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Vietnam: UN Rights Review Should Call for Urgent Reform
(Geneva, July 7, 2025) – United Nations member countries should use the upcoming review of Vietnam’s record on civil and political rights at the UN Human Rights Committee to press the government to end its crackdown on dissent and other basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in its submission to the committee. The review of Vietnam’s report on its adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1982, will take place on July 7-8, 2025, in Geneva.
Following Vietnam’s previous review in 2019, the Human Rights Committee urged Vietnam to “take all necessary steps, including revising legislation, to end violations of the right to freedom of expression offline and online,” among other rights violations. Since then, repression in the country has worsened, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Vietnamese government claims that its citizens enjoy freedom of expression, but this ‘freedom’ disappears for anyone who calls for democracy or criticizes the Communist Party,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “UN member countries should use Vietnam’s review to call out the government’s systematic repression of civil and political rights and urge genuine reforms.”
The Vietnamese authorities severely restrict all civil and political rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and religion. They prohibit independent rights groups, labor unions, media, many religious groups, and other organizations operating outside government control. Rights activists and bloggers who criticize the government or advocate for reform face police intimidation, harassment, restricted movement, arbitrary arrest and detention, prosecution, and long prison sentences after unfair trials.
The Vietnamese authorities frequently use penal code article 117, which criminalizes “making, storing, [or] disseminating information” critical of the state, to prosecute and imprison activists for posting or publishing statements opposing government policies. In recent years the government has also significantly increased the use of penal code article 331 to target citizens who have complained or filed grievances against even low-level officials. Article 331 criminalizes the act of “abusing the rights to democracy and freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations, individuals,” and punishes violations with up to seven years in prison.
From 2024 and through April 2025, courts in Vietnam convicted and sentenced at least 16 people to long prison terms under article 117, including prominent human rights activists Nguyen Chi Tuyen, who has used social media to criticize the government’s human rights record, Nguyen Vu Binh, a blogger, and Phan Van Bach, a democracy campaigner. Between 2018 and April 2025, Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 128 people to harsh prison terms under article 331, including prominent lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, influential blogger Truong Huy San, and internet commentator Nguyen Thai Hung.
More than 170 people are currently imprisoned in Vietnam for criticizing the government or the Vietnamese Communist Party. All media are under Party control and Vietnam is the world’s third largest jailer of journalists.
In November 2024, the Vietnamese government issued Decree 147 to regulate the use and provision of internet services and online information. The decree expands government control over access to information on the internet for vaguely defined reasons of “national security” and “social order,” and to prevent transgressions of Vietnam’s “morals, beautiful customs, and traditions.” The authorities have extensively misused such legislation to repress political dissent.
As a matter of law and practice, the Vietnamese government does not allow independent unions to represent workers: its Trade Union Law only allows government-controlled “unions.” The government has still not ratified the International Labour Organization Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, despite making a pledge to do so. While the government claims that the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor is a “labor confederation” of enterprise-level unions, it is not independent, nor does it comprise labor unions: its leaders are appointed by the Vietnamese government or the Party.
The Vietnamese government restricts religious freedom and practice through legislation, registration requirements, harassment, and surveillance. Religious groups are required to gain approval from, and register with, the government, as well as operate under government-controlled management boards. As of April the government had granted permission to “43 religious organizations which belong to 16 religions” to operate in Vietnam. It acknowledged that by 2021, it had not officially recognized about 140 religious groups with approximately one million followers.
“UN members should not be taken in by Vietnam’s baseless assertions but instead denounce the government’s terrible human rights record,” Pearson said. “They should press Vietnam to commit to real change, not empty words.”
China: 10 Years Since ‘709 Crackdown,’ Lawyers Still Under Fire
(New York) – The Chinese government is persecuting and silencing lawyers who challenge official abuses a decade after the “709 crackdown” on lawyers defending people’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Chinese Communist Party has also strengthened ideological controls over the broader legal profession.
In July 2015, Chinese police rounded up and interrogated about 300 lawyers, legal assistants, and activists across the country; members of a loosely connected community known as the “rights defense” movement, which had become increasingly influential between 2003 and 2013. Some were forcibly disappeared for months and tortured, and 10 were sentenced to harsh prison terms. In the decade since, the authorities have subjected many of them to surveillance, harassment, public shaming, and collective punishment, and revoked or cancelled their or their law firms’ licenses.
“The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has sought to eradicate the influence of lawyers who defend people’s rights while compelling the rest of the legal profession to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s political agenda,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities over the past decade have muted the rights defense lawyers, though many still find ways to fight against social injustice.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed relevant official documents governing law firms and lawyers caught up in what has been called the “709 crackdown,” for the July 9 date of the roundup. Human Rights Watch also interviewed seven rights defense lawyers and another lawyer not involved in activism.
In addition to the ongoing harassment of lawyers, the authorities have increasingly demanded that lawyers show “absolute loyalty” to the Party and required law firms to establish Party cells and follow the Party’s leadership. The government’s expansion of access to public legal services has increased the role of Party-approved lawyers at the expense of rights defense lawyers, using the legal system to diffuse conflict and ensure social control.
The Chinese government should cease persecution of rights defense lawyers, compensate the victims of past and recent abuses, and reinstate the licenses of these lawyers and their law firms, Human Rights Watch said. On the anniversary of the 709 crackdown, concerned governments should speak out in support of China’s rights defense lawyers, and support those seeking refuge abroad.
“China’s rights defense lawyers and their families have suffered tremendously for seeking to provide justice to people in China,” Wang said. “Foreign governments should counter their ongoing persecution and silencing by providing international recognition, solidarity, and support to these courageous lawyers.”
Repression of Rights Defense Lawyers under Xi Jinping
Around 2003, a number of China’s lawyers and legal experts responded to the Chinese government’s embrace of a liberal conception of rule of law to assert people’s constitutional and civil rights. Through litigation, they worked with activists, journalists, and people who used the relatively less censored internet of the early 2000s to hold local officials accountable for rights abuses, from land seizures to forced evictions.
Human Rights Watch found in a 2008 report that these lawyers and legal experts had faced violence, intimidation, threats, surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detention, prosecution, and suspension or disbarment from practicing law for pursuing their profession. Nevertheless, one lawyer said that lawyers during this period had “some limited space” and were becoming “organized, politicized … and internationalized.”
Soon after Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, the Chinese government aggressively dismantled China’s nascent civil society and severely tightened control over the internet, the media, and academia. In 2014, the authorities began to arrest and prosecute prominent rights defense lawyers including Pu Zhiqiang, Tang Jingling, and Xu Zhiyong. In July 2015, the authorities rounded up 300 lawyers and legal workers in what soon became known as the 709 crackdown.
One person interviewed who was a rights defense lawyer at the time said:
Xi Jinping's crackdown on human rights activists … is not aimed at a few specific individuals.… In the past, those who were arrested were those who crossed the red line, those who showed up, those who took to the streets.… Now the goal is to catch all of civil society in one fell swoop, to eliminate the nodes where people gather, to eliminate the budding of civil leaders, to disintegrate the ability of the people to resist, and even to preemptively strike before the activists plan their actions.
Ten years on, while those imprisoned during the 709 crackdown have been released, some continue to experience intense surveillance and harassment. The authorities have cut off their water, electricity, and phones in some cases, repeatedly forced them out of their homes, imposed arbitrary banking restrictions, and forced some to quit their profession. The prominent human rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan sought to raise public awareness of the plight of the 709 lawyers by posting a photo of himself selling insect repellent on the streets.
The authorities have also imposed collective punishment on some of these lawyers’ families. The father of Wu Gan, a legal activist, said he was repeatedly detained for a total of two years. The children of several rights defense lawyers have been barred from leaving the country to study abroad and to escape harassment.
The persecution of the lawyer Wang Quanzhang’s now-12-year-old son has been particularly egregious. Not only has the family been forced to move repeatedly—during one two-month period, police forced the family to move 13 times—but the family has had to find new schools multiple times as police put pressure on the schools to eject the son.
The authorities have sought not only to punish, marginalize, and erase the influence of these lawyers, but also to change the public’s perception of them. A 2016 Ministry of Public Security press release said the rights lawyers had, “in the name of ‘protecting rights’ … seriously disrupted social order,” and that the group had “profiteered,” operated “shady plots,” and had “ulterior motives.” Such smearing has continued with harmful implications for the legal community.
One rights defense lawyer said: “In the past, we were seen as a symbol of justice who dared to fight against injustice, but now we have become a ‘hostile force.’”
Another said: “I used to promote legal knowledge in the community where I lived.… I thought I was doing public service, but I didn’t expect to be questioned by my neighbors many times whether I was a spy.”
The erasure of rights defense lawyers has over the past decade been so effective that even fellow lawyers are unaware of this group. A Beijing-based lawyer not involved in the rights defense movement told Human Rights Watch: “I have never heard of the names [of the human rights lawyers] you mentioned, [like] Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi, Zhou Shifeng. I started practicing in 2015, but by then they had been completely erased from the public eye.”
The Chinese government has also sought to eliminate these lawyers’ international influence. Ten years on, the authorities are still barring many of the 709 lawyers from travelling abroad.
A lawyer who fled China, Lu Siwei—who was not subjected to the 709 crackdown but ran a public campaign in support of 709 victims—was seized by Laos authorities in 2023 and forcibly returned to China. A court sentenced him to 11 months in prison. Yu Wensheng, a lawyer who represented some of the 709 lawyers, and his wife Xu Yan, were imprisoned for attempting to meet with European Union officials, sending the message that the authorities would punish any lawyer who maintained contact with foreign governments.
The lawyer who was not involved in the rights defense movement said:
Forget going to the embassy to discuss human rights … I went to the US and Canadian embassies to attend several cultural events to watch movies, and I was warned by the authorities not to approach the embassy again.
A decade after the crackdown, Chinese rights defense lawyers confront “more comprehensive and sophisticated” controls by the Ministry of Justice and the government-controlled lawyers’ associations, a lawyer interviewed said, and these authorities are adopting a “one-versus-one” strategy to monitor them:
As soon as you make a public post … on your [social media] account, they will call you right away. For a certain number of lawyers, the judicial authorities have even gone to the court to follow and observe the trial. This was not common before but has developed into a systematic strategy over the years.
Another rights defense lawyer interviewed said:
In the past, the suppression of human rights lawyers was very blatant … [lawyers] were arrested at any time and disappeared after being covered in black hoods. Now the means have become more covert and more rules-based. This is even more terrifying, because it is not easy for the outside world to see it, and it is even more difficult to criticize it.
The rules for lawyers are set out in the Measures on the Administration of Lawyers’ Practice and the Measures on the Administration of Law Firms, both revised in 2016. The second document was further amended in 2018. Together, they make law firms responsible for ensuring that their lawyers do not take part in activities that the authorities deem “endanger national security” or incite others to do so, such as “collecting signatures” or “unfurling banners.” The measures also empower judicial authorities to disbar law firms or lawyers for failing to comply with these rules.
Rise of Lawyers Pursuing the Communist Party’s Interests
Since Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012, he has strengthened the Communist Party’s control over society and state institutions and imposed further ideological controls, while re-adopting Mao Zedong's militant language and logic in political discourse. In 2013, the authorities reportedly circulated “Document Number 9,” which apparently prohibits public discussions of “seven ideological taboos,” including the rule of law and judicial independence.
Xi also reversed the Chinese government’s earlier embrace of liberal legal reforms, turning the law into a tool to cement his and the Party’s power. He has increasingly emphasized the Party’s leadership over lawyers’ work and demanded their “absolute loyalty.” In 2016, the government issued the “Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Lawyer System,” which called for the establishment of “high-quality lawyers who support the leadership of the Party and the socialist rule of law.”
In 2018, the government-controlled All-China Lawyers Association added language to its charter calling on lawyers to “firmly safeguard the authority of the Communist Party, which has comrade Xi Jinping as its core.” The government amended the Measures on the Administration of Law Firms to require law firms to:
… adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought.… [U]phold and strengthen the Party's overall leadership over the work of lawyers, firmly safeguard the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and make supporting the leadership of the Communist Party of China and supporting socialist rule of law a basic requirement for practicing the profession.
The same revisions require law firms to establish Party cells “to the extent possible.” Firms with three Party members should have a Party cell while those with fewer need to have alternative arrangements to ensure the Party’s leadership. By mid-2019, all law firms in China had met these requirements, according to China’s Legal Daily. These revisions also require including the Party cells in the law firms’ decisions and management, which presumably include personnel management and allocations of cases.
At the same time, the government has made expanding various public legal services, including legal aid, a priority. Chinese legal academics estimate that in 2022, 20 to 30 percent of all criminal suspects had lawyers, of whom 60 percent were legal aid lawyers funded and assigned by the government.
Fu Hualing, a Hong Kong-based Chinese legal scholar, wrote in a 2020 research paper that such services have become “a policy tool” for the Chinese government to ensure that social conflicts are averted before they spring out of control, bringing them “from the streets back into the courts.” What emerges, he wrote, is “a narrative [that ties] legal aid and public interest law to the political ideology of serving the people.” This “socialist rule of law” is in turn an integral part of Xi’s promotion of the “Fengqiao model of governance [that] prioritizes prevention and preemption of disputes … through individualized and targeted legal intervention.”
In other words, the legal system is meant to divide people in China, steering them away from responding to social injustices in an organized manner, as some rights defense lawyers were doing. One rights defense lawyer agreed with this assessment, telling Human Rights Watch that this has the impact of co-opting the legal profession:
After rights defense lawyers were purged and silenced, the Chinese government organized and carefully supported pro-Party … state-designated lawyers to occupy defense seats in sensitive cases. The scope of application of these designated lawyers is getting wider and wider from politically sensitive cases to a wider range of criminal cases.
She said that this was equivalent to slowly undermining the criminal defense system and reducing legal defense work to a formality:
As they [the state-designated lawyers] cooperate with the authorities to persuade defendants to plead guilty, dissuade family members from defending their rights, and deny human rights discourse, they cover up judicial abuses, cooperate with procedural violations, and do their best to prevent the media and human rights organizations from obtaining information.
The Future of Human Rights Lawyers in China
The immediate future of China’s rights defense lawyers is grim. Prominent lawyers such as Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi are in prison while Gao Zhisheng has been forcibly disappeared since 2017. Others, like Li Fangping and Li Jinxing (also known as Wu Lei), have gone abroad with their families.
One lawyer familiar with this community said that even though one can no longer speak of an organized movement of rights defense lawyers, there are lawyers still willing to defend human rights independently:
Some lawyers choose not to speak out and focus on making big money, but there are still many who insist on fighting, although they have toned it down … I think there are some lawyers who are forced to turn to a semi-underground approach, such as lawyers who defend [practitioners of the persecuted religious group] Falun Gong and [underground] Christians. But no matter what, they still appear in court.
UN Rights Council Rejects Bad-Faith Bid to End Eritrea Scrutiny
Today the UN Human Rights Council firmly rejected Eritrea’s attempt to end scrutiny of its human rights situation. Council members decisively voted down the Eritrean government’s resolution to end the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea and instead renewed the mandate for another year.
This vote – with 25 states voting against the resolution and only 4 in favor – sends an important message that the international community is not fooled by Eritrea’s efforts to distract from, and discredit, independent human rights reporting on the country’s dire rights record.
The resolution Eritrea presented claimed that “gaps in the promotion and protection of human rights in Eritrea are not systemic,” and “like other developing countries,” Eritrea simply faces “capacity constraints” when it comes to human rights protection.
The special rapporteur’s reporting, which shines a much-needed spotlight on a devastating reality, begs to differ.
Presenting his latest report to the Council in June, the special rapporteur highlighted the lack of progress on accountability ten years after the publication of the landmark report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea, which concluded that “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations […] committed in Eritrea under the authority of the Government […] may constitute crimes against humanity.”
The special rapporteur’s report noted that arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances remained widespread and systematic, and that freedom of religion remains severely restricted, among other serious abuses. It also voiced grave concerns over the continued abusive policy of indefinite national service, including compulsory military conscription, which means that most Eritreans spend their lives in government service.
During negotiations, Eritrea argued that the mandate should end because it had no impact, and because the special rapporteur had never set foot in the country: a circular argument suggesting their refusal to cooperate should be grounds to end international scrutiny.
Following the defeat of their initiative, Eritrea once again attacked the mandate and vowed to “never engage” with the special rapporteur, underscoring again that this lack of cooperation is the very reason such scrutiny remains essential.
The Council’s firm rejection of Eritrea’s initiative comes as a relief to Eritrean rights groups who had been campaigning for the renewal since May.
Their message is clear: only once Eritrea ends its abusive practice of indefinite conscription, releases all those being held unlawfully, and Eritreans are free to speak, meet, and pray freely, should the Council even consider changing tack.
Central African Republic: Activists Arrested at Memorial Event
(Nairobi) – Central African Republic authorities arrested activists holding a memorial event for students who died in a high school explosion, Human Rights Watch said today.
On June 27, 2025, civil society activists organized a vigil in memory of the students who died in the explosion on June 25 at Barthelemy Boganda High School in Bangui, the capital, where they were taking year-end exams. The death toll was reported in the media to be 29, with at least 250 others injured. The authorities arrested seven people at the memorial event, including three of the organizers, although all have since been released.
“Students should not fear death or injury when they are attending school and have a right to full public accountability,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should follow through on its obligation to conduct transparent and effective investigations and not target those calling for accountability.”
The government issued a statement on July 1 saying that 20 students died and 65 others were hospitalized. The government has promised an investigation into the cause of the explosion.
The explosion at the school, which occurred when power was being restored to an electrical transformer on the premises, caused a stampede of 5,000 students who were taking exams, according to witnesses and media reports. One student told Human Rights Watch that it took a long time for ambulances to arrive, and that bystanders had to transport the injured to hospitals by motorcycle taxis.
“My daughter had jumped out of a second story window,” the father of a 21-year-old victim, who was not at the scene, told Human Rights Watch. “Her friends and classmates waited for over an hour for an ambulance and decided to take her on a motorcycle, but she died on the way to the hospital. This was her baccalaureate exam, and she was excited for her future. We buried her yesterday and we are still in shock.”
Journalists who covered the incident told Human Rights Watch that the number of dead is 29 and that the number of injured, including those seriously injured, is also higher than the official number. The government should carry out an effective, transparent, and public investigation into both the cause and the extent of the damage immediately, Human Rights Watch said.
The president announced three days of national mourning, which took place from June 27 to 29. Civil society activists from an umbrella group, the Civil Society Working Group (Groupe de Travail de la Société Civile, GTSC), organized a vigil on June 27 to commemorate the victims, call for safer schools, and demand an investigation.
One of the activists told Human Rights Watch the organizers tried to hold the memorial ceremony at the school but were denied access by the Education Ministry because investigations were underway. Understanding this reason, they selected a different location, but the security minister said the vigil was not authorized, citing a 2022 ban on protests in public spaces.
The organizers along with the students and their families started to hold the vigil anyway, but police broke it up and arrested seven people including the three organizers, Gervais Lakosso, Fernand Mandé Djapou, and Paul Crescent Beninga, the activists said.
Photos showing police beating vigil participants, seen by Human Rights Watch, circulated on social media. Human Rights Watch was also sent photos from one of the vigil organizers showing wounds from when he was thrown in a police truck.
“We were trying to light candles and put down flowers in memory of those we lost,” Beninga said. “Where is the security risk in that? We were trying to mourn our young people that were studying for their future and the police came, beat, and arrested us and took us away.”
During their interrogation, three civil society activists were informally accused by the police of “association with criminals” and of having ties to the Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (Bloc Républicain pour la Défense de la Constitution, BRDC), a coalition of opposition parties. People close to the government often disparage the coalition and accuse it of supporting armed groups.
“We were treated like criminals and traitors,” Mandé Djapou said.
The Internal Security Ministry posted its rejection of the activists’ request to hold the memorial event on its Facebook page, along with photos of the three activists in handcuffs. The post says that the “detained,” while free, will “be subject to close police surveillance.”
Authorities took Lakosso and Mandé Djapou to a cell at the National Security Unit and Beninga to a cell at the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry (Office Central de Répression du Banditisme, OCRB), a police unit in Bangui notorious for abuses, where they spent the night. Sending an activist detained for organizing a memorial for dead students to a facility run by a unit known for torture, executions, and shooting suspects on sight can only be designed to intimidate and send a threatening message to activists.
The three activists, as well as the four others arrested with them, were released after President Faustin-Archange Touadéra intervened, according to the activists and the ministry’s Facebook page.
Since 2022, Central African authorities have cracked down on civil society, media, and opposition political parties. The police have prevented opposition political protests and government officials have made unfounded accusations that civil society activists are collaborating with armed groups.
Repression increased ahead of local and national elections in 2023, and a referendum in 2023 led to a new constitution that removed term limits and allows Touadéra to run for a third term, which had not been permitted under the 2016 constitution.
“When tragedies like this occur, civil society should be able to commemorate, call for accountability, and support people in their grief,” Mudge said. “The government’s crackdown on this memorial event shows how much it relies on repression and assumes the worst from civil society.”
US: FIFA Cancels Anti-Bias Messaging for Club World Cup
(New York) – The global soccer governing body FIFA’s reported decision to cancel previously planned additional anti-racism and anti-discrimination messaging at Club World Cup venues in the United States signals a human rights risk for FIFA’s upcoming 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico, the Dignity 2026 coalition said today.
The 2025 Club World Cup is a global soccer tournament currently underway in the United States in 12 stadiums across 11 cities. It is seen as a test run for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico. FIFA briefly reinstated its anti-racism and anti-discrimination messaging on June 18, the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, but has since withdrawn the messages. The campaign, which displays messages in stadiums and venues and is televised via matches, aims to raise awareness and calls for an end to discrimination in football.
On July 2, 2025, homophobic chants were reported at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta at the FIFA Club World Cup game featuring Borussia Dortmund against Monterrey. FIFA displayed a warning that the game would be suspended if the chants continued.
“By withdrawing its own anti-discrimination and anti-racism messaging, FIFA is sending a dangerous signal to players, fans, and the wider public,” said Bailey Brown, president of the Independent Supporters Council, the leading North American alliance of fan groups. “The absence of these messages risks normalizing discrimination and undermining the progress made in soccer in recent years.”
The Dignity 2026 Coalition brings together 15 national-level human rights groups, labor unions and worker networks, athletes’ organizations, fans, and migrant rights groups working to ensure that the 2026 FIFA World Cup respects rights and stands up for the interests of affected communities.
“Global soccer has long needed to directly confront racism, discrimination, and homophobia to protect players, fans, and children,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “Any cancelation of FIFA’s well-established campaigns to eradicate hateful actions in sport is an inexplicable and inexcusable step backward.”
FIFA’s longstanding anti-racism campaign uses the hashtag #NoDiscriminationFIFA and the website NoDiscrimination.FIFA.com. The messaging raises awareness about how to use FIFA’s zero-tolerance and related policies against all forms of discrimination and racism. FIFA’s anti-racism campaign has not been removed from FIFA’s official website, but it is not meaningful without promotion in stadiums and televised games.
FIFA’s cancellation of anti-discrimination messaging, reported in The New York Times’ sports edition, The Athletic, on June 16, 2025, represents a major change from previous competitions. At the Women’s World Cup in 2023 in Australia and New Zealand and the Men’s World Cup in 2022 in Qatar, those messages were shown in the stadium, on the jumbotron screen, and were rolled out across FIFA’s official social media. In response to The Athletic’s report, FIFA did not explain why it had eliminated this messaging.
“At a time when athletes and fans worldwide are demanding greater inclusion and accountability, FIFA’s retreat from basic anti-discrimination commitments sends a chilling message that discrimination will be tolerated,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance. “Especially with the 2026 Men’s World Cup approaching, FIFA should be raising the bar for human rights protections, not lowering it.”
FIFA should publish the reasons for the apparent sudden cancellation of the anti-racism campaign, the Dignity coalition said. It should immediately reinstate all planned messaging during Club World Cup events at the various venues, as well as for the 2026 World Cup.
As recently as May 21, 2025, FIFA has published and held meetings on its “Red Card to Racism” campaign, which featured FIFA President Gianni Infantino urging the United Nations, policy makers, legislators, and criminal justice professionals from around the world to “join FIFA in the fight against racism and discrimination.” At the UN event, Infantino said that “FIFA could not win the battle against racism alone.”
“FIFA’s reported decision to cancel anti-discrimination campaigns at the Club World Cup during Pride month in some parts of the world is a shocking setback for efforts to end homophobia and transphobia in sport,” said Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally, which fights for equal access, opportunity, and experience in sports. “This decision—made without explanation or consultation with key stakeholders—should be reversed.”
FIFA’s apparent choice to shelve these messages is surprising since FIFA had reportedly prepared promotional content for its “no racism” and “no discrimination” initiatives ahead of the Club World Cup tournament.
“FIFA’s decision to withdraw its anti-discrimination messaging is a retreat from the progress made in recent years, since FIFA adopted a Human Rights Policy in 2017,” said Jennifer Li, director of the Center for Community Health Innovation at Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute. “FIFA had previously introduced reforms in its statutes, at its tournaments, and in its marketing materials to kick racism and discrimination out of sport.”
By failing to promote these initiatives at the Club World Cup, FIFA risks sending a message that the fight against racism and discrimination is no longer a priority, despite egregious acts of discrimination and racial abuse against football players. This could lead to underreporting of abuse and contribute to a hazardous work environment for athletes and fans.
“We urge FIFA to clarify the reasons for this sudden reversal and to reaffirm its commitment to human rights, anti-racism, and equality,” said Jamal R. Watkins, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Advancement at the NAACP. “FIFA should also ensure that stakeholders and its own human rights and anti-discrimination teams are fully consulted and involved in all future decisions related to human rights.”
Azerbaijan Convicts Critics in Relentless Crackdown
On June 20, the Court of Grave Crimes in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku handed down severe prison sentences to a team of independent journalists from Abzas Media, an outlet known for its hard-hitting investigative journalism. Days later, the same court convicted Bahruz Samadov, an outspoken government critic and peace activist. These verdicts fit a pattern of politically motivated arrests and prosecutions pursued by authorities intent on snuffing out independent activism.
In the Abzas Media case, three of the organization’s staff members – its director, Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief, Sevinc Vagifgizi, and investigative reporter, Hafiz Babali – were sentenced to nine years in prison, as was an independent economist, Farid Mehralızadeh, who gave interviews to the outlet. The court sentenced journalists Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova to eight years, while the outlet’s deputy director, Mahammad Kekalov, received a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.
All seven were convicted on spurious smuggling and other charges, levied against them in retaliation for their work investigating corruption. The charges stem from Azerbaijan’s prohibitive rules on grants, which marginalize civil society and force many groups to suspend work, move abroad, or even shut down.
In another mockery of justice, the court sentenced Bahruz Samadov in a closed-door hearing to 15 years in prison on bogus high treason charges. A researcher and student at Charles University in Prague, Samadov was detained in August 2024 while visiting his ailing grandmother. He vehemently denies the charges, claiming they are retaliation for his academic work and speeches criticizing the Azerbaijani government’s human rights violations and its military campaign to regain control over Nagorno Karabakh.
These convictions are part of the Azerbaijani authorities’ broader campaign to silence dissent, which intensified around the COP29 climate summit.
Human Rights Watch has documented the government's repeated use of dubious criminal charges, including currency smuggling and treason, to target journalists, civil society activists, and academics. Staff from other independent media outlets, such as Toplum TV and Meydan TV, have also been arrested and are awaiting trial.
Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release all those unjustly imprisoned and end its relentless crackdown on critics. The European Union and Azerbaijan’s other international partners should condemn the escalating crackdown, call on the authorities to free journalists and other activists jailed for nothing more than exercising their fundamental rights, and impose targeted sanctions on those responsible for orchestrating and carrying out these gross injustices.
How Trump Weaponized the US Budget Bill Overseas
US headlines have been dominated by coverage of the many ways President Trump’s budget bill will gut healthcare programs and deepen economic inequality in the United States if it is passed into law. Somewhat lost amidst all that noise is the story of how the Trump administration also weaponized the bill to benefit the wealthiest US corporations by undermining global efforts to tax businesses fairly.
Global tax rules that allow multinational companies to shift their profits to tax havens cost governments trillions of dollars, to the detriment of human rights. While the impacts are gravest for the poorest countries, all governments are affected: the United States loses 11.5 percent of its potential corporate tax revenue because of tax havens, according to the Atlas of the Offshore World’s database.
To address this, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reached a global tax agreement, with US support, that went into effect in 2024 and requires the world’s largest companies to pay a minimum tax rate of 15 percent taxes. Although it was criticized as far too modest and riddled with loopholes, dozens of governments are implementing the deal.
President Trump withdrew from the agreement on his first day in office and then weaponized the budget bill to further undermine it. The version of the administration’s budget bill passed by the House of Representatives imposed a retaliatory tax on governments that subject American companies to the 15 percent minimum. The provision was removed days before the Senate vote after the G7, a grouping of the world’s wealthiest governments, exempted US companies from the requirement.
The back-room G7 deal took place against the backdrop of the UN Financing for Development conference, where governments, financial institutions, and civil society gathered in Seville to debate reforms that would enable governments to fund sustainable development.
The G7’s capitulation highlights the importance of ongoing negotiations for a UN treaty on International Tax Cooperation, a historic opportunity to ensure that all governments are able to fairly raise the revenues they need to meet their human rights obligations. It also stands in sharp contrast with an initiative led by Spain, Brazil, and South Africa to tax the superrich.
Trump campaigned on fixing a rigged economy, but his policies put even more money in the pockets of the wealthiest while undermining the rights of people in the United States and abroad. The world deserves real solutions for fulfilling everyone’s human rights.
FIFA Should Press US on Immigration Policies
(Washington, DC) – FIFA, the world soccer governing body, should press the Trump administration to reverse immigration policies that create serious human rights risks around the 2026 World Cup, 90 groups including Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Gianni Infantino.
In their letter, the groups warned that FIFA risks becoming a public relations tool to whitewash the Trump administration’s abuses. They urged the United States government to reverse immigration policies that put the rights of fans, players, journalists, and host communities at risk.
“Cutting the world out of the 2026 World Cup is not just bad for business, but it is also at odds with the human rights strategy and related commitments that have been in place since the US bid to host the 2026 World Cup with Canada and Mexico in 2018,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA on May 5, 2025, requesting information on the steps FIFA is taking to ensure “that the US government will permit players, fans and journalists from around the world to safely attend the 2026 World Cup,” including any steps FIFA is taking to advocate for “changes in policies to align with international human rights, FIFA’s Statutes, and FIFA’s Human Rights Policy.”
FIFA’s response on June 3 did not meaningfully address any of the issues Human Rights Watch raised. It said that “if FIFA becomes aware of potentially adverse human rights impacts … we will engage with the relevant authorities.”
EU Should Act Against El Salvador’s Dismantling of Democracy
In June, the European Union, for the first time, raised concerns about El Salvador’s deteriorating situation at the UN Human Rights Council. The European Parliament then held a debate on President Nayib Bukele’s escalating crackdown against civil society groups.
These welcome steps flag the growing international attention to abuses in El Salvador, but more is needed to meaningfully address them.
In May, Salvadoran authorities arrested Ruth López, a human rights lawyer working for Cristosal, a leading Salvadoran human rights organization, and Enrique Anaya, a lawyer and government critic. The Legislative Assembly also passed an abusive “foreign agents law”, granting the government expansive authority to control, and sanction human rights groups and independent media outlets that receive international support.
Bukele’s “war against gangs” has led to serious human rights abuses, including against children, and a weakening of the rule of law. Security forces have carried out mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees.
The Salvadoran government also worked with the Trump administration to jail over 250 Venezuelan migrants removed from the United States, in what amount to enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention.
The EU should support those resisting Bukele’s abuses, and use its human rights toolbox to foster positive change and ensure accountability.
First, EU officials should continue to raise concerns over El Salvador’s serious human rights abuses, urge authorities to ensure a free environment for journalists and civil society, and press the government to restore judicial independence. They could do this at their next meeting over the Memorandum of Understanding that sets the foundations for their political dialogue.
Furthermore, the EU should consider increasing financial support for independent Salvadoran media outlets and civil society groups, many of whose staff have been forced into exile. EU diplomats should also visit detained Salvadoran activists and press the government to ensure speedy, public and fair trails. The European Parliament should also consider a resolution to raise concerns on these cases.
Last, the EU should consider imposing new targeted sanctions against senior government officials responsible for serious human rights abuses.
Drawing from its positive experience with Guatemala, the EU should apply its human rights toolbox in a smart, determined and strategic way. And it should act swiftly, as President Bukele’s abuses risk becoming a dangerous playbook for authoritarian leaders in the region and beyond.
Türkiye: Amicus Brief in Coal Plant Expansion Case
(Istanbul, July 3, 2025) – Türkiye’s administrative court in the province of Kahramanmaraş should scrutinize whether the environmental impact assessment used to greenlight a coal power plant expansion there, adequately determined the harmful impact on environmental and health rights, Human Rights Watch said today in an amicus brief submitted to the court.
Türkiye Amicus Curiae_engTurkish authorities approved an environmental impact assessment in December 2024 allowing construction of two new units as part of Afşin-Elbistan coal power plant A, despite concerns about their contribution to further air pollution in the region. Consequently, local community members, along with civil society groups, occupational associations, and a local municipality, filed cases against the expansion decision.
“We are deeply concerned that the Turkish authorities have not adequately taken into account the potential further damage on people’s lives, health, and environment, in their decision to expand the Afşin-Elbistan coal power plant,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “We have identified flaws in the recent environmental impact assessment approving the expansion, that should lead Turkish authorities to order a new assessment, using reliable, credible, and transparent scientific methods.”
The amicus brief, a legal submission by Human Rights Watch that aims to contribute to the court’s judicial review of the environmental impact assessment, identified multiple shortcomings in the assessment judged by applicable national and international legal standards.
Human Rights Watch published research in September 2024 that found that air pollution levels near plant A were dangerously high and that residents were experiencing health conditions that academic studies have attributed to toxic air. Acting on the government’s obligations linked to the human rights to health, life, and a healthy environment, Human Rights Watch said that the authorities should not authorize expansion of the coal plant. The amicus brief submitted to the court draws on that research and relevant domestic and international legal standards.
It also highlights key shortcomings of the environmental impact assessment, including its inadequate assessment of air quality; failure to assess the potential health impacts of the possible expansion; and inadequate consultation process with the local community. These serious shortcomings and omissions among others mean that there has not been a full assessment of the planned project’s potential impacts on the environment, which is the goal of both the assessment and Türkiye’s air pollution control regulations.
In conducting its research, Human Rights Watch used the Elbistan’s Air Monitoring Station air pollution data for the region. It revealed that particulate matter of less than 10 micrometers (PM10) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollutants have systematically exceeded the limits set by the Türkiye’s Air Quality Assessment and Management Regulation.
The potential harmful impact of particulate matter (PM10) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) on health is substantial, including respiratory and cardiovascular problems and serious lung damage. Satellite data also showed significantly higher levels of average SO2 concentration around Afşin Elbistan coal power plant A than over the air pollution monitoring station.
These levels provide insight into the health problems reported by local residents. In 2024, people living in the vicinity of two Afşin-Elbistan coal power plants, A and B – of which only plant A is within the scope of the planned expansion – told Human Rights Watch they believed their health problems could be related to the toxic air. And a health professional in Elbistan observed a high incidence of respiratory diseases in people who lived nearby, particularly among children. Similarly, academic studies conducted in areas with conditions similar to those in Afşin-Elbistan found that coal plants’ proximity to residential areas resulted in severe health impacts on residents.
The limits for pollutants set by Türkiye’s Air Quality Assessment and Management Regulation aim to protect human health. Therefore, any impact assessment should evaluate environmental impacts with the goal of mitigating or reducing adverse health impacts, including those linked to exposure to air pollution. The authorities’ approval of the assessment, despite its failure to examine health impacts, raises serious concerns about whether adequate measures are being taken by the authorities to protect the right to health.
Human rights obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights to life, bodily integrity, health, information, and a healthy environment require governments to take action to prevent air pollution and strive to ensure clean air. Türkiye’s obligations in this regard are reflected in domestic, regional, and international legal commitments.
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Türkiye is a party, fully realizing the right to health requires having regard for the environment and environmental health. The European Court of Human Rights has also determined in multiple cases that severe environmental pollution affecting individuals’ wellbeing violated their rights to privacy and family life. The proximity of victims’ homes to the source of pollution was a relevant factor in determining the scope of the government’s obligations with respect to respecting and protecting their rights, and whether violations had occurred.
Article 56 of the Turkish Constitution states that “everyone has the right to live in a healthy and balanced environment.” The Turkish Constitutional Court has ruled that, the proximity of homes to the facility, enterprise, or other activity impacting the environment is sufficient to determine whether Article 56 was violated. The court also has case law pointing out the utmost importance of access to information for those who may be affected by decisions relating to the environment and of their active participation in the decision-making process.
“Human Rights Watch’s amicus brief calls into question the adequacy of the EIA’s air quality assessments, and we oppose the coal plant expansion because it will exacerbate existing high air pollution levels, health risks, and rights violations” Williamson said. “It will also contribute to the climate crisis by prolonging reliance on coal, undermining urgently needed global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.”
UN Members Should Renew Expert on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity
Next week, the United Nations Human Rights Council will vote on renewing the mandate of the independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. UN member states should support this resolution, which has important implications for everyone.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the fundamental principle that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Yet nearly eight decades after the declaration was adopted, people around the world continue to face violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Human Rights Watch and others have documented the range and scale of these abuses: arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, medical abuses, discrimination in employment, housing, and health care, and state-sanctioned censorship. The independent expert’s mandate, established in 2016, plays a critical role in addressing these violations, offering governments practical, constructive guidance to uphold their human rights obligations.
Through country visits, reports, and engagement with governments and civil society, the independent expert has helped spotlight abuses and promote best practices, including in Albania, Cambodia, Poland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mozambique.
Some countries have opposed renewing the mandate, claiming that the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are “foreign” to their culture. Some even walked out of negotiations at the Human Rights Council rather than listen to activists bravely recount their experiences with violence and discrimination. The mandate does not seek to create new rights, as some states have claimed. Instead, it applies existing human rights standards to groups that continue to experience exclusion and abuse by private actors and governments.
Human Rights Council member states should reject efforts to undermine the independent expert’s mandate and unequivocally support this resolution, which reaffirms a core human rights principle that all governments are legally obligated to respect: Everyone has the right to live free from violence and discrimination. There are no exceptions.
Karakalpakstan Victims Await Justice Three Years On
There has been almost no accountability for the deaths and grave injuries that occurred three years ago when security forces in Uzbekistan used unjustified force, including lethal force, to disperse mainly peaceful protesters in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan’s autonomous republic. On July 1 and 2, 2022, nearly two dozen people were killed and over 270 people injured – some of them horrifically – by explosives fired by security forces that detonated near or in contact with protesters.
In August 2023, two police officers were prosecuted for torture and one for perjury and leaving a person in danger resulting in his death in connection with the Karakalpakstan events, but to date no one else has been held accountable for any of the 21 deaths or the many more grave injuries that occurred. The authorities have not acknowledged any responsibility for the excessive use of force.
It’s clear that the Uzbekistan government wants to turn a page on what happened. A parliamentary commission created in July 2022 and tasked by the government with investigating human rights violations during the Karakalpakstan events presented its findings to parliament in December 2024, but has never made its report public.
The government’s narrative is that the protesters were responsible for the violence. A total of 61 people were criminally prosecuted for their alleged involvement in the demonstrations, including the Karakalpak lawyer and blogger Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, who, prior to his arrest, had called for peaceful protests. Tazhimuratov was subsequently sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Authorities have ignored Tazhimuratov’s repeated and credible allegations of ill-treatment and torture while in police and prison custody.
Earlier this year the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) found Tazhimuratov’s detention arbitrary and called on Uzbekistan to release him immediately and pay him reparations.
Uzbekistan should commence a genuinely impartial and effective investigation into the events of July 2022 in Karakalpakstan to ensure accountability for the deaths of protesters and other grave human rights violations. Authorities should also implement the decision of the UN WGAD and release Tazhimuratov immediately.
It is vital that Uzbekistan’s international partners remain focused on the need for accountability for the Karakalpakstan events. Uzbekistan’s economy and society face many challenges but respect for fundamental human rights – including accountability for arbitrary killings by security forces – is the bedrock on which Tashkent’s partners should build long term relations with the country.
Unlawfully Detained in a Turkish Prison, Osman Kavala Still Stands up for Rights
Osman Kavala, the respected Turkish human rights defender, has been behind bars in Istanbul’s Silivri high security jail for almost eight years. He is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole, having been convicted following a preposterous trial on baseless allegations of organizing and financing the Istanbul Gezi park protests in 2013 in an attempt to overthrow the government
The May-June 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations and sit-in, in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, against a government-planned urban development project, led hundreds of thousands of people around Turkiye to exercise their right to peaceful protest.
The Turkish government has ignored two rulings by the European Court of Human Rights ordering Kavala’s immediate release.
On a recent visit to Istanbul, I wanted to find out how Kavala is doing. He is 67 years old, and his prison regime is harsh. Apart from receiving prison visits from lawyers and twice a month from his wife, he is allowed to spend just four hours a day out of his cell, walking around a small courtyard.
We spoke with Asena Günal, who runs Kavala’s civil society group Anadolu Kültür. She said that despite his circumstances he is in reasonable health and treated with respect by his prison guards. Most importantly, he remains determined, his sights still set on upholding rights, both in prison and outside.
He continues to regularly advise his Anadolu Kültür colleagues on such projects as a series on justice issues. But staying engaged has its challenges in prison, especially not having access to the internet. When the justice series podcasts were aired, Kavala was unable to listen, relying instead on reading the episode transcripts and writing a foreword to the book they became.
Within prison, “he is the book club of Silivri” says Günal, smiling, describing how he shares his many books with other inmates. He reads a lot, a habit he shares, quite literally, with his wife Ayşe Buğra. “They read the same book at the same time so they can discuss them during her visits”.
In August Kavala will be awarded Germany’s Goethe Medal for innovative cultural work. He is currently drafting his acceptance speech, rereading Goethe, and reflecting on what the poet’s work means for us today.
I’m pleased – though not surprised – that Kavala is standing tall in prison. He deserves the international accolades he is receiving, but above all he deserves his freedom.
UN Experts Back Action on Bangladesh Enforced Disappearances
Bangladesh’s interim government has taken some positive steps to address the terrible legacy of enforced disappearances, but some of the hardest and most important steps remain to be taken, according to new advice last week from UN rights experts. Almost a year ago, mass protests toppled the authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina and made way for an interim government, which says it is committed to reforms and human rights protections before elections scheduled for 2026.
The experts, from the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, heard accounts of “horrific torture” from survivors of enforced disappearance, and met the relatives of victims who are still missing. They found that “victims are deeply afraid to report cases” because “many of the alleged perpetrators of enforced disappearances remain employed” by the police and army. There is an “urgent need to establish a victim and witness protection system,” they said, and urged security sector reform including disbanding the notorious paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion. The experts also called for improved vetting to ensure that Bangladeshi personnel linked to enforced disappearances cannot serve on UN peacekeeping missions.
The interim government has ratified the International Convention on Enforced Disappearances and established a Commission of Inquiry, which has submitted two interim reports. It has received over 1,850 complaints and its term was recently extended to December 2025.
However, the experts said there have been attempts to intimidate commission members and victims’ families and to destroy evidence and hamper investigations. Some survivors continue to face harassment with unjust criminal charges, especially under Bangladesh’s Anti-Terrorism Act, which has long been used against journalists, human rights defenders, and critics of past governments.
The experts said that suspects should be prosecuted but expressed concern about due process standards and possible use of the death penalty. Draft legislation to address enforced disappearances raises concerns and requires further consultation, they said. They highlighted the need for “far-reaching reforms” that place victims at the center and called for international support for a comprehensive transitional justice process.
Bangladesh’s interim government faces many challenges and has limited time left. To meaningfully address the horror of enforced disappearances, the government should heed the UN experts’ advice and press forward with urgent reforms to the judiciary and security sector, and with the appropriate prosecution of perpetrators.
Girls, Women Under Constant Threat in South Sudan
Recent attacks on girls and young women in South Sudan illustrate how they are at risk and lack adequate protections.
On June 25, armed men in Pochalla North, Jonglei state reportedly abducted four female students as they travelled to sit for secondary school exams. Though the local community organized search efforts, the four remain missing.
On June 19, the police said they had arrested seven suspects in the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in South Sudan’s capital, Juba. An alleged video of the attack spread online and generated public outrage. Following the incident, the country’s gender minister called for thorough investigations and accountability. Activists called for legal reforms and organized forums to encourage survivors to speak out. But even when cases garner such levels of public scrutiny, convictions are rare.
In May, armed youth surrounded a girl’s boarding school in Marial Lou, Warrap state, trapping at least 100 students inside. According to the United Nations peacekeeping mission, teachers locked the gates until peacekeepers secured the school and negotiated an end to the siege.
These incidents are part of an all-too-familiar story in South Sudan where a girl’s body, her education, and her future are under constant threat. Generations of conflict, widespread access to arms, and patriarchal customs including bride price have long turned women’s and girls’ bodies into battlegrounds, used as spoils of war or bargaining chips in intercommunal disputes.
Watching communities mobilize to protect girls brings hope that such behavior and practices may change, but meaningful protection still depends on the state fulfilling its legal obligations.
A party to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, South Sudan has also ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, committing to protect women, girls, students, and schools from attack. The Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Justice have promoted the Anti-Gender Based Violence and Child Protection Bill, which could strengthen legal protections, criminalize forced and child marriage, and guarantee survivors free medical and psychosocial support. Parliament should prioritize the bill’s adoption.
The government should also strengthen the country’s rule-of-law institutions and ensure accountability for perpetrators. Protecting schools from attacks—including by enhancing security presence, youth focused dialogues, and rights-respecting disarmament processes—is critical.
Girls in South Sudan should be able to walk to school and learn without fear, and authorities should act to ensure these basic rights.
Guatemala: Water Law Urgently Needed
SOUNDBITES
María Osorio Osorio
We are suffering a lot because of water.
Patricia Mejía Pérez
Honestly, knowing that there is much water in Guatemala but that here we have no freshwater is so sad.
María Canalari Pucarrín
We ask the government for help, that they help us with water. Because we can’t live without water.
TITLE
WITHOUT WATER, WE ARE NOTHING.
TEXT ON SCREEN
Guatemala has more freshwater per capita than the world average.
SOUNDBITE
María Osorio Osorio
In our village we are in need. We don’t have piped water.
TEXT ON SCREEN
In a country of about 18 million people, over 7 million live in a home without any indoor
connection to a water distribution network.
Many people are forced to rely on wells, rivers, lakes, springs or rainwater.
Governance failures, including poor resource management and inadequate infrastructure, have led to drinking water scarcity and widespread contamination.
SOUNDBITES
Patricia Mejía Pérez
If we had clean water, my life would be better, we would feel better.
María Osorio Osorio
Together with my children we walk [to the well], I bring my jerrycan and they bring their ‘jumbos’ to collect water. The path to the well is really bad, it’s full of rocks, there is grass, among other stuff.
TEXT ON SCREEN
Indigenous people, especially women, are disproportionately affected due to structural discrimination, poverty, and inequality with deep historical roots.
Patricia Mejía Pérez
It takes us a long time to arrive at the well. We carry water but not too much because we can’t make it, the well is very far away. The way back is harder, harder indeed. It’s really tough because the path is uphill, it’s so difficult. Sometimes we find snakes on the way. It’s really hard to carry the water all the way here to take it home. Children cry because they can’t make it. “It’s too heavy,” they say. They cry because of the weight. They say “we are already thirsty” and they drink the water they carry because they are just so thirsty. And we do six trips in one same day. And the water we bring lasts for three days only.
TEXT ON SCREEN
Lack of safe water and sanitation fuels diseases like diarrhea, a leading cause of malnutrition.
SOUNDBITES
María Magdalena Cacó
We need to buy medicine because there is no medicine at the medical center. It’s so sad that the water is polluted, there are dead animals, and we drink that water. And after drinking it, we get sick. We get stomach ache, diarrhea actually.
Clara Susana Pubaca
I do have a toilet, but just a pit latrine because we have no money for a luxury toilet.
TEXT ON SCREEN
Guatemala has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world. Nearly 50% of children under five are chronically malnourished.
SOUNDBITE
María Magdalena Cacó
If I had piped water at home, my children would take a shower every day. I wouldn’t need to bring water from the well so I would spend more time with my children. I would feel happy.
TEXT ON SCREEN
Guatemala should urgently enact a national water law that guarantees the human rights to water and sanitation.
SOUNDBITE
María Magdalena Cacó
To me, water is life. If we have no water, we can’t live. If we have no water, we die.
Widespread lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation puts the health and other rights of millions of Guatemalans, especially Indigenous people and women, at risk.Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country, yet a significant portion of its population is forced to live without access to something as basic as clean water.Guatemalan authorities should pass a water law that guarantees the human rights to water and sanitation.(Guatemala City) – Widespread lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services puts the health and other rights of millions of Guatemalans, especially Indigenous people and women, at risk, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
July 2, 2025 “Without Water, We Are Nothing”The 88-page report, “‘Without Water, We Are Nothing’: The Urgent Need for a Water Law in Guatemala,” documents the pervasive lack of access to safe and sufficient water and sanitation services in Guatemala, which disproportionately affects Indigenous people, particularly women and girls. It also details the impact of inadequate access to water and sanitation on the right to health, including for children, in a country where nearly one in two children under five suffers from chronic malnutrition.
“Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country, yet a significant portion of its population is forced to live without access to something as basic as clean water,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Guatemala’s authorities should urgently approve a national water law as a key step to guarantee safe, reliable, and universal access to water and sanitation services for all.”
Guatemala has more fresh water per capita than the global average but has for years failed to adequately protect and distribute these resources. Without legislation clearly establishing water rights and obligations, a clear regulatory and financing system to guarantee these rights, and accompanying enforcement mechanisms, water availability and quality around the country will continue to be compromised.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 108 people, mostly women, from predominately Indigenous communities in the departments of Jalapa, Santa Rosa, and Totonicapán. Researchers conducted follow-up interviews with experts, requested information from the government, and analyzed water, sanitation, and poverty data from the 2023 National Survey of Living Conditions by Guatemala’s National Institute of Statistics.
Data analyzed by Human Rights Watch reveals that Indigenous Guatemalans have less access to water and sanitation services than other Guatemalans, reflecting long-standing patterns of discrimination and unequal access to rights-essential public services. Based on official data, 40 percent of Guatemalans overall lack access to running water inside their homes. Fifty percent of Indigenous Guatemalans lack access to indoor running water, compared with 33 percent of non-Indigenous Guatemalans. Indigenous people are also nearly three times more likely to rely on latrines or blind pits, forms of sanitation that may be unsafe or unhealthy, while non-Indigenous people are twice as likely to have a toilet connected to a sewage system.
© 2025 Human Rights WatchWithout reliable access to running water, millions of Guatemalans are forced to rely on wells, rivers, lakes, springs, or rainwater as their primary water source. This poses serious health risks, as the government has estimated that over 90 percent of surface water in Guatemala is contaminated.
© 2025 Human Rights WatchWomen often bear the responsibility of collecting water for themselves and their families as well as the responsibility of childcare. Based on official survey data, two-thirds of adults who said they carried water the previous day were women.
Rosalía Maribel Osorio Chivalan, a 24-year-old woman in the municipality of Santa María Chiquimula, Totonicapán department, described her strenuous morning routine of waking up at 5 or 5:30 a.m. and making a two-hour round trip to collect water from a well, after which she sets out on another 40-minute round trip to drop her children off at school by 8 a.m.
Children often must also collect water. A 29-year-old woman and single mother of three in Santa María Chiquimula, said that her children accompany her on a two-hour round trip to get water every day, because she cannot do it alone. “Sometimes I despair to see them walking, carrying water,” she said.
Even families who have a connection to a water distribution network experience barriers to water access, including intermittent service. Human Rights Watch analysis of 2023 government data found that only 19 percent of households reported having uninterrupted 24-hour indoor water service every day in the month prior to being surveyed.
As noted, water quality is also a major concern in Guatemala. Many women interviewed observed signs of pollution, including poor water clarity, bad odor, and contaminating debris, with limited access to treatment options. Many said that they and their children experience stomachaches, vomiting, and diarrhea after consuming this water, but that these contaminated sources were the only option available.
María Carolina Barrera Tzun, a 28-year-old woman and mother of three from Santa María Chiquimula, said that the well where she gets water for herself and her children is dirty and that her children sometimes ask her, “Why is the water so dirty? Why don’t we have water in the house?” But they have to drink it, she said, because they have no other option.
Inadequate sanitation infrastructure also compromises health and contributes to poor water quality. Only 42 percent of households in Guatemala report having a toilet connected to a drainage network. About a third of the population is forced to resort to latrines, blind pits, or open defecation. According to official information, in 2021, 97 of the 340 municipalities in Guatemala, or 29 percent, did not have a single operational wastewater treatment plant.
Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights WatchThe health impacts of unsafe or insufficient water and inadequate sanitation are severe. According to the World Health Organization, Guatemala’s 2019 mortality rate from unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene services was 15.3 deaths per 100,000 people, more than double that of any neighboring country. Limited access to water and sanitation also contributes to chronic malnutrition. In Guatemala, nearly one in two children under age five are chronically malnourished, one of the highest rates in the world.
To facilitate comprehensive water governance and effective investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, Guatemalan authorities should pass a well-designed water law that creates the institutional capacity to protect the availability of safe and clean water for all and imposes penalties for contaminating water bodies.
In designing the law, the government should ensure respect for Indigenous water-management practices and meaningful participation and consultation of Indigenous people, who are often at the forefront of resource conservation and preservation practices, and are the most affected by the current crisis.
The authorities should also establish a regulatory and financing system that aligns with Guatemala’s obligation to take steps to the maximum of its available resources to guarantee the availability, accessibility, and quality of water for personal and domestic use.
“The government of President Bernardo Arévalo has a historic opportunity to address a long-standing debt and to deliver lasting change for Guatemalans,” Goebertus said. “It should seize it.”
Cambodia: Mother Nature Activists in Prison One Year
(Bangkok, July 2, 2025) – Five Cambodian environmental activists who have completed one year of their six to eight-year prison terms on baseless charges should be immediately and unconditionally released, Human Rights Watch said today.
On July 2, 2024, the Phnom Penh Court found 10 activists from the youth-led environmental group Mother Nature guilty of “plotting against the government” and “insulting the king,” charges stemming from their peaceful environmental activism. Five were immediately imprisoned, while four others were tried in absentia. The tenth, a Spanish national, had been deported in 2015.
“The baseless and harsh sentences imposed on the Mother Nature activists one year ago demonstrate the Cambodian government’s utter disregard for the country’s environment,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should quash these convictions for peaceful environmental activism and release those imprisoned immediately.”
The authorities sent the five activists to separate prisons across the country – hundreds of kilometers from their families – which a Cambodian rights organization called cruel and unprecedented. On April 30, 2025, Cambodia’s Supreme Court denied the activists’ final bail request, upholding the Phnom Penh Court of Appeal’s initial denial of bail on February 17 and their conviction.
The imprisoned activists are Thun Ratha in Tbong Khmum, Ly Chandaravuth in Kandal, Phuon Keoraksmey in Pursat, Yim Leanghy in Kampong Speu, and Long Kunthea in Preah Vihear. The separation severely limits family visits, medical care, and access to legal assistance, posing serious risks to the activists' well-being and due process rights.
Click to expand Image Map of the current prison locations of the 5 Mother Nature activists convicted in July 2, 2024. © LICADHOFor over a decade, Mother Nature has exposed corruption in natural resource management in Cambodia, opposed destructive infrastructure projects, and mobilized youth to defend the country’s biodiversity – one of the world’s most threatened due to high rates of deforestation and wildlife trafficking. Mother Nature’s successes include halting a Chinese-led dam, threatening an Indigenous community, and ending corrupt sand exports from Koh Kong island.
In 2023, the group received the Right Livelihood Award for its “fearless and engaging activism.” Right Livelihood raised the imprisonment of Mother Nature activists at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and called the arrests and sentencing “unprecedented … unjust and arbitrary.”
Cambodian authorities have often charged human rights activists with incitement, which is punishable by up to two years in prison. In 2021, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia expressed concern that “human rights defenders are currently in detention facing charges for incitement to commit felony.” The Mother Nature activists were the first environmental activists to be charged with conspiracy, which carries a longer sentence, of up to 10 years. Based on their current sentences, Chandaravuth, Keorasmey, Kunthea, and Ratha will be in prison until 2030; Leanghy until 2032.
Since the Mother Nature convictions, Cambodian authorities have also targeted environmental journalists for their reporting.
On January 4, Gerald Flynn, a British environmental journalist, was barred from re-entering Cambodia in apparent retaliation for his reporting. When he arrived in Siem Reap from abroad, immigration authorities told Flynn that his visa extension was “fake,” although he had been able to travel freely in and out of Cambodia on the same documents in November 2024. The authorities informed Flynn, one of the few remaining foreign journalists based in the country, that he had been banned from re-entering Cambodia indefinitely. Flynn had investigated illegal logging networks across Cambodia and appeared in a France24 video documentary that the Ministry of Environment publicly labelled “fake news."
On May 16, three plainclothes officers in an unmarked vehicle arrested and handcuffed a Cambodian environmental journalist, Ouk Mao, without a warrant near his home in Stung Treng, his wife told media outlet, Mongabay. Military police had previously questioned him over his investigation into land clearing in a Stung Treng community forest in June 2024.
Between that incident and his arrest in May, he continued reporting on deforestation. He was also featured in Mongabay’s report on the physical attacks and arbitrary prosecutions against him and a widely viewed interview with Radio France International’s Khmer service.
Mao was released on bail on May 25 after spending nine days in pretrial detention but continues to face several serious charges stemming from both his environmental reporting and public commentary.
On May 27, the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders posted a comment about Ouk Mao that the “judicial & physical harassment of [environmental human rights defenders] exposing illegal logging & deforestation in Cambodia must end now.”
“The Cambodian government’s targeting of environmental activists and journalists is disastrous,” Lau said. “Imprisoning, deporting, or forcing into hiding those still willing to risk their lives and livelihoods to protect Cambodia’s environment can only lead to long-term harm for Cambodia’s people.”
Parental Opt-Outs on LGBT Books Harm All Children
On the last day of its term, the United States Supreme Court issued a sweeping decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, finding that parents are entitled to opt their children out of school curricula that expose children to LGBT-inclusive books.
Allowing parents to block their children from accessing curricula that convey affirming, inclusive messages about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people deals a blow to the rights of children and discourages schools from depicting diverse families and identities.
In practice, a sweeping parental opt-out not only affects those children whose parents object to inclusive curricula. The logistical difficulties of allowing parents to opt their children out of classroom depictions of LGBT families is likely to discourage educators from using LGBT-inclusive books at all, depriving all children of access to these materials.
As the international Committee on the Rights of the Child has recognized, LGBT students often lack access to inclusive resources, and schools should act to ensure they receive that information. Barring children from this information, the committee said, jeopardizes their right “to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds.”
Restricting access to inclusive materials also serves to foster discrimination and stigmatize children who have LGBT family members or are LGBT themselves. It sends a message that being LGBT is inappropriate or immoral, further isolating students who already experience exclusion or mistreatment in schools.
The ruling comes at a time when states and school districts across the United States have aggressively censored or limited access to books on race, gender, and sexuality. According to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent nonprofit think tank advancing equity and inclusion in the US, only 8 states have LGBT-inclusive curriculum standards, while 19 states have now enacted laws that restrict or require parental notification of the use of LGBT-inclusive materials.
As Human Rights Watch has documented, laws or policies that restrict what schools can teach have reinforced discrimination, pushed teachers to self-censor, and limited the viewpoints available to students. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, lawmakers and schools should stay the course, protect inclusive curricula for students whose parents do not opt them out, and ensure that schools reflect the diversity of the world their students inhabit.
Courts, policymakers, and educators should remember that children’s rights—not just parental preferences—deserve meaningful protection in education systems.
Five European States Withdraw from Mine Ban Treaty
(New York, July 1, 2025) – The withdrawal of five European countries from a longstanding and effective international treaty prohibiting antipersonnel landmines unnecessarily puts civilians at risk, Human Rights Watch said today.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania deposited their instruments of withdrawal from the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty with United Nations headquarters on June 27, 2025, and they will take effect in six months. Earlier in June, Finland and Poland’s parliaments formally approved proposals to leave the treaty and their withdrawal deposits are understood to be imminent.
“The five European countries leaving the Mine Ban Treaty put their own civilians at risk and walk back years of progress to eradicate these indiscriminate weapons,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “These countries have first-hand experience of the long-term danger caused by antipersonnel landmines, which makes their acceptance of these widely discredited weapons hard to fathom.”
Play VideoAntipersonnel mines are designed to explode in response to a person’s presence, proximity, or contact. They are typically placed by hand, but can also be scattered by aircraft, rockets, and artillery or dispersed from drones and specialized vehicles. They are inherently indiscriminate weapons that cannot distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Uncleared landmines pose a long-term danger, until they are cleared and destroyed.
The Mine Ban Treaty, which entered into force on March 1, 1999, comprehensively prohibits antipersonnel mines and requires countries to destroy their stockpiles, clear mined areas, and help mine victims. A total of 166 countries have ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, most recently Tonga on June 25 and the Marshall Islands on March 12.
Russia has not joined the treaty, and its forces have used antipersonnel landmines extensively in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, causing civilian casualties and contaminating agricultural land. Ukraine, a Mine Ban Treaty member state, has also used antipersonnel mines since 2022 and received them from the United States in 2024, in violation of the treaty.
On June 29, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had signed a decree proposing Ukraine withdraw from the Mine Ban Treaty. This measure will now be considered by Ukraine’s parliament. Under article 20 of the Mine Ban Treaty, withdrawals do not take effect until six months after the state formally submits its notice to the UN. Particularly relevant to Ukraine’s situation, if a state party is engaged in armed conflict at the end of that six-month period, it is not allowed to withdraw from the treaty before the end of the armed conflict. The treaty is also not subject to reservations.
“Because Ukraine is in the midst of a war, its proposed withdrawal is effectively a symbolic move to gain political cover while disregarding the core prohibitions on developing, producing, and using antipersonnel mines,” Wareham said. “Expanding the use of antipersonnel mines risks causing further civilian casualties and suffering over both the short and long terms.”
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has killed more than 13,300 civilians and injured more than 32,700. Civilian casualties during the first five months of 2025 were 47 percent higher than the same period in 2024, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
The five European Union member states expressed security concerns raised by Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine as the main reason for leaving the treaty. Each withdrawing country went through a formal, but rushed, parliamentary-approval process.
Member states of the Mine Ban Treaty, including the withdrawing countries, spent five hours discussing the implications of the withdrawals at a meeting in Geneva on June 17-20. A group of African countries led by South Africa urged the withdrawing states to “reconsider and return to negotiation table” as “the challenges we face today require more cooperation, not less.” The groups said, “we must collectively preserve [the Mine Ban Treaty’s] integrity and universality.”
On June 16, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “gravely concerned” by the Mine Ban Treaty withdrawals, describing the action as “particularly troubling, as it risks weakening civilian protection and undermining two decades of a normative framework that has saved countless lives.” Guterres announced a new global campaign to boost support for humanitarian disarmament instruments such as the Mine Ban Treaty and for mine clearance efforts.
A total of 101 Nobel laureates issued a joint statement on June 17 cautioning against withdrawals due to the likelihood of civilian harm and to avoid undermining longstanding legal and humanitarian norms. The laureates specifically criticized Russia and the United States, two countries that have not prohibited these weapons, for undermining the Mine Ban Treaty’s norms and putting civilians at risk.
Individual Nobel Peace laureates who endorsed the call include the Dalai Lama and former presidents Lech Walesa of Poland, Juan Manual Santos of Colombia, Oscar Arias Sánchez of Costa Rica, and José Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste as well as Nobel Women’s Initiative members Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman, Narges Mohammadi, and Oleksandra Matviichuk.
Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, which also endorsed the statement.
On June 17, ICBL ambassador and Cambodian landmine survivor Tun Channereth presented the Mine Ban Treaty president with the Nobel laureates’ appeal and a joint statement from 21 eminent people, including former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who led the “Ottawa Process” that created the Mine Ban Treaty. The signers urged the withdrawing states to reconsider, stating that, “[u]pholding [the Mine Ban Treaty] is not only a legal and moral obligation—it is a strategic imperative for all who seek to limit suffering in war.”
All EU member states are currently parties to the Mine Ban Treaty and in April 2025, the EU reaffirmed its long-standing common position supporting implementation and universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Finland and Poland have produced antipersonnel mines in the past and have indicated they may restart production. Finland completed the destruction of its stockpile of one million mines in 2015, while Poland destroyed its stocks of more than one million antipersonnel mines in 2016. Finnish and Polish civilians were harmed by landmines and unexploded ordnance during World War II and other conflicts. More than 80 years later, local authorities still receive requests to clear residual contamination from landmines and explosive remnants of war.
“Countries withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty will be closely watched as there’s now a real danger that they will start producing, transferring, and using antipersonnel mines,” Wareham said. “These governments should instead be investing in measures to keep civilians away from mined areas, caring for landmine victims, and promoting mine clearance.”
US: Budget Would Benefit Wealthiest at Expense of Rights
(Washington, DC) – The budget reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate today would extend tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the country’s wealthiest families while reducing spending on health and other public programs essential for human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. If signed into law, it would strip millions of people of health insurance coverage and harm rights in numerous other ways.
“It’s appalling that President Trump ran on a campaign to fix the economy but is delivering a budget that makes ordinary people pay with their health for tax breaks for millionaires,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The United States deserves a health care system that fulfills everyone’s human right to health, and a budget that makes this possible.”
The nearly 1,000-page bill, officially labeled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, aims to reshape how the US government raises and spends money. It would extend and deepen expensive tax cuts that the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government research agency, found overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, and radically reduce federal support for public services and programs, including those essential for the right to health.
The US should align its tax and budget policies with human rights. That means prioritizing the protection and fulfilment of all rights, including the right to health, and designing tax systems that are compatible with those imperatives. This bill would do the opposite, Human Rights Watch said.
The Budget Office officials estimated that the version of the bill that passed the House of Representatives would reduce the financial resources available to the lowest-earning 10 percent of households by $1,600 per year, effectively cutting their incomes by an average of about 4 percent. The Budget Office also found that changes to federal tax provisions included in the bill, especially the extension of provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a law enacted through budget reconciliation during the previous Trump administration, would increase financial resources for the richest 10 percent of households by about $12,000 per year, increasing their incomes by an average of about 2.3 percent.
Click to expand Image © Human Rights WatchThis dramatically increased financial burden on the poorest households in the US is largely the result of nontax measures also included in the budget, including deep spending cuts to health care, food assistance, and other critical public programs. These cuts would make health care less available, more expensive, and of poorer quality for millions of people.
Medicaid, the public program that provides health insurance to more than 71 million low-income people, would bear the brunt of this austerity. Coverage under other public and publicly organized health insurance, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program, would also be significantly restricted, especially for immigrants. Through radically reduced federal funding and myriad changes to laws and policies, including expanding costly and unwarranted work requirements, the bill would radically reduce the number of people with health insurance coverage in the US.
A Budget Office report found that the version of the bill that was passed by the Senate today contains provisions that would cause an estimated 11.8 million people to lose health insurance coverage and become uninsured by 2034. This would increase the number of uninsured people in the US by nearly 50 percent, exposing millions to high drug and hospital costs, forcing many to forgo or ration health care.
The changes to Medicaid may also radically reduce the funding that many health care providers receive, particularly rural and so-called “safety net” hospitals that provide care to largely low-income communities, threatening to worsen the availability of health care in many places. Low-income and Black and Hispanic households would be disproportionately harmed.
The bill also contains other measures that would have profound negative impacts on health. It would radically restrict federal funding for services essential for the right to health of women, young people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, including by blocking Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, a major provider of sexual and reproductive health care and gender-affirming care, and ending federal financial support for gender-affirming care for many adults and youth. It would also eliminate funding for programs aimed at reducing air pollution, a major driver of poor health outcomes that contributes to deepening racial health inequalities.
The proposed bill would also squeeze savings from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, potentially causing more than 3 million people to lose food assistance, according to Budget Office estimates.
Taken together, these cuts and changes would threaten the health of millions of people in the US, and the lives of many. In June, researchers from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania estimated that these changes could cause an additional 51,000 deaths each year.
The budget bill also contains other provisions harmful to rights. It seeks to use tens of billions of dollars in public money – and perhaps much more – to expand immigration detention, including for families. Violations already reported during immigration enforcement would only get worse, including through arbitrary detention, denial of due process, and inhumane detention conditions.
The Senate must now confer with the US House of Representatives to reconcile differences between the two versions of act passed through the two chambers. House members should take advantage of that second opportunity to reject the bill, Human Rights Watch said.
“This bill with its draconian cuts and massive transfer of wealth from public goods to private pockets is not a solution to economic inequality or for managing immigration and asylum procedures,” McConnell said. “It is a blueprint for cruelty.”