo’s hand. “As soon as I got hit, I dropped to the ground and then immediately got teargassed,” he said. “I couldn’t catch my breath.” A street medic helped Espejo before he was rushed to Los Angeles General Medical Center, where he underwent surgery the same day. The explosion resulted in the amputation of the top two inches of his left index finger. Espejo is left-handed and his ability to work and produce art have been seriously affected. Human Rights Watch reviewed Espejo’s medical report and photos and videos of the injury.
Click to expand Image A sheriff’s deputy fired a flash-bang device that exploded upon impact on protester Sergio Espejo’s hand, resulting in the amputation of his left index finger, in downtown Los Angeles on June 14, 2025. © 2025 Sergio EspejoChristopher Fernandez, an intensive care nurse at a local hospital, came to the protest with a wagon with medical gear to treat injured protesters. He said it was calm until about 4 p.m., when police officers started using tear gas and firing less lethal rounds at protesters. Over several hours, he treated 20 to 30 people, including about a dozen injured with kinetic impact projectiles, five of them with head injuries, including a pregnant woman. One man had lost his hearing and was bleeding from his right ear due to a flash-bang explosion. Fernandez used a flagpole to create a splint for another man with a broken leg. He helped many people wash chemical irritants out of their eyes.
Click to expand Image Volunteer street medic Christopher Fernandez was himself injured while providing medical assistance to others hit by less lethal projectiles on June 14, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles. © 2025 Christopher FernandezIn the midst of this, a police officer shot Fernandez in the back of his left thigh with what appeared to be a 40mm hard foam projectile, leaving a gaping 2-by-3-inch open wound that went down to his muscle.
From when he arrived at the protest at around 11 a.m., until he left just before 8 p.m., Fernandez said the only violence by protesters that he observed were two incidents later in the day when protesters threw empty plastic water bottles toward the police line. “Both times, a lot of [other protesters] yelled out saying, ‘Hey, don’t do that!’ I never saw any police injured or any use of force against the police.”
The overwhelming violence by police made Fernandez feel like he was in “a wartime movie.” He said: “The chaos. The volume of everything. I was just going from people screaming, ‘Medic, medic!,’ one after another, for hours… People were bleeding from the head or the face, and they needed someone to look at them to tell them if they should go to the hospital. I have never experienced anything like this.”
Fernandez never heard any police officers issue orders to protesters to disperse or warning that they would use force. The officers didn’t respond when he and other protesters asked where they could safely go. “It was really frustrating,” he said. “They gave us zero directions, and it was so disorienting.”
When Human Rights Watch spoke with Fernandez, he had been unable to return to work for six weeks and still had difficulties walking or bending his knee.
Senegal: Families Internally Displaced by Floods in Limbo
(Johannesburg) – Senegalese people displaced by tidal surges that climate change is making stronger and more common are suffering ongoing human rights violations, with no durable solution in sight, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
August 18, 2025 “Waiting for God”The 72-page report, “‘Waiting for God’: Flood Displacement and Planned Relocation of Fisherfolk in Saint-Louis, Senegal,” concerns families who lost everything when coastal floods hit their historic fishing communities on the Langue de Barbarie peninsula in 2015 and 2016. They were moved to a site called Khar Yalla, which Senegalese officials acknowledge is unfit for permanent habitation. Authorities have violated their economic, social, and cultural rights through inaction, and left them out of a climate-related, planned relocation benefitting others from their communities.
“Khar Yalla’s story shows that inadequate planning for climate-related relocations can lead to protracted displacement, instead of durable solutions,” said Erica Bower, climate displacement researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Senegal should urgently remedy the rights violations in Khar Yalla and develop policy to ensure that future climate-displaced communities receive adequate support, including through rights-respecting planned relocation.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 100 people, including displaced people, government officials, and experts, and analyzed satellite imagery, academic publications, and documents from the Senegalese government, World Bank, United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental groups.
The approximately 1,000 people who live in Khar Yalla, outside the Saint-Louis city center, come from centuries-old fisherfolk communities on the Langue de Barbarie, which is highly exposed to impacts of the climate crisis. After losing their houses to coastal floods and living for several months in tents, the families agreed to the local authorities’ plan to move them to Khar Yalla in late 2016.
Authorities assured them that it would be short-term and gave them temporary permits to occupy houses constructed for another, failed planned relocation for other flood-prone households.
But the displaced families are still in Khar Yalla, with no essential services and living in conditions that violate their right to adequate housing. There is severe overcrowding, no electricity, and no waste disposal. The site is in a flood zone; during the rainy season, wastewater enters the houses and contaminates the water supply.
Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from October 13, 2013 shows the 68 completed houses in Khar Yalla site already affected by flooding the year of their construction. Between 2013 and 2016, no one lived with authorization in the houses. Image © 2025 Maxar Technologies. Google Earth. Graphic © 2025 Human Rights WatchThe government’s failure to provide essential services in Khar Yalla or connect it to services elsewhere has violated people’s rights to education and health. An estimated one third of children do not attend school; many people have had to forego health care.
Families there also face ongoing violations to their rights to an adequate standard of living and to take part in cultural life. Most households’ incomes have been reduced to levels below the international poverty line for a lower-middle income country like Senegal, and people are having trouble feeding their families. The authorities have failed to respond to these gaps.
Community members are struggling to maintain their fishing livelihoods in the Langue de Barbarie, five kilometers away, given the distance and high costs of taxis and private buses. The loss of fishing livelihoods has negative cultural consequences, too. Fishing “is our whole life,” said one older man in Khar Yalla.
Authorities have also thwarted Khar Yalla leaders’ attempts to retrain people for new professions. “We have no support from the authorities, and when we tried to find our own solution, they stopped us,” said one woman in Khar Yalla.
Moreover, the government failed to include the Khar Yalla families in a permanent, climate-related planned relocation of 15,000 fisherfolk from the Langue de Barbarie to an inland site called Djougop, being carried out through the World Bank-funded Saint-Louis Emergency Recovery & Resilience Project.
Among beneficiaries are over 200 families who were also displaced from Langue de Barbarie by coastal floods, in 2017 and 2018, and then temporarily housed in tents in Khar Yalla. The World Bank and government relocated these families onto Djougop, after determining that Khar Yalla was not a suitable permanent relocation site. But the families displaced in 2015 and 2016 were left behind.
Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights WatchA planned relocation can facilitate a durable solution for those displaced by climate-related disasters but only if its scope includes those experiencing protracted displacement and the planning process respects human rights standards, including meaningful consultation with affected people. There was no such process for the families who moved to Khar Yalla in 2016.
“We’ve asked sometimes if the authorities consider us as human,” said Khady Gueye, a Khar Yalla community leader. Government officials interviewed showed a lack of awareness about Khar Yalla. Some even denied that the families had been displaced by floods.
The Senegalese government is obligated under national and international law to respect and fulfill people’s economic, social, and cultural rights and protect them from reasonably foreseeable risks to rights, including climate change impacts such as risings seas.
Click to expand Image Space next to houses in Khar Yalla where people dump their household waste, in the absence of a state-run waste management system. © 2025 Erica Bower/Human Rights WatchSenegal has invested more than many countries to support climate-displaced communities but has unjustifiably left the families in Khar Yalla out of those efforts. “To live up to its goal of being a global leader on climate adaptation, Senegal should stop the human rights violations in Khar Yalla and plan for the future,” said Fatoumata Kine Mbodji from Lumière Synergie pour le Développement.
Senegal should ratify the Kampala Convention to protect the rights of internally displaced people. It should also develop a policy on climate-related planned relocation that includes mechanisms for climate-displaced communities to request support, prioritizes meaningful consultation, and establishes criteria for relocation site selection to ensure beneficiaries’ rights are fulfilled through relocation.
The World Bank should reform its policies as well. Current policies were designed for resettlements carried out in development projects, which are fundamentally different from climate-related planned relocations. New policies should require grantees to identify beneficiaries displaced for the longest periods who need a durable solution.
“Policy shifts from Senegal and the World Bank are urgent because planned relocations will only become more common as the climate crisis accelerates,” Bower said. “Policies should be centered on the rights of those displaced by the climate crisis, like the families in Khar Yalla.”
Sri Lanka: UN Rights Report Details Security Force Abuses
(Geneva) – The United Nations Human Rights office’s report on Sri Lanka details entrenched and systemic rights violations—including arbitrary detention, torture, and deaths in custody—under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Human Rights Watch said today. The new report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, also describes the misuse of draconian laws to silence families and activists campaigning for justice and says that continued international engagement through the UN Human Rights Council is “essential.”
The Human Rights Council should renew existing UN mandates on Sri Lanka at its 60th session, which begins September 8, 2025. Amid near-complete impunity for past atrocities and ongoing violations against members of minority communities in Sri Lanka, the council over the years has adopted a series of resolutions stemming from the widespread abuses linked to the 1983-2009 civil war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Since 2021, the council has mandated regular UN reporting on human rights in Sri Lanka and established the UN Sri Lanka Accountability Project to collect, analyze, and preserve information and evidence of serious crimes to support future prosecutions.
“President Dissanayake’s election campaign pledges to deliver justice have resulted in few real changes,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN Human Rights Council should take note of the human rights chief’s finding of enduring security agency abuses and take action.”
During his 2024 election campaign, Dissanayake pledged to repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which enables torture and prolonged arbitrary detention; amend the Online Safety Act, which threatens freedom of expression; and establish an independent public prosecutor to promote accountability. The government failed to implement these pledges, and instead the high commissioner found that “the structural conditions that led to past violations persist.”
The continued use of the counterterrorism law is particularly concerning. The high commissioner reported increased use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, from 38 cases in all of 2024 to 49 during the first five months of 2025. The law is typically used against members of the Tamil and Muslim communities. The high commissioner also describes “routine use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment” and multiple cases of deaths in police custody, as well as “a lack of effective investigation into these cases.” The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka told Human Rights Watch in July that it reviewed 736 torture complaints last year.
The high commissioner found that “the surveillance apparatus, especially in the north and east, has remained largely intact, with minimal oversight or direction from the central government,” leading to continued patterns of “intimidation and harassment of families of the disappeared, community leaders, civil society actors, especially those working on accountability for enforced disappearances.” Among those targeted are families of victims who have engaged with the Human Rights Council.
The government continues to suppress the activities of nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists. Many groups face limitations on their funding, while officers from the Terrorism Investigation Division often summon activists for questioning or visit their homes or offices.
The report emphasized the importance of justice for victims of the civil war as well as the thousands of victims of enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial killing 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. The high commissioner reported that about 20 mass graves have been discovered in Sri Lanka, of which five are currently being investigated. The government should seek international support to ensure sufficient financial, human, and technical resources to ensure preservation and conduct exhumations in line with international standards, Human Rights Watch said.
However, numerous emblematic cases illustrate the “unwillingness or inability of the State to prosecute and punish alleged perpetrators,” according to the high commissioner. Regarding the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings of churches and hotels that killed over 250 people, the high commissioner noted that successive governments “have failed to provide a comprehensive account of the circumstances that enabled those attacks, particularly regarding the role of the security establishment.”
The high commissioner noted that since Dissanayake took office last September, the authorities have made some progress in pursuing corruption cases but, like preceding governments, have failed to acknowledge the government’s responsibility for abuses, particularly the role of the military and other security forces in serious international crimes. In particular, survivors of conflict-related sexual violence experience “fear of retaliation, social stigma, and lack of trust in justice mechanisms.”
Ongoing abuses highlight the importance of continued Human Rights Council support for the UN Sri Lanka Accountability Project, as well as the UN’s ongoing monitoring and reporting, Human Rights Watch said. The council should call on the government to end the surveillance and harassment of victims’ families and human rights activists and impose a moratorium on the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
“After a year in office, President Dissanayake has not significantly improved Sri Lanka’s terrible human rights record,” Ganguly said. “Continuing engagement by the Human Rights Council and renewal of the accountability project is crucial so long as the government fails in its obligation to respect and protect the rights of all Sri Lankans.”
Qatar: Five-Year Sentence for Baha’i Dignitary on Abusive Charges
(Beirut) – A Doha court sentenced the chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in Qatar to five years in prison on August 13, 2025, based solely on exercising his rights to freedom of speech and religion, the Baha’i International Community and Human Rights Watch said today. Qatari authorities should urgently quash the conviction and release him.
Qatari authorities charged Remy Rowhani, 71, with promoting a doctrine or ideology that “casts doubt on the foundations and teachings of Islam” under article 259 of the penal code. They also charged him with violating social principles and values using information technology, under article 8 of the 2014 Cybercrime Prevention Law, and disseminating material that calls and promotes the adoption of “destructive principles,” under article 47(b) of the 1979 Law on Publications and Publishing, based on court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch.
“Imprisoning Remy Rowhani on a series of baseless charges rooted solely in his religious identity and activities is a serious breach of human rights law and a grave violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief,” said Saba Haddad, the Baha’i International Community representative to the United Nations in Geneva. “This attack on Remy Rowhani is an attack on all Baha’is in Qatar—and on the very principle of freedom of conscience.”
The Bahai religion embraces all faiths and believes in the unity of all people. Baha’i followers are frequently discriminated against in the region and persecuted in Iran.
The charges were based on an X account and an Instagram account that represent the Qatari Baha’i community linked to Rowhani’s phone number and e-mail address. Human Rights Watch reviewed the posts, which were limited to celebrating Qatari and Muslim holidays and Baha’i values. The Baha’i International Community said the posts discussed “principles such as justice and the equality of men and women, honoring parents and raising children with good manners, and calling for good deeds and service to humanity.”
Qatari authorities claimed that Rowhani violated public order and religious and social values by promoting Baha’i values on social media, based on court documents Human Rights Watch reviewed.
Qatari authorities routinely demonize Baha’is based on Islamic rulings that likely incite hatred against them, the Baha’i International Community and Human Rights Watch said.
Rowhani was arrested on April 28, 2025, and had been held in pretrial detention since then. An informed source told Human Rights Watch that the court denied Rowhani’s lawyer’s request to review court documents outlining the charges and evidence against Rowhani. The court also did not allow Rowhani’s lawyer to defend his client during an initial hearing on June 18 or to access legal documents, the source said.
The court documents also alleged that Rowhani collected donations and transferred funds without a license for the benefit of Baha’i individuals and entities abroad, an arrangement already known to authorities, the informed source said. Rowhani had previously been arrested on December 23, 2024, and fined 50,000 Qatari rial (about US$13,700) and sentenced to a month in prison for collecting funds in 2013 and 2014 “without permission from the Board [of Directors of the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities],” the court documents said.
This charge was based on Rowhani’s collecting voluntary donations, a religious obligation central to the Baha’i faith. The right of Baha’is to practice their religion, in public and in private, in Qatar and elsewhere is protected by article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Qatar has a long-standing record of discriminating against Baha’is, including by deportation, delaying the community’s attempts to reestablish an existing Baha’i cemetery, and refusing to register marriage certificates issued by elected Baha’i institutions in Qatar. Baha’is have also faced discrimination in Egypt and Yemen, and the crime against humanity of persecution in Iran.
The United Nations experts on freedom of religion or belief, the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, and the field of cultural right, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention expressed their grave concerns about discrimination against the Baha’i religious minority in Qatar, and Rowhani’s arbitrary arrest and detention in a joint statement on July 31.
“Imprisoning Remy Rowhani for five years, on a series of abusive charges rooted solely in his religious identity and activities within the Qatari Baha’i community is a serious breach of human rights law” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Qatari authorities should respect fundamental freedoms and immediately release Rowhani.”
Qatar: Five-Year Sentence for Baha’i Dignitary on Baseless Charges
(Beirut) – A Doha court sentenced the chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in Qatar to five years in prison on August 13, 2025, based solely on exercising his rights to freedom of speech and religion, the Baha’i International Community and Human Rights Watch said today. Qatari authorities should urgently quash the conviction and release him.
Qatari authorities charged Remy Rowhani, 71, with promoting a doctrine or ideology that “casts doubt on the foundations and teachings of Islam” under article 259 of the penal code. They also charged him with violating social principles and values using information technology, under article 8 of the 2014 Cybercrime Prevention Law, and disseminating material that calls and promotes the adoption of “destructive principles,” under article 47(b) of the 1979 Law on Publications and Publishing, based on court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch.
“Imprisoning Remy Rowhani on a series of baseless charges rooted solely in his religious identity and activities is a serious breach of human rights law and a grave violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief,” said Saba Haddad, the Baha’i International Community representative to the United Nations in Geneva. “This attack on Remy Rowhani is an attack on all Baha’is in Qatar—and on the very principle of freedom of conscience.”
The Bahai religion embraces all faiths and believes in the unity of all people. Baha’i followers are frequently discriminated against in the region and persecuted in Iran.
The charges were based on an X account and an Instagram account that represent the Qatari Baha’i community linked to Rowhani’s phone number and e-mail address. Human Rights Watch reviewed the posts, which were limited to celebrating Qatari and Muslim holidays and Baha’i values. The Baha’i International Community said the posts discussed “principles such as justice and the equality of men and women, honoring parents and raising children with good manners, and calling for good deeds and service to humanity.”
Qatari authorities claimed that Rowhani violated public order and religious and social values by promoting Baha’i values on social media, based on court documents Human Rights Watch reviewed.
Qatari authorities routinely demonize Baha’is based on Islamic rulings that likely incite hatred against them, the Baha’i International Community and Human Rights Watch said.
Rowhani was arrested on April 28, 2025, and had been held in pretrial detention since then. An informed source told Human Rights Watch that the court denied Rowhani’s lawyer’s request to review court documents outlining the charges and evidence against Rowhani. The court also did not allow Rowhani’s lawyer to defend his client during an initial hearing on June 18 or to access legal documents, the source said.
The court documents also alleged that Rowhani collected donations and transferred funds without a license for the benefit of Baha’i individuals and entities abroad, an arrangement already known to authorities, the informed source said. Rowhani had previously been arrested on December 23, 2024, and fined 50,000 Qatari rial (about US$13,700) and sentenced to a month in prison for collecting funds in 2013 and 2014 “without permission from the Board [of Directors of the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities],” the court documents said.
This charge was based on Rowhani’s collecting voluntary donations, a religious obligation central to the Baha’i faith. The right of Baha’is to practice their religion, in public and in private, in Qatar and elsewhere is protected by article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Qatar has a long-standing record of discriminating against Baha’is, including by deportation, delaying the community’s attempts to reestablish an existing Baha’i cemetery, and refusing to register marriage certificates issued by elected Baha’i institutions in Qatar. Baha’is have also faced discrimination in Egypt and Yemen, and the crime against humanity of persecution in Iran.
The United Nations experts on freedom of religion or belief, the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, and the field of cultural right, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention expressed their grave concerns about discrimination against the Baha’i religious minority in Qatar, and Rowhani’s arbitrary arrest and detention in a joint statement on July 31.
“Imprisoning Remy Rowhani for five years, on a series of abusive charges rooted solely in his religious identity and activities within the Qatari Baha’i community is a serious breach of human rights law” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Qatari authorities should respect fundamental freedoms and immediately release Rowhani.”
Lebanon: Judicial Reforms Positive, But Fall Short
(Beirut) – A law that Lebanon’s parliament adopted on July 31, 2025, includes positive reforms for Lebanon’s judiciary but falls short of guaranteeing judicial independence, Human Rights Watch said today.
The law includes some advances in terms of judicial independence, including greater judicial self-governance and the expansion of elections of judges by other judges. But it allows Lebanon’s government-appointed top public prosecutor to order other prosecutors to cease ongoing legal proceedings and limits the ability of Lebanon’s highest judicial body to overcome government gridlock and obstruction in judicial appointments.
“After years of unrelenting efforts by Lebanese rights and judicial groups, Lebanon’s parliament made progress but didn’t fully seize the opportunity to protect Lebanon’s judiciary from political interference,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “While the law is progressive in many ways, unaddressed gaps continue to threaten the independence of the judiciary and open it up for continued political interference.”
Lebanon’s parliament speaker reportedly signed the law on August 7 and forwarded it to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun to sign it into law. Lebanon’s government and parliament should now work to amend the law and bring it in line with international standards for judicial independence, including recommendations provided by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Human Rights Watch said. The law is set to go into effect in January 2026.
In May, prior to the draft law going before parliament, Lebanese rights and judicial groups welcomed the government’s approval of the draft Law on the Independence of the Judiciary, which was later renamed to the Law Regulating the Ordinary Judiciary, stating that it was “a promising step toward reform.” The groups, including the Coalition for Judicial Independence in Lebanon and Legal Agenda, who in 2018 introduced an original version of the draft law to parliament, called on parliament to further amend the law and bring it in line with international standards.
“When the law was drafted in 2018, we included very high standards on judicial independence,” said Nizar Saghieh, executive director of Legal Agenda. “There are several positive developments with this current version of the law, relating to judicial elections, transparency and freedom of expression and association, but it is still very far from where it should be.”
The text adopted by parliament largely ignored many of the civil society recommendations. The process of adopting the law was also marred by significant violations of the legislative process. They included last minute amendments that parliament members could not review before voting and a haphazard tallying process that led some reporters and members of parliament to conclude that the draft law did not receive a majority of the votes.
“We didn’t discuss the law nor vote on it. They called out some names [of parliamentarians] and then the law was approved,” said MP Halimeh Kaakour [LS1] in a video published on social media.
The new law contains advancements for judicial independence. It expands the participation of judges in judicial electoral processes, allowing judges to nominate themselves to various judicial positions, and strengthens judicial self-governance, including over promotions, discipline, and the assignment of judges to cases. It also tasks the Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s highest judicial body, with developing internal judicial regulations and a judicial code of conduct.
The law acknowledges judges’ rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and requires judges to notify the head of the Supreme Judicial Council 48 hours before a media appearance. Article 53 says that “judges are independent in carrying out their work” and “may not be moved, assessed, disciplined or suspended from the judiciary except in accordance with the scope of the law.”
Article 77 says that “a judge may not be suspended except in accordance with the law and may not be moved from their position within four years, without their consent.” Under the law, a judge cannot remain in a specific position for more than 5 years and should be moved to an equal or higher position after that, unless the judge is facing disciplinary measures.
The law also limits the executive branch’s role in selecting judges for the Supreme Judicial Council. Under the new law, 4 of the 10 members are to be elected by members of Lebanon’s judiciary, four are to be ex officio members appointed by the government on the basis on nominations put forward by the Supreme Judicial Council, and two would be selected by the eight sitting members of the council. Members would serve for a nonrenewable five-year period.
While the introduction of judges elected by other judges to the highest judicial body is noteworthy, the original version of the draft stipulated that the judiciary would elect a majority of Supreme Judicial Council members, as the Venice Commission had recommended. But as Legal Agenda reported, parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee amended the law to increase the number of government-appointed members from three to four.
The most concerning provision is article 42, which enables the country’s top public prosecutor, who is appointed by the government based on nominations put forward by the Supreme Judicial Council, to request that lower-level prosecutors stop ongoing legal proceedings. This would, grant the prosecutor excessive powers and the ability to intervene in ongoing investigations, Human Rights Watch said. The law also limits the ability of the Supreme Judicial Council to overcome government gridlock over judicial appointments by requiring 7 out of the 10 members to approve appointing judges over the government’s objection.
The Lebanese Judges’ Association criticized the law on July 31, saying that it “reinforces sectarianism, renews political interference in the judiciary, and reaffirms the Supreme Judicial Council’s deprivation of any independence, administrative or financial.” The association accused the parliamentary committee of ignoring its recommendations and those from the Venice Commission.
Lebanese rights groups have previously criticized attempts by both the Administration and Justice Parliamentary Committee and the former justice minister to amend the draft in a manner that contravenes international standards.
The Venice Commission adopted separate opinions on the Draft Law on Independence and Transparency of the Judiciary in 2022, later renamed the Law Organizing the Ordinarily Judiciary, and a Draft Law on the Administrative Judiciary in 2024, providing the Lebanese government and parliament with recommendations intended to bring provisions regulating the judiciary in line with international standards.
Lebanon’s government should also advance further judicial reforms by working with parliament to remove civilians from the jurisdiction of Lebanon’s military courts. In recent years, Lebanese authorities have used the military court’s legal jurisdiction over civilians as a means to intimidate or punish them for political activism or to stamp out dissent. The military court should only have jurisdiction over purely military matters, but never when a civilian is the alleged victim or defendant.
“The adoption of this law serves as a first step in the reform of the judiciary, but the fight will not be over until Lebanese leaders finally scuttle legal provisions used to interfere with and stymie the work of the judiciary,” Kaiss said.
Kyrgyzstan: Rights Defender on Trial After Publishing Activist’s Letter
(Bishkek) – The trial of a Kyrgyz human rights defender who published a letter from a political activist on her Facebook page is scheduled to start on August 15, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. Rita Karasartova is charged with organizing mass riots under article 278 of the criminal code and publicly calling for the violent seizure of power under article 327, facing a potential total of 10 years in prison.
The authorities have classified the case, meaning that the defense is barred from obtaining its own copy of the evidence file and that the trial is likely to be held behind closed doors. Both measures violate Karasartova’s fair trial rights under international law. The court had already postponed the trial twice. Karasartova, 55, has been in custody since her arrest on April 14, 2025, when law enforcement officers raided her home in Bishkek. She was only formally charged on July 8.
“Classifying Karasartova’s case combined with repeatedly postponing her trial at the behest of the prosecution help shield the proceedings from public scrutiny and point to a politically motivated prosecution,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should halt this abusive trial, drop the charges, and release Karasartova.”
Karasartova is a human rights defender who provided pro bono legal support to ordinary citizens of Kyrgyzstan seeking to address injustices within law enforcement and the judiciary systems in the country.
The charges against Karasartova were triggered by her publication of a letter from an opposition activist, Tilekmat Kurenov, on Facebook. In her post, dated April 14, 2025, Karasartova said that Kurenov, who at the time was in the UAE, had given her the letter for his relatives, asking her to publish it if something happened to him. She said she published it because Kurenov stopped responding to communications in early April, prompting fears that Kyrgyz authorities might have forcibly disappeared him.
On April 19, Kyrgyz authorities confirmed that Kurenov was in their custody, having been forcibly returned from the UAE and was being charged with calling for and preparing mass riots and attempts to seize power.
In an April 9 statement, the Kyrgyz State Committee on National Security alleged they had uncovered a plot to seize power, and that one of the alleged leaders was in the UAE. The committee said that the plotters intended to incite mass unrest on “ethno-nationalist grounds” to discredit the authorities.
In the days before Karasartova’s detention, Chuy district police also detained two other Kyrgyz citizens whom they identified as “supporters of Kurenov” on suspicion of involvement in the alleged plot. When Karasartova was detained, a media report said the police claimed Karasartova had “close ties” with the main suspects in this case. Karasartova has said the prosecution claims she conspired with Kurenov and his accomplices, and that publishing his letter was a signal to start coordinated actions to seize power.
However, in a letter from detention dated July 16, Karasartova said that after she read the indictment, she realized her case was not substantively related to Kurenov’s, and that the only connection was the publication of his letter. “‘What am I sitting in pre-trial detention for then?’ you might ask. For the fact that with my opposition views, I am doing everything so that power in Kyrgyzstan would gradually come to change. The very notion that power should change terrifies those who are in power.”
This is not the first time Karasartova has faced prosecution in a classified case. She was previously a defendant in the Kempir-Abad case, brought against activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians who opposed the transfer of the Kempir-Abad reservoir to Uzbekistan. A Bishkek district court acquitted all Kempir-Abad detainees in June 2024, but the prosecution has appealed and the case is ongoing.
The Kyrgyz authorities should immediately declassify Karasartova’s case, and if they persist with the prosecution, guarantee her fair trial rights in full, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities should provide Karasartova and her legal team with complete copies of all case materials to enable adequate preparation of her defense, and all court hearings should be conducted in public with full access for journalists and civil society observers.
Kyrgyzstan’s international partners, including the European Union, United States, and United Nations, should publicly call for Karasartova’s immediate release and the declassification of her case. They should make clear that continued restrictions on civil society and the judiciary will have consequences for bilateral relations and international cooperation.
“Rita Karasartova’s prosecution will send a chilling message to other human rights defenders and civil society activists in Kyrgyzstan,” Sultanalieva said. “Kyrgyz authorities should uphold their international human rights obligations and release Karasartova immediately, drop all charges against her, and cease their campaign of harassment against human rights defenders and civil society activists.”
Iran: Israeli Attack on Evin Prison an Apparent War Crime
(Beirut) – Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Evin prison complex in Tehran on June 23, 2025, were unlawfully indiscriminate and an apparent war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. The strikes hit several buildings across the complex and killed at least 80 people, according to official Iranian statements, including prisoners, their family members, and prison staff, in the absence of any evident military target.
Over 1,500 prisoners are believed to have been held at Evin prison at the time of the attack, including many activists and dissidents held by the Iranian government in violation of their rights. The strikes, during visiting hours, significantly damaged the visitation hall, central kitchen, medical clinic, and sections where prisoners were held, including political prisoners.
“Israel’s strikes on Evin prison on June 23 killed and injured scores of civilians without any evident military target in violation of the laws of war and is an apparent war crime,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli attack placed at grave risk the already precarious lives of Evin’s prisoners, many of them wrongfully detained dissidents and activists.”
Between June 24 and July 29, Human Rights Watch interviewed 22 people about the attack, including relatives of victims and prisoners, former Evin prisoners, and others with extensive knowledge of the prison. Human Rights Watch wrote to Iranian and Israeli authorities on July 2 and 7, respectively, seeking information but has not received responses.
Human Rights Watch also analyzed and verified videos and photographs of the Israeli strikes published by media outlets and on social media, as well as material shared directly with researchers, and satellite imagery from before and after the strikes. Human Rights Watch was unable to visit the site, as Iran does not permit access to independent human rights organizations.
The investigation into the June 23 attack on Evin prison is part of a broader Human Rights Watch inquiry into the June 13-25 hostilities between Israel and Iran, including Iranian ballistic missile attacks on populated areas in Israel.
Israeli forces carried out strikes on Evin prison, a 43-hectare compound in Tehran’s District 1, between 11:17 a.m. and 12:18 p.m. on June 23. No advance warning is known to have been given. Satellite imagery, videos, and witness accounts show strikes damaging buildings hundreds of meters apart.
The strikes destroyed the prison’s main southern entrance and another in the north. The visitors’ information building, adjacent to the main entrance, was completely destroyed. Family members of prisoners and former prisoners said that many families frequent the visitors’ building, including to deliver clothing and medicine. The strikes also hit the visitation hall, a judicial complex housing assistant prosecutors, and significantly damaged or destroyed several buildings in the prison’s central premises, where the medical clinic and several prison wards are located.
Two political prisoners in the prison’s central Ward 4, Abolfazl Ghadiani and Mehdi Mahmoudian, described in a publicly available account the “sounds of repeated explosions” at midday near their ward. They saw the medical clinic burning, and the food and hygiene warehouse destroyed. By 2:00 p.m., they said, prisoners had extricated 15 to 20 bodies from the rubble, including those of other prisoners, medical clinic personnel, warehouse workers, and guards and officials from Section 209, a detention facility run by the Intelligence Ministry where dissidents are routinely detained.
Dr. Saeedeh Makarem, who volunteered at the medical clinic, posted on Instagram that after the strikes, prisoners rescued her from the rubble. She subsequently underwent major surgery, including hand replantation. State media reported that a physician was also killed in the clinic.
The strikes damaged buildings and vehicles outside the northern parts of the prison complex, killing and injuring residents, including Mehrangiz Imenpour, a 61-year-old artist. Domestic media reported that Ali Asghar Pazouki, a 69-year-old businessman, was killed outside the compound.
Human Rights Watch found damage either to, or in the vicinity of, prison sections used to hold people accused of national security offenses, including activists and dissidents. These included Wards 4 and 8, Sections 209, 240, 241, 2A, and the women’s ward. The main quarantine section, where transgender prisoners were held, was also damaged. Iranian authorities have not reported on the condition or whereabouts of many prisoners from these sections, which amounts to enforced disappearances in violation of international human rights law.
Under international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, prisons are presumptively civilian objects. Human Rights Watch’s investigation found no evidence of any military targets at the Evin prison complex at the time of the Israeli strikes. None of the sources interviewed, including recently released prisoners, family members, and lawyers who have repeatedly been to the prison said that they were aware of any Iranian military personnel, arms, or material within the compound.
Statements by Israeli ministers immediately after the attack made no claims of military targets within the prison compound but framed the strikes as part of Israel’s attacks on Iran’s repressive institutions. Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote immediately after the attack that Israel struck Evin prison due to its function as an “agency of government repression.” Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s post on X indicated that Evin prison had been struck in retaliation for Iran’s attacks on civilians in Israel.
Several hours after the strikes, Israel’s military confirmed the attack, and a military spokesperson alleged, without evidence or details, that Iran carried out “intelligence operations against the state of Israel, including counter-espionage” in the prison. An Israeli military spokesperson repeated the same allegations that day in a media interview. The Israel Defense Forces’ statement reiterated previous government statements that Evin prison was a “symbol of oppression for the Iranian people.”
The laws of war applicable to the international armed conflict between Israel and Iran prohibit attacks that target civilians and civilian objects, that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, or that are expected to cause harm to civilians or civilian objects disproportionate to any anticipated military advantage. Indiscriminate attacks include those not directed at a specific military target. Even if some individuals at Evin prison were Iranian military personnel, the large-scale attack would have been unlawfully disproportionate.
Serious laws of war violations committed by individuals with criminal intent – that is, deliberately or recklessly – are war crimes. Governments are obligated to investigate alleged war crimes by their forces, or on their territory, and appropriately prosecute those responsible. Both Israel and Iran have track records of impunity and unwillingness to investigate in line with international law, let alone prosecute possible war crimes by their forces. All governments have an obligation to cooperate with each other, to the extent possible, to facilitate the investigation and appropriate prosecution of alleged war crimes.
“The unlawful Israeli attack on Evin prison highlights the consequences of longstanding impunity for serious laws of war violations,” Page said. “To make matters worse, Israeli forces put at grave risk prisoners who were already victims of Iranian authorities’ brutal repression.”
The June 13-25 Conflict Between Israel and IranOn June 13, Israel carried out a series of attacks on Iran that continued until a ceasefire went into effect on June 25. Israeli military attacks included strikes on populated areas; on oil, gas, and nuclear facilities; and on Evin prison. In response, the Iranian military launched a series of ballistic missile and drone attacks against Israel, hitting populated areas as well as a power station, an oil refinery, and a hospital.
On June 22, the United States became a party to the conflict by carrying out airstrikes on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Iran responded on June 23 by launching missiles at a US airbase in Qatar.
Iranian authorities have not published detailed data regarding people killed and injured during the conflict, including a breakdown of civilian and military casualties. On July 16, an Iranian government spokesperson stated that 1,062 people, including 140 children and women, were killed as a result of Israeli strikes, and 5,800 were injured. Iran’s health minister stated on July 9 that about 700 of those killed were civilians. Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), a US-based group, reported that 1,190 people were killed, including at least 436 civilians.
Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry reported 30 civilians, including 4 children, were killed in Israel during the hostilities and 3,343 people were treated in hospitals for injuries from Iranian strikes.
Casualties in Evin Prison AttackOn July 9, a spokesperson for Iran’s Judiciary announced that 80 people had been killed as a result of the strikes on Evin Prison. According to official statements, casualties included judicial and prosecution officials, prison staff, prisoners and their family members, other visitors to the prison, and people living in neighboring residential areas. Informed sources told Human Rights Watch they believe the casualty figures are most likely higher.
The authorities have not released the names of all 80 people reported to have died. Iran’s Prisons Organization and state media have published the names and images of 41 prison staff who died, including 5 female social workers, a social worker’s 5-year-old son, and 13 young men performing mandatory national service.
Those performing mandatory national service in prisons fall under the auspices of the Prisons’ Organization and the national police force, and typically guard the premises, transfer prisoners, and carry out administrative duties and other basic tasks. They are neither combatants under the laws of war nor civilians directly participating in hostilities and so cannot be targeted.
Officials have confirmed the deaths of five prisoners but have not released their names. This is particularly alarming and creates hardship for prisoners’ families, especially because the various Iranian intelligence agencies using Evin Prison have longstanding records of enforced disappearance of dissidents and activists.
Reza Khandan, a wrongfully detained human rights defender, stated in his account of the attack that among prisoners killed were those who worked in the prison compound or its administrative sections.
In addition to the list of prison staff published by state media and institutions, Human Rights Watch, drawing from publicly available information, as well as accounts from informed sources, identified several civilians killed during the attack. They are Hasti (Hajar) Mohammadi, who went to the prison to work for the release of debt prisoners; Leila Jafarzadeh, who was at the prison to post bail for her jailed husband; Ali Asghar Pazouki, a businessman who was near the northern judicial complex; and Mehrangiz Imenpour, an artist and neighborhood resident.
The authorities have not released any figures on the number of people injured in the attack. The relative of someone killed told Human Rights Watch that during their search for their loved one, they were given a list of names of 20 to 25 people injured from one hospital alone.
Accounts and Analysis of the Evin Prison Attack Click to expand Image Layout of Evin prison, which spans approximately 43 hectares across a hilly section of District 1 in Tehran. Most of the prison’s buildings and other structures are constructed on the lower and southeastern sections of the slope. Satellite imagery: June 30, 2025. © 2025 Maxar Technologies. Source: EUSI. Analysis and Graphics © 2025 Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch confirmed, based on satellite imagery, thermal anomaly data, accounts of informed sources, and first online reports and videos, that the Israeli strikes on Evin prison took place on June 23 between 11:17 a.m. and 12:18 p.m. At 1:21 p.m. Tehran time, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed on his X account that the Israeli military had struck targets in Tehran, including Evin prison.
Based on satellite imagery from June 25, Human Rights Watch identified eight apparent impact sites within the prison compound. However, given that satellite images collected on June 23 and 25 – before and after the strikes – were low resolution and debris clearance operations were underway as early as June 25, Human Rights Watch could not confirm with certainty that all eight sites were the result of a direct impact with a detonation at the point of impact.
Due to the resolution of satellite imagery, the exact number and precise locations of the impact sites are approximate. Similarly, in cases in which videos and photographs emerged after clearing operations had already begun, Human Rights Watch was not able to determine whether all visible damage was solely attributable to the Israeli attack.
Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from June 30, 2025 of Evin prison indicating building names or functions based on Human Rights Watch's interviews with former prisoners and other informed sources. Buildings labeled as “ward” and “section” as well as the quarantine are used to hold prisoners and detainees. The eight yellow circles indicate apparent impact sites on June 23. © 2025 Maxar Technologies. Source: EUSI. Analysis and Graphics © 2025 Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch was not able to obtain any images or videos depicting Israeli munitions used during the attacks. No identifiable weapon fragments or remnants of guidance systems are visible in the available media coverage or information released by Iranian authorities. Based on videos and satellite images reviewed, repair of damage to the prison began shortly after the attack and included filling in blast craters.
A visual comparison of each impact site shows that the scale of damage at locations varied, indicating that more than one type and size of munition was used in the attack. For example, based on the images reviewed, at least one munition appears to have penetrated the Administrative Building’s roof, with its detonation occurring only after it entered deeper in the structure, indicating the use of a delayed-action fuze.
On June 24, a spokesperson for Iran’s police force, FARAJA, announced that its bomb squad had successfully neutralized and disposed of two undetonated “missiles” from prison premises. But they did not provide further details on the type of munitions removed or provide any photos.
Strikes on Evin Prison’s Southern Premises Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from June 30, 2025 shows two apparent impact sites in the southern premises of Evin prison. Left image: Photograph showing the destruction inside of a room located in the eastern wing of the Shaheed Moghaddas Office of Prosecutor © 2025 AA. Center image: Photograph showing the main entrance after the clearing operations, only the western side of the gate is standing. © 2025 Reuters. Right image: Days after the attack a part of the surrounding wall is seen almost completely destroyed with its standing metal columns covered with pieces of cloth. © 2025 Getty. Satellite imagery: June 30, 2025 © 2025 Maxar Technologies Source: EUSI. Analysis and Graphics © 2025 Human Rights Watch Visitors’ Information BuildingIsraeli strikes on the southern part of the prison compound almost totally destroyed the main entrance and its adjacent building. Human Rights Watch verified two videos of the immediate aftermath of the strike on the prison’s main entrance, published on June 23.
One video, posted online at 3:01 p.m. and composed of clips edited together, shows the near-total destruction of the eastern side of the entrance and a building east of the gate, identified by several informed sources as the “visitors’ information” building. Several sources and domestic media reports said that a facility for people performing mandatory national service was in the main entrance area, most likely behind the visitors’ information building. Sources said that people serving mandatory national service are stationed at the prison entrance, tasked with guarding, assisting visitors, and accompanying prisoners during transfers.
A video posted by state media on July 4 containing clips apparently filmed in the immediate aftermath of the attack shows a large crater caused by the munition in the northwestern angle of the visitors’ information building. A witness who was outside the main entrance immediately after the strikes told Human Rights Watch that they saw a crater at the entrance and several injured and possibly dead people, including those serving mandatory national service.
Shaheed Moghaddas Office of the ProsecutorHuman Rights Watch analyzed two videos and five photographs published by state and international media between June 29 and July 4 depicting destruction to the prosecutorial office within Evin prison, Shaheed Moghaddas Office of the Prosecutor, including a large hole in the ceiling and damage to walls. Leila Jafarzadeh, whose husband was imprisoned in Evin prison, was reported to have been in the prosecutor’s office at the time of the attack to post bail for his release and was killed. State media reported that her body was recovered several days later. Lawyers and others said that during office hours, the prosecutor’s office was packed with prisoners, summoned individuals, prisoners’ families, and lawyers.
Southeastern Corner of the CompoundHuman Rights Watch identified, based on a verified video and two photographs, damage to the southeastern corner of the prison compound, including a surrounding wall, and dozens of vehicles parked along the southwestern parking lot.
Strikes in Central PremisesHuman Rights Watch analyzed information that shows significant destruction and damage to buildings in the central premises of the compound. Based on satellite imagery analysis, videos, photographs, and accounts of prisoners and informed sources, at least four apparent impact sites were identified in the central section.
Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from June 30, 2025 shows four apparent impact sites in the central premises of Evin prison. Screenshots from videos and photographs geolocated to areas marked by corresponding numbers on the map show major destruction to buildings and other structures. Left image posted on June 23, 2025. © 2025 Mizan: Damage to the Administrative Building in the aftermath of the attack. Center left image © 2025 AFP: Eastern facade of the Administrative Building after clearing operations. Center right image © 2025 Mizan: Clearing operations in front of the central kitchen and ward 4 after the attack. Right image posted on June 23, 2025 © 2025 Mizan: Blackened northern facade of the medical clinic with smoke plume rising from adjacent structures. Satellite imagery: June 30, 2025 © 2025 Maxar Technologies. Source: EUSI. Analysis and Graphics © 2025 Human Rights Watch. The Administrative BuildingVideos and images Human Rights Watch analyzed show severe damage to the Administrative Building, in particular its eastern facade and second floor. Damages to an adjacent building, identified by sources who spoke with Human Rights Watch as the prison’s Security/Protection Unit, are also discernible. The unit operates under the head of Iran’s Prisons Organization, which is under the judiciary’s auspices, and based on regulations, is tasked with maintaining prison security, carrying out prisoner transfers, and preventing and controlling riots and escapes.
One verified video published by state media at 5:50 p.m. on June 23 appears to have been taken in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It shows the Administrative Building’s second floor windows completely blown out with debris falling out. Human Rights Watch also reviewed footage posted online on July 6 showing the floors of one section inside the multistorey building collapsed onto one another. A hole is visible in the ceiling above the damaged area.
Several human rights defenders and former Evin prisoners said that the Administrative Building was large, with several floors, including the social workers’ office and a “technology room,” where prisoners permitted to pursue their education would take exams. Domestic media reported that five female social workers at the prison were killed in the strike on the Administrative Building, along with a five-year-old boy.
Satellite imagery and two videos analyzed also show damage to the buildings east of the Administrative Building. Several formerly detained activists and journalists said the damaged building, which some former prisoners said they called the “motori building,” was used to register new prisoners and detainees and process prisoner transfers.
Based on publicly available accounts by prisoners and informed sources, the quarantine section of the prison, used to hold new detainees, adjacent to the “motori” building, was also damaged. Several sources said that transgender prisoners were held there. A verified video published by state media on the day of the attack shows damage to the general area where the quarantine section and a small road leading to Section 2A are located.
The Iranian singer Danial Moghaddam, in a post on his Instagram account, said that he was detained on June 22 and held in room 4 of the prison’s quarantine section. He said that around noon on June 23, as a result of the explosion, parts of the quarantine section’s walls, ceiling, and windows collapsed on prisoners. Moghaddam also said that after exiting the quarantine, he saw casualties and items of clothing under the rubble in the area.
Prison Medical Clinic, Central Kitchen, and Ward 4The strikes also hit the area north of the prison clinic, severely damaging the clinic and nearby buildings, including Ward 4, the central kitchen, and a covered vehicle passage adjacent to the clinic. A human rights defender imprisoned at Evin until shortly before the attack told Human Rights Watch that besides the medical personnel, “the clinic is always full of prisoners.”
Political prisoners Abolfazl Ghadiani and Mehdi Mahmoudian, in a publicly available account, referred to two or three strikes in proximity to Ward 4. They described damage to Ward 4, the clinic and nearby facilities, and Section 209.
Human Rights Watch analyzed videos and photographs showing damage to the prison clinic and other buildings in the vicinity. One verified video posted online on the day of the attack shows smoke plumes rising from buildings surrounding the clinic. The clinic’s northern facade is burned. Another video, composed of several clips edited together and published by state media on June 25, shows significant damage to the buildings opposite the clinic, including the central kitchen and Ward 4.
Human Rights Watch corroborated videos and photographs of the clinic’s interior and various rooms with former prisoners who had been inside the clinic. The images show damage to a treatment room used for small procedures and injections, the nursing station, a doctor’s consultation room, a laboratory, and the CPR, physiotherapy, and medicine storage rooms.
In a statement published within hours of the strike, Evin prisoners referred to the partial destruction of Ward 4. Two prisoners’ family members said that their imprisoned relatives described damage to Ward 4 and injuries to prisoners. A Ward 4 prisoner, whose statement was obtained by a human rights group and shared with researchers, said that nearby strikes resulted in the collapse of part of the ward’s ceiling and walls.
Section 209 and Storage BuildingThe strikes on Evin’s central premises damaged a building opposite Section 209. Former prisoners told Human Rights Watch that the building was used for storage, with administrative and management functions for Section 209 in the southern part of the building. Satellite imagery from June 27 shows major destruction to the building, with roof sections collapsed. Debris and burn scars are visible along the road separating the building from Section 209.
Given the proximity between these two buildings, and extensive damage to the storage building, it appears likely that the eastern facade of Section 209 was also severely damaged, most likely exceeding what is visible in the satellite imagery. The Ward 4 prisoner whose account was obtained by a human rights group and shared with Human Rights Watch, said he saw several wounded people or bodies removed from Section 209 and the clinic.
An informed source said that prisoners in the women’s ward, where about 70 political prisoners were held, described a “terrifying blast impact.” An image identified as the ward by former prisoners showed ceiling damage. No other photos or video footage of this area were published. As a result, Human Rights Watch could not independently assess the extent of damages to Section 209 or to the women’s ward.
Northeastern Premises Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from June 30, 2025 shows two apparent impact sites in the northern premises of Evin prison. Screenshots from videos geolocated to areas marked by corresponding numbers on the map show major destruction to buildings and other structures. Left image posted on June 23, 2025 © 2025 Iran International: Walls on both sides of the road directly in front of Sections 240 and 241 are nearly completely destroyed. Center image © 2025 ISNA: Filmed inside the visitation hall shows the joint entrance to the hall and the Kachoui Judicial Complex with the parking area of the building covered with debris. Right image posted on June 23, 2025 © 2025 Mamlekate: Filmed on Ahmadpour Street showing the joint entrance and the visitation hall building severely damaged. Satellite imagery: June 30, 2025 © 2025 Maxar Technologies Source: EUSI. Analysis and Graphics © 2025 Human Rights Watch Visitation Hall and Shaheed Kachoui Judicial ComplexHuman Rights Watch identified at least two apparent impact sites in Evin Prison’s northern premises. The strikes destroyed the joint northern entrance to the prison’s visitation hall and Shaheed Kachoui Judicial complex, in the northeastern corner of the compound. Two videos that Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated to Ahmadpour Street, north of the prison compound, show the immediate aftermath of the strike. A shadow analysis indicates they were filmed around noon.
In one video, two men in civilian attire assist another man, dazed and apparently injured. In another, a man in a bloodied shirt is shouting instructions at others while smoke plumes rise from the prison compound.
Human Rights Watch verified another video posted online by state media on June 24 and composed of several clips edited together, showing destruction of the joint entrance, its parking area and the inside of the building. The first clip shows the gate completely destroyed and walls surrounding it significantly damaged. The rest of the video shows damage and destruction inside the building, including the offices of assistant prosecutors and the visitation hall waiting area, strewn with debris and staircases stained with blood.
Informed sources said that offices of assistant prosecutors in the Kachoui complex were on an upper floor of the visitation hall, a larger building stretching south of the compound. They said that the strikes took place during the office and visitation hours, running from 8 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., when a large number of visitors, including families of prisoners, would have been there. Former prisoners said that the Kachoui complex deals with the judicial affairs of convicted prisoners, including requests for prison leave and conditional release.
Vicinity of Wards 240 and 241Strikes on the northeastern premises of Evin compound impacted the internal road connecting the north and central sections of the prison. The impact site is less than 20 meters from Sections 240 and 241. A video posted online on June 23 at 3:00 p.m. and verified by Human Rights Watch shows the walls on both sides of the road in front of Sections 240 and 241 almost completely destroyed. Satellite imagery recorded on June 27 also showed a large impact visible on the internal road connecting the north and central sections of the prison.
Families of prisoners and other informed sources said that windows in Ward 8, where many political prisoners were held, were shattered. Mohammad Nourizad, a political prisoner in Ward 8, in a June 23 phone call with his relatives, described the shattering of windows and injuries to prisoners. Nourizad said “they just hit us again,” indicating that the strikes were ongoing. A recording of the call was made public on June 23 at 1:30 p.m. local time. Human Rights Watch corroborated that the call was made at noon during the strikes.