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Click to expand Image Japanese Diet member Yasue Funayama speaks at a nongovernmental organization event to advocate for Japan to step up its efforts to defend the International Criminal Court, Tokyo, October 9, 2025.  © 2025 Haruka Miyata/Human Rights Watch

On October 9, Human Rights Watch with Tokyo-based Human Rights Now and Peace Boat held an event at the Japanese Diet to press the Japanese government to step up its efforts to defend the International Criminal Court(ICC). The ICC, a court of last resort for victims of serious crimes around the world, has been under extreme pressure from the United States.  

In February, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions targeting the ICC and its supporters, aimed at shielding Israeli and US officials from the court’s scrutiny. ICC judges in November 2024 had issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a now-deceased Hamas official.

US sanctions have serious effects that could severely undermine victims’ access to justice. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions against the ICC prosecutor, his two deputies, six ICC judges, a United Nations human rights expert, and three leading Palestinian human rights groups. There is concern that the US will sanction the entire ICC.

At the event, which was endorsed by three bipartisan caucuses, Nonpartisan Association for Humanitarian Diplomacy, Parliamentary Association for Supporting Democratization of Myanmar, and Nonpartisan Parliamentary Association for Reconsidering Human Rights Diplomacy, nearly 20 Diet members urged the Japanese government to take stronger measures to protect the ICC.

“Japan’s international credibility relies on our actions,” said Masahiko Shibayama, a former education minister.

Japan has been a strong supporter of the ICC since its inception in 2002. It has nominated three of the court’s judges, past and present, and the current president, Judge Tomoko Akane.

Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya has raised concerns about the sanctions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio but Japan has yet to speak publicly on this issue. Japanese groups criticized the government for declining to join cross-regional statements backing the court. “[I]t begs the question of what Japan is really doing,” said Diet member Yasue Funayama.

As the ICC faces a grave threat, Japan’s government should use every opportunity to publicly express its support for the court, condemn the US sanctions, and call on President Trump to revoke the executive order. It should help provide the ICC with the resources it needs, protect court officials by ratifying the 2002 Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the ICC, and act to mitigate the effects of US sanctions. Japan should stand up for justice.

Click to expand Image Israeli soldiers look on as Palestinian men and women carry their belongings on May 2, 2025 amid ongoing Israeli military operations and demolition of homes in Tulkarem refugee camp. Israeli forces had emptied the refugee camp of its inhabitants weeks prior. © 2025 Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images

As European Union leaders and foreign ministers prepare for meetings to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, some of their representatives in Brussels, and Israel’s new ambassador to the EU, have been pushing for the European Commission to amend or withdraw its proposals to sanction “extremist” Israeli ministers and suspend the EU-Israel trade deal. Caving to that pressure would be yet another blow to the EU’s credibility and to hopes for human rights and justice.

Several EU governments have taken unilateral action in response to Israel’s escalating atrocities. While these measures fell short of fulfilling states’ obligations under the United Nations Genocide Convention, they helped generate pressure to reach a ceasefire. Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich risk spoiling those efforts, having already threatened to quit the government in opposition to the ceasefire deal.

Both have called for ethnic cleansing, starvation, and other egregious abuses against the Palestinians, and their statements are evidence of genocidal intent in Gaza. In June, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway sanctioned the two ministers. Some EU governments declared them personae non gratae, yet the EU as a whole has failed to act, unable to reach the unanimity necessary to sanction them.

EU states have also yet to approve suspending the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, despite finding Israel in breach of article 2 of the deal, which identifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as an essential element. The fragile ceasefire in Gaza is no reason to drop consideration of the measure. The EU’s own review, focused on the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, references damning UN reports and a landmark July 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s occupation to be unlawful and marred by serious abuses, including apartheid. Ceasefire or not, those egregious abuses persist and are incompatible with the agreement’s human rights clause.

Targeted sanctions and the deal’s suspension are also included in the annex to the September 2025 New York Declaration on the implementation of a “two-state solution,” spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia. While most EU states backed the UN resolution endorsing the declaration and several recognized a Palestinian state, few have acted on those commitments. Notably, the EU continues to trade with Israeli settlements, despite referring to them as illegal and “an obstacle to a two-state solution” and in breach of clear obligations laid out by the ICJ.

Rather than easing pressure now, the EU should act on its own findings, uphold international law, and end the impunity that fuels Israel’s past and ongoing crimes.

Click to expand Image Some of the dozens of white South Africans who accepted an invitation from the Trump administration to come to the United States as refugees arrived at an air hangar near Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia on May 12, 2025. © 2025 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Trump administration is poised to mount a two-pronged attack on refugee resettlement. The first prong is quantitative: refugee admissions would be slashed from 125,000 in the fiscal year that just ended to 7,500. The second is qualitative: selecting who among the world’s 42.7 million refugees would be chosen for rescue.

The US refugee resettlement program historically rescued persecuted people from all racial and religious backgrounds, but according to documents obtained by the New York Times, the administration may now prioritize resettlement for “refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate.” What does that mean? Well, the only groups specifically identified are white, Afrikaner South Africans, who have already been prioritized for admission, and now, specifically, Europeans supposedly persecuted because of their “opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.”

In other words, the Trump administration will prioritize the immigration of people who oppose the immigration of other people. And the racial implications of these policy shifts are easily inferred.

Refugees are defined not only as people with well-founded fears of being persecuted, but also as people who have fled their countries. But have they? US officials looking for 7,500 refugees to resettle will be hard pressed to find teeming camps in Namibia overflowing with white South Africans or right-wing xenophobes from Germany huddled for safety in Swiss camps. That’s because there aren’t any.

Such camps do exist, but they hold Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh, Sudanese refugees in Chad, and Afghan refugees in Pakistan. What has stopped many countries of first arrival from forcibly returning refugees to danger has been third-country resettlement programs that relieve some of the pressure on local host states and remind them that the world is watching.

A prime example is what is happening to Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The Washington Post recently reported on Mursal, a 28-year-old Afghan woman who had a protection letter and resettlement offer from the US government. She is one among the many Afghans who the Pakistani authorities have forced back into Afghanistan since President Trump suspended resettlement. Now in hiding, she told the Post: “Everyone knows we worked with the U.S. … We fear what will happen if someone informs the Taliban’s intelligence unit.”  

It’s bad enough that the refugee lifeline has been cut, but the insertion of nonrefugees into the few remaining refugee admission places adds deep insult to even deeper injury.

Click to expand Image Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby (C) arrives for his inauguration at the Palace of Arts and Culture in N'Djamena on May 23, 2024. © Photo by JORIS BOLOMEY/AFP via Getty Images

(Nairobi) – Chad’s new constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits is a serious setback for the rule of law and democracy, Human Rights Watch said today. The change paves the way for President Mahamat Idriss Déby to remain in power indefinitely, further weakening the prospects for a meaningful, democratic change of government in line with international norms, including the rights to vote and political participation.

“By removing presidential term limits, Chad’s authorities have dismantled an important safeguard against authoritarianism,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of reinforcing democratic norms that allow for a competitive political field in periodic, free, and fair elections, the government has cemented the foundations of one-man rule.”

On October 3, 2025, the president finalized the constitutional changes, which had been fast-tracked and approved by both chambers of the parliament after they were voted on in mid-September. The ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (Mouvement patriotique du salut, or known as MPS), which dominates the National Assembly, overwhelmingly approved sweeping amendments to constitutional provisions that remove limits on presidential terms and lengthen each term from five to seven years. Some opposition lawmakers, however, boycotted the vote, describing the process as unconstitutional and illegitimate.

The government defended the reforms as “technical,” but the changes legalize indefinite rule for Déby, who has held power since 2021 following the death of his father, former President Idriss Déby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years.

The abolition of term limits also removes a key constitutional check that guarantees the peaceful transfer of power, Human Rights Watch said. Without this safeguard, one person and one party could dominate the presidency. The move follows a pattern of democratic backsliding across Central Africa, where governments have used constitutional amendments to entrench their rule, a trend analysts refer to as “constitutional coups.” This is despite the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, to which Chad is a party, and which states that “any amendment or revision of the constitution … which is an infringement on the principles of democratic change of government” is an “illegal means of … maintaining power” that should be sanctioned. In Chad, where opposition parties and civil society already face government harassment and intimidation, the change further solidifies MPS rule.

In the run-up to April 2021 elections, held just before the late Déby Itno’s death, security forces violently dispersed peaceful opposition protests in N’Djamena on several occasions, firing tear gas, beating protesters, and arbitrarily arresting opposition members and civil society activists.

Following Déby Itno’s death, the military, which was led by Mahamat Idriss Déby, seized control of the country.

While military authorities promised a transition to democracy after the takeover, instead they followed a familiar script of consolidating power and restricting political freedoms, Human Rights Watch said. The military transition following Déby Itno’s death should never have occurred. According to Chad’s then-constitution, adopted in 2018, in the event of the death of a president, the president of the National Assembly should provisionally lead the country for 45 to 90 days before organizing a new election.

Violence came to a head in October 2022 when protesters demanded a transition to civilian rule. Security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing scores, and arrested hundreds before sending them to the maximum-security Koro Toro prison in the north.

After deadly inter-communal clashes in the Logone Occidental Province, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Succès Masra was arrested in N’Djamena in May 2025 on various charges, including incitement of hatred and complicity in violence. Following a politically motivated trial, he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment and fined one billion CFA francs. He remains in detention today.

Instead of learning from history, Chad’s leaders are rewriting and repeating the same mistakes that have kept the country trapped in cycles of authoritarianism, Human Rights Watch said.

This is not the first time Chad has abolished term limits. The late Déby Itno had scrapped term limits in 2005, allowing him to remain in office until his death. In 2018, a two-term limit was reinstated but with an increase of each term from five to six years. The late president was allowed to run for those two additional terms until his death. His son’s move to remove limits again, only seven years after they were reinstated, underscores how constitutional manipulation has become a tool for perpetuating a hold on power.

The Chadian authorities should consider reinstating presidential term limits and ensure that any constitutional reform process is transparent and inclusive. Opposition leaders who boycotted the parliamentary vote have requested a referendum to ensure popular support for the changes. A similar referendum was held in 2023 to approve a new constitution, ending military rule.

Authorities should also immediately end politically motivated prosecutions, release political opposition leaders like Masra, and guarantee freedom of expression and assembly.

“Repression has become routine in Chad and now the constitution itself is being rewritten to further corrode citizens’ rights,” Mudge said. “With no credible mechanism for leadership turnover, other institutions like the parliament, the judiciary, and the press lose their ability to act as effective checks on executive power.”

Click to expand Image Chinese paramilitary police at the Beijing airport prepare for the departure of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 20, 2018. © 2018 Greg Backer/AFP via Getty Images

(Seoul) – Chinese authorities since 2024 have forcibly returned at least 406 people to North Korea, where they are at grave risk of persecution and ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Chinese government’s forced return of North Koreans puts them at high risk of torture, wrongful imprisonment, sexual violence, forced labor, and possible execution, in violation of international human rights law. Chinese officials responsible for unlawful deportations face potential criminal liability for facilitating crimes under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian rule.

“Chinese authorities are sending hundreds of North Koreans back to a place where they know returnees will be severely persecuted,” said Lina Yoon, senior Koreas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Beijing should immediately allow the United Nations Refugee Agency access to all those at risk of forced return to North Korea and publish data on all North Koreans detained or deported.”

The 406 cases are based on information from Stephen Kim, the pseudonym of a person with extensive contacts in North Korea and China. Human Rights Watch has long found his network’s reports on forced repatriation to be credible. The new figure brings the total number of forcible returns since 2020 to at least 1,076. No official data is available.

A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in North Korea found that forcibly returned North Koreans are systematically subjected to acts amounting to crimes against humanity, including torture, sexual violence, forced labor, enforced disappearances, and inhumane detention conditions. The commission warned that China’s cooperation in identifying and repatriating North Korean escapees may constitute complicity in these crimes.

Subsequent communications by UN human rights experts have reiterated concerns about forced returns. The UN Human Rights Office found in a September 2025 report that “throughout the past decade, repatriated individuals were subjected to serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance and sexual and gender-based violence,” and called on countries to “respect the principle of non-refoulement [not returning someone to a place where they will be mistreated] and consistently refrain from carrying out forcible repatriations in the light of the real risk of serious human rights violations.”

In November 2024, several UN human rights experts wrote to the governments of North Korea and China expressing concern about reporting that in August 2024 North Korea had executed two women who were among those returned in October 2023 and inquired about others who remained forcibly disappeared. Neither country has reportedly replied.

In its July 2023 submission to the UN Human Rights Council for China’s Universal Periodic Review, the UN Refugee Agency urged China to recognize that some North Koreans need international protection due to the severe treatment faced by returnees, and to ensure that they have access to asylum procedures and documentation allowing legal residence.

Human Rights Watch verified many of the cases of forced returns since 2024. Unless noted, there is no information available on their current whereabouts or condition.

They include 108 North Korean overseas workers who were returned in January 2024 from Helong city in China’s Jilin province, after a protest over unpaid wages reportedly turned violent, to be sent to political prisons upon return to North Korea.

Another 60 North Koreans from Jilin and Liaoning provinces were returned in April 2024; and 212 trafficked North Korean women who had been detained in Kunming city in Yunnan province, Nanning city in Guangxi province, and Pinxiang city in Jiangxi province were returned during 2024. A 36-year-old overseas worker was returned in early 2025, who was working as a computer hacker and had been detained in early 2024 for trying to escape; and five women who had been living in forced marriages in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces were returned in mid-2025.

Chinese authorities also forcibly returned 20 of 22 women detained in Inner Mongolia between December 2024 and July 2025. The two not forcibly returned had been trafficked into forced marriages in China and were pregnant, and were sent to the homes of the Chinese men they had been sold to.

Women who become pregnant under coercive conditions by Chinese men face particularly harsh treatment upon return to North Korea, three former North Korean government officials told Human Rights Watch. The 2014 Commission of Inquiry report found that North Korean authorities routinely subjected these women to forced abortion and infanticide, as the North Korean government considers mixed-ethnicity children a threat to the “purity” of the Korean people.

In addition to those returned, more than 100 North Korean women were being held in detention centers in China’s southern provinces as of July. They had been trafficked into forced marriages and had children, and were trying to reach a safe third country. The authorities planned to return them to the homes of the men they had been sold to ahead of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s scheduled trip to Beijing in September. Human Rights Watch has learned that at least 28 of these women were sent back to the men in China.

The Chinese government has continued to label undocumented North Koreans as illegal “economic migrants” and forcibly returned them based on a 1986 border protocol. Growing repression under Chinese President Xi Jinping, including expanded mass surveillance, has further enabled systematic identification and forced repatriation of North Koreans.

Beijing has rejected international calls to end this practice. During its 2024 Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, China explicitly rejected recommendations to refrain from forcibly repatriating North Koreans.

China, as a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, as well as the 1984 Convention Against Torture, is legally obligated not to forcibly return anyone to a country where they face a real risk of persecution or torture. This prohibition, called nonrefoulement, is also binding on China as a matter of customary international law.

In 2010, North Korea’s Ministry of People’s Security adopted a decree making defection a crime of “treachery against the nation,” punishable by death. North Koreans who left their country without authorization and who face forced repatriation are refugees sur place, people who become refugees by the act of leaving their country without permission regardless of their reasons for leaving or prior persecution.

The Chinese government should immediately stop forced returns of North Koreans, provide asylum to North Korean refugees and allow them to fully integrate in China should they want to, or permit them to seek resettlement in a third country or safely pass through Chinese territory to third countries. Governments and donors should increase support for organizations assisting escapees, especially those providing gender-sensitive protection for women and children at risk of trafficking or repatriation.

“The Chinese government should stop forcibly returning North Koreans and instead call for Pyongyang to end the oppressive conditions that are compelling people to flee North Korea,” Yoon said. “Governments should press North Korea to let people leave freely and they should provide sustained support for the organizations protecting North Korean escapees.”

Click to expand Image Martha García and a group of representatives from organizations of people with disabilities meet in a Mexico Supreme Court chamber with Justice Hugo Aguilar Ortiz and Justices Lenia Batres and Yasmín Esquivel. © 2025 Jenny Bautista/Human Rights Watch

When Martha García, a young disability activist and student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, heard the Supreme Court planned to change a legal precedent that could weaken the right of people with disabilities to engage in the democratic process, she decided to act. On October 13, the Court was expected to issue its decision, so that same day Martha and other activists organized a demonstration outside the court, demanding that people with disabilities be heard before any final ruling was made.

The court agreed to the protesters’ demands and announced a public hearing for October 20. However, the manner in which it was announced in their call through social media failed to meet even basic accessibilitystandards. It wasn’t compatible with screen readers for blind people, didn’t include Mexican Sign Language interpretation, and wasn’t available in easy-to-read or other accessible formats. Most importantly, the deadline for participation was so short that many organizations and individuals won’t be able to arrange suitable accommodation.

For Martha, who uses a wheelchair, getting to the court on time meant waking up at 4 a.m. and navigating the many physical and social barriers that make it hard for people with disabilities to take part in public life. Her experience reflects the broader obstacles that continue to keep many people with disabilities from being included in decisions that directly affect them. Accessibility isn’t just about ramps or elevators, it’s also about communication, clear information, and enough time for meaningful participation. Yet the court’s draft ruling in case 182/2024, which is at the center of this process, was written in highly technical legal language and never made available in plain or easy-to-read versions. As a result, it was effectively inaccessible to many of the people it concerns most.

Despite the challenges she faced, Martha didn’t back down. Along with her peers, she arrived early and was ready to make her presence known before the justices began their session at 10 a.m. Eventually, the doors opened, and they were allowed in.

But as Martha and others have emphasized, real inclusion shouldn’t depend on persistence or chance. The court should not only listen but engage in ways that are truly accessible and take whatever steps it can to extend the hearing sessions. The goal isn’t to ensure that a few can be heard, it’s to make sure that anyone with a disability, no matter the level of support they need, can fully and equally participate in shaping the decisions that impact their lives.

Click to expand Image (L-R) Kesha Moore and Anne Houghtaling call on the US Supreme Court to uphold a fair and representative congressional map in Louisiana v. Callais on March 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. © 2025 Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Legal Defense Fund

On October 15, the Supreme Court will rehear Louisiana v. Callais, which could determine whether Black voters have a meaningful chance at equal representation in Congress. The question before the court is a crucial one: does creating majority-Black districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act amount to unconstitutional racial discrimination?

In 2022, Louisiana lawmakers drew a congressional map that gave Black voters—one-third of the state’s population—a realistic shot at electing a member of Congress in only one of six districts. Federal courts ruled that this violated the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws voting practices that discriminate based on race. The legislature then created a second majority-Black district linking the cities of Baton Rouge and Shreveport. For the first time in decades, the state’s political map reflected its demographics.

A group of white voters sued, claiming the remedy itself was discriminatory. A divided federal court agreed, finding lawmakers gave race too much weight. Now the Supreme Court must decide whether intentionally creating a district where Black voters can elect their preferred candidates violates the constitution, though Congress endorsed this remedy in 1965.

The challengers’ logic is upside down. But these attempts to undermine anti-racist efforts are not new. Legal experts warn Callais could become a sequel to Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 decision that gutted key Voting Rights Act provisions and unleashed widespread voter suppression. If the court narrows this provision again, challenging racially skewed maps will become nearly impossible.

A constitutional scholar, Erwin Chemerinsky, cautions that the court could go even further, undermining the principle of disparate impact, the idea that policies can be discriminatory when they disproportionately harm people of color, even without overt racist intent. This idea, used to enforce equal rights in housing, education, and employment for decades, helps bring the United States into better alignment with international human rights law.

The United States enacted the 14th and 15th Amendments to protect Black Americans from the kind of exclusion represented by racial gerrymandering. Black civil rights activists later won the Voting Rights Act, which has made those constitutional guarantees real for 60 years. Using these tools to dismantle race-conscious remedies would directly oppose the protections’ original intent, a factor some justices claim to prioritize. 

Click to expand Image A woman holds a sign protesting women being deprived of their rights in marriage in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Iraq, August 8, 2024. © AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

(Beirut) – Iraq’s new Ja’afari Personal Status Code, passed by parliament on August 27, discriminates against women by favoring men in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance, and children’s guardianship and care, Human Rights Watch said today.

Religious authorities drafted the code following an amendment to Iraq’s Personal Status Law passed in February 2025. The amendment allows couples concluding a marriage contract to choose whether the Personal Status Law of 1959 or the Personal Status Code (mudawana), developed by the Shia Ja’afari school of Islamic jurisprudence, would govern their marriage, divorce, children’s guardianship and care, and inheritance. 

“The new Personal Status Code further institutionalizes discrimination against women, legally relegating them to second class citizens,” Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch said. “It takes away women’s and girls’ agency over their lives and instead gives it to men. It should be repealed immediately.”

The code includes multiple provisions that roll back hard-won women’s rights. For example, the code:

Allows a husband to convert his marriage contract to be governed by the code instead of the Personal Status Law without the consent or knowledge of his wife.Allows a husband to divorce his wife without informing her or obtaining her consent.Automatically transfers responsibility and care of children to the father after age 7, regardless of the best interests of the child.Allows a wife to stipulate in the marriage contract no polygamy or divorce without her consent, but if the husband breaches these obligations the marriage/divorce remains valid, “even if he is a sinner according to Islamic law.” 

When the amendment to the Personal Status Law was first introduced to parliament in August 2024, it was met with broad public opposition and outrage from women’s rights groups. As a result of their tireless campaigning, some of the most harmful provisions of the original amendment were scrapped, including one that would reduce the minimum age of marriage for girls to 9. 

Now, women’s rights groups continue to protest the law and push for its annulment.

“As women’s organizations, we are against the code in its entirety and we call on parliament to cancel this law,” Nadia Mahmood, co-founder of AMAN Women’s Alliance, told Human Rights Watch. “This code reflects the Islamic parties’ views [on] women’s rights and [their] place in the family and society. The code makes it clear that they don’t view women as equal to men but rather [as accessories] to men, in charge of filling all [their] desires.”

“The problems the Ja’afari Personal Status Code has created are not only women’s issues but Iraqi issues. If it isn’t repealed, it will breed social problems that will manifest for years and generations to come,” Sanbar said.

The Case of Ghazal H.

On September 11, 2025, a decade after her divorce, Ghazal H. received a court summons notifying her that her ex-husband had filed a lawsuit to retroactively apply the Ja’afari Personal Status Code to their marriage contract and to terminate her guardianship of their 10-year-old son. She said he had done so without her knowledge or consent. 

“It is unacceptable that someone marries under a law that protects the rights of women and children, and then, more than a decade later, manipulates the law to strip those rights away,” Ghazal told Human Rights Watch.

Ghazal said that her husband became violent soon after their marriage, and his beatings led to the miscarriage of her first pregnancy. In 2015, soon after Ghazal gave birth to their first child, she discovered he was cheating on her, and the violence intensified.

“He began threatening to divorce me unless I reduced my deferred mahr (gift from the groom to the bride) from 100 million Iraqi dinars (US$76,000) to 10 million Iraqi dinars ($7,600),” Ghazal said. “At first, I refused, but eventually I agreed to reduce it to 50 million Iraqi dinars ($38,100) because I wanted to preserve my family and protect my newborn son.”

“On August 16, 2015, after a dispute about his affair, [my ex-husband] brutally assaulted me, striking me with the butt of his pistol on my head and across my body,” Ghazal told Human Rights Watch. “I sustained severe bruises and injuries, including a broken rib, a skull fracture that affected my ear nerve, and multiple wounds.” 

After this incident, Ghazal filed a domestic violence complaint against her husband. The case was referred to the minor offenses court, which found him guilty of intentional assault and sentenced him to four months’ imprisonment. 

While the Iraqi Constitution expressly prohibits “all forms of violence and abuse in the family,” only the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a law on domestic violence. A draft anti-domestic violence law has been stalled in Iraqi parliament since 2019. Instead, article 41(1) of Iraq’s penal code gives a husband legal authority to “punish” his wife, and parents the authority to discipline their children “within limits prescribed by law or custom.” The penal code provides for mitigated sentences for violent acts, including murder, for “honorable motives” or for catching one’s wife or female relative in the act of adultery or sex outside of marriage.

In December 2015, a court in Baghdad granted Ghazal’s divorce but reduced her deferred mahr from 50 million Iraqi dinars ($38,100) to 25 million Iraqi dinars ($19,500) with the justification that Ghazal had “caused her husband harm” by filing a domestic violence case against him.

Ghazal said that since she received the notification of the conversion of their marriage contract to the Ja’afari Personal Status Code in September, she lives with the constant fear that her son will be taken from her. 

“How can a father, convicted in a criminal case of domestic violence, be granted the right to take custody of a child away from the mother who has sacrificed everything for him?” Ghazal said. “The new law opened a loophole that allows him to exploit the system, even though our marriage was contracted under Law No. 188.”

Click to expand Image Security forces use water cannons to disperse youth protesters calling for healthcare and education reforms, in Salé, Morocco, October 1, 2025. © 2025 Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP Photo

(Beirut) – Moroccan authorities have cracked down on youth-led protests demanding sweeping reforms to public services, resulting in deaths and mass arrests, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should heed protesters’ calls and fulfil the rights to health care and education, respect the right to peaceful protest, and investigate the use of lethal force by the Royal Gendarmerie and other alleged widespread abuses against protesters by public security forces.

Nationwide protests erupted on September 27, 2025, after the youth movement GenZ212 urged Moroccans to peacefully take to the streets and demand increased spending for public health care and education systems and an end to corruption. They criticized public spending on mega-sporting events the country is set to host, such as the 2030 FIFA World Cup. Some protesters also reportedly damaged private and public property. Police and Royal Gendarmerie responded by banning protests and forcibly dispersing protesters, including with lethal force, killing three people and injuring dozens. They reportedly arrested nearly 1,000 people and brought criminal cases against at least 270 protesters including 39 children, who remain detained. Some courts have sentenced protesters to prison terms and fines.

“Morocco’s youth are voicing their dissent over the state of health care and education in the country,” said Hanan Salah, associate Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should heed protesters’ calls and replace repressive tactics with public engagement and wide-ranging reforms.”

Deficiencies in the public healthcare system, amplified by the recent deaths of several pregnant women in a public hospital in Agadir, contributed to widespread anger and fueled protests. Meanwhile, Morocco is preparing to host the December 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and co-host the 2030 FIFA World Cup, reportedly spending US$5 billion for new stadiums, sports complexes, public transportation, and accommodations. 

Largely peaceful protests kicked off on September 27 in at least 11 cities and towns, including in Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, Salé, Agadir, Marrakesh, Sidi Eltaibi, and Inezgane. 

Human Rights Watch geolocated a video posted to social media on October 1 that shows a dark-colored security forces van driving into protesters in a roundabout in Oujda on the night of September 30, before driving away. Another video posted to social media on October 1 and geolocated by researchers shows a dark-colored security forces van drive into a group of protesters roughly 350 meters from the roundabout in Oujda, crushing a man against a wall before backing up and driving away. According to news reports, security forces’ car ramming incidents injured at least two people in Oujda that night, including 17-year-old Wassim Eltaibi, whose mother told reporters he required urgent medical care, and 19-year-old Amine Boussaada, whose father said his left leg had been amputated.

On October 1, the Royal Gendarmerie used lethal force to quell protests that turned violent in front of a gendarmerie post in Lqliâa, in Agadir, reportedly killing three men and injuring others, including a child. Those reportedly killed include Abdessamade Oubalat, a 22-year-old cinematography student, and a 25-year-old man. In a televised statement on October 2, an interior ministry spokesperson sought to justify the use of lethal force, saying that protesters had used stones and allegedly used knives as weapons. He said forces first used tear gas to disperse crowds and then used their firearms “in self-defense.” 

Human Rights Watch analyzed and geolocated a series of videos shared on social media on October 2 showing the events in Lqliâa. 

CCTV video footage filmed outside the gendarmerie post and time-stamped at 9:28 p.m. showed dozens of protesters throwing large rocks, breaking down the front gate, and setting fires. The video shared online shows clips of CCTV video edited together. A uniformed man inside the post fires a weapon toward protesters, time-stamped at 9:34pm. 

The footage also shows tear gas being used outside a minute later, but Human Rights Watch could not conclusively determine whether authorities used tear gas before lethal force, as they claimed. One video showed a gravely wounded, or possibly dead, man lying approximately 70 meters from the entrance with a bloody wound on his back, but Human Rights Watch could not conclusively determine whether he had been shot in the back.

Moroccan authorities should urgently conduct a transparent investigation into the events in Lqliâa and the reported killing of three men and hold accountable any members of the gendarmerie found responsible for wrongdoing, Human Rights Watch said. 

Nationwide protests on October 1 also resulted in the injury of 354 people, including 326 public security personnel, and damage to 271 of their vehicles and 175 private vehicles, according to an interior ministry spokesperson. 

On October 2, violent clashes broke out in Marrakesh between police and protesters, who reportedly damaged three bank branches. The authorities arrested scores of people.

Prosecutions against protestors are ongoing. On October 4, the Agadir Court of First Instance reportedly sentenced a man to four years in prison and a fine of 50,000 dirhams (around US$5,400) for “inciting minor offenses and crimes via social media.” On October 8, the Agadir Court of Appeal reportedly sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for his alleged role in destroying public property during the Lqliâa events, and for alleged violence against security forces. On October 9, the Silla Court of Appeal reportedly sentenced several defendants to up to 20 years in prison for alleged “acts of vandalism.”

The GenZ212 protests follow Gen-Z protests that gripped Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, and the Philippines. Their calls mirrored long-standing grievances as one-third of Morocco’s youth face unemployment, as well as a poor quality public education system, health services, and social safety net. 

In 2022, Morocco’s public spending on health care amounted to only 2.3 percent of its GDP, less than half of the international benchmark of at least 5 percent, according to data from the World Health Organization. Morocco also made clear commitments under the 2001 Abuja Declaration to spend at least 15 percent of its national budget to promote health, but spent less than half of that in 2022. Morocco’s 2021 Framework Law on the Social Protection System sought to close social protection gaps, yet around half of the country’s 38 million population lack healthcare coverage. 

Public spending on education in Morocco, excluding the Western Sahara territory it occupies, reached 6 percent of its GDP in 2023, within the globally recommended public spending benchmark on education. However, fewer than 20 percent of adolescents achieved minimum reading and math skills in 2022, and adult and youth literacy rates lagged at 77 percent as of 2022.

In a speech on October 10, Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, said that “creating jobs for young people, and the concrete improvement of the education and health sectors,” were priorities, but did not address the youth protests or what measures the government would take to achieve these goals. 

Morocco should adopt a human rights approach that emphasizes the equitable distribution of resources to realize rights like universal access to quality health care, education, and social security, under international human rights law, and ensure that people are paid a living wage, Human Rights Watch said. The country’s 2011 constitution guarantees “the right to health care, social protection, education, decent housing, [and] work.” 

Under human rights law, governments, and the international financial institutions that support them, are required to respond to economic crises in ways that do everything possible to protect and advance rights. They are expected to ensure that proposed reforms, including to fiscal policy and public spending, best fulfill people’s economic, social, and cultural rights.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Morocco is a party, upholds the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Any law enforcement response to protests must meet international standards. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials state that security forces should apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force. Where it is required for a legitimate law enforcement purpose during an assembly, only the minimum force necessary may be used. Intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life. 

“Young people in Morocco are making very clear-cut demands for better health care, better education, and an end to corruption,” Salah said. “If the government can fund state-of-the art football stadiums, it can afford to fund its healthcare system, and those calling for a fair chance for their future should not be met with lethal force and repression.”

Play Video Read a text description of this video

SOUNDBITES

Toto Arara

Every year, the invaders clear more land for cattle. Then they burn it.

 

SOUNDBITES

Givanildo dos Santos Lima

Today, the biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon region is cattle ranching.

DATE/PLACE

February 2025

Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Territory, Brazil

 

Powdem Arara

I don't know why the government doesn't remove the invaders from our land.

 

Pyjaka Arara

We, the Arara people, are very afraid of ranchers.

 

Maria Márcia de Melo

The landgrabbers made me lose 17 years of work in a matter of minutes. Look! It's all dead.

DATE/PLACE

November 2024

PDS Terra Nossa, Brazil

 

Maria dos Reis

We can't say anything, or the land grabbers threaten us.

 

Cleve Gonçalves da Silva

And it's very dangerous here in Terra Nossa. They've already killed many people in this settlement.

 

TITLE

Invaded

Watch full video at HRW.org

Illegal cattle ranching has devastated territories of small land holders and Indigenous peoples in the Amazon region that will hold the COP30 climate summit this year.The world’s largest meat company, JBS, has no system to track indirect suppliers of cattle, despite longstanding pledges to create one, and may have sourced illegal cattle from the affected territories.The Brazilian government needs to remove the illegal cattle ranches from this region, and JBS should meet its pledges and remediate abuses it may have contributed to, even if unintentionally.

(São Paulo, October 15, 2025) – Illegal cattle ranching has devastated the territories of small farmers and Indigenous peoples in Pará, the state that will hold the COP30 climate summit this year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. JBS, the world’s largest meat company, may have exported beef and hides to the European Union made with cattle sourced from illegal ranches in this region.

October 15, 2025 Tainted

JBS and the EU’s Exposure to Human Rights Violations and Illegal Deforestation in Pará, Brazil

Download the full report in English

Annex: Correspondence with JBS

The 86-page report “Tainted: JBS and the EU’s Exposure to Human Rights Violations and Illegal Deforestation in Pará, Brazil,” details how cattle ranchers illegally seized land and devastated the livelihoods of lawful residents in the Terra Nossa smallholder settlement and the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous territory, affecting their rights to housing, land, and culture. Human Rights Watch analysis of official sources shows that illegal farms in these areas sold cattle to several JBS direct suppliers.

“JBS still does not have a system to track its indirect suppliers of cattle, despite pledging it would implement one as early as 2011,” said Luciana Téllez Chávez, senior environment researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Without it, the company cannot meet its commitment to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain by the end of the 2025.”

Through the analysis of cattle transport permits issued by the Pará state government, Human Rights Watch identified five cases in which illegal ranches in Terra Nossa and Cachoeira Seca supplied cattle to ranches outside these protected areas, and subsequently those ranches sold cattle to JBS slaughterhouses. The cattle ranches investigated in these territories are illegal under Brazilian federal law.

Brazil’s land reform agency created the rural settlement Terra Nossa for small farmers in 2006. Families were to farm the land, harvest fruits and nuts from the rainforest – which initially constituted 80 percent of the 150,000-hectare settlement – and sell their produce in local markets.

Ranchers have, however, illegally encroached on Terra Nossa. They have violently retaliated against people who opposed them. By 2023, 45.3 percent of the settlement had been converted into pasture.

Beginning in 2016, the land reform agency surveyed the settlement, ultimately finding 78.5 percent illegally occupied. Yet for years failed to take action to remove illegal ranches. The agency is considering a plan to split up the settlement and revise its status, which would most likely perpetuate impunity for environmental criminals.

In Cachoeira Seca, the Arara Indigenous people depend on the rainforest in their 733,000-hectare territory. The federal government is legally required to remove non-Indigenous occupants. Instead, ranchers have established more illegal cattle ranches, thus reducing the availability of game and forest products, restricting Indigenous peoples’ movement in their own territory, and undermining their cultural rights. Cachoeira Seca registered the largest deforested area in an Indigenous territory in the Brazilian Amazon in 2024.

2000: © 2025 Human Rights Watch 2024: © 2025 Human Rights Watch

JBS does not systematically track its indirect suppliers and cannot guarantee that tainted cattle did not enter its supply chain, Human Rights Watch said. There is no federal requirement to track individual cattle as they move through various farms in Brazil.

In correspondence with Human Rights Watch, JBS maintained that they monitor the farms of its direct suppliers to see that they comply with its procurement policy. The company also stated that, as of January 1, 2026, it will be mandatory for direct suppliers to provide information on their suppliers.

The Pará government announced it will establish an individual cattle traceability system by 2026, and officials told Human Rights Watch they will generally stop issuing permits for cattle movements into protected forests. The federal government announced a plan to implement a national individual cattle traceability system by 2032. Given the cross-border dynamic of the illegal cattle trade, a slow implementation of the federal system is likely to sabotage progress, Human Rights Watch said.

Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights Watch

EU countries are scheduled to enforce the Deforestation-Free Products Regulation as of January 2026. The law would prohibit placing cattle products on the EU market if they originated from land that was deforested after 2020, or if production violated domestic laws in the country of origin. EU lawmakers are discussing delaying enforcement by one year. A delay would allow tainted commodities to continue flowing into the single market and call into question EU commitment to tackling its global deforestation footprint, Human Rights Watch said. 

Human Rights Watch analyzed trade data between 2020 and 2025, finding Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden imported beef from the municipalities that host the JBS facilities identified in this report, while Italy was a major destination for leather products.

The Brazilian government should remove illegal ranches and seek damages against those responsible for unlawful occupation and use of land in the affected communities. The federal government should also accelerate the implementation and effective enforcement of a cattle traceability system.

JBS should take steps to remediate any land fraud, illegal deforestation, or human rights abuses that the company may have contributed to – even if unintentionally – in Terra Nossa and Cachoeira Seca.

“Tackling deforestation and human rights abuses embedded in cattle supply chains is a shared responsibility between sellers and buyers,” said Téllez Chávez. “Brazil and the EU should work together to protect the rainforest and uphold the rights of communities that depend on it.”

 

Click to expand Image Shelters at the Wendou 2 displaced persons camp in Dori, Burkina Faso, May 29, 2024. © 2024 FANNY NOARO-KABRE/AFP via Getty Images

(Nairobi) – The military junta in Burkina Faso is wrongfully detaining eight aid workers who had been helping to address the humanitarian emergency in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately drop the baseless charges against them and release them.

In late July 2025, the Burkinabè intelligence services in Ouagadougou, the capital, detained the French national Jean-Christophe Pégon, director of the International NGO Safety Organization (INSO), a Netherlands-based group specializing in humanitarian safety. In August, security forces detained seven other INSO staff, including four Burkinabè citizens and three foreigners. However, the authorities did not publicly announce the arrests until October 7, and have yet to set a trial date.

“The Burkina Faso government’s detention of eight aid workers amid a humanitarian crisis sends a chilling message that aid groups operate at the whim of a junta that seems to have little concern for people in need,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should immediately drop all charges against INSO workers, release them, and allow humanitarian groups to operate freely and safely.”

The arbitrary detention of INSO workers fits into a wider pattern of government action against domestic and international nongovernmental organizations and occurs at a time when civic space in Burkina Faso has been shrinking.

Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said on October 7 that government security forces had arrested the INSO workers on spying and treason charges, accusing them of collecting and providing sensitive security information to foreign powers. INSO, in a news release that day, rejected the accusations and said that “[a]ssociating our work to strengthen humanitarian safety with intelligence work is not only false but will … place aid workers at greater risk.”

INSO works in 26 countries and since 2016 has offered advice on the security environment in Burkina Faso to allow nongovernmental organizations to safely provide humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected populations.

“Accurate information on the security context is crucial to mitigate the many risks humanitarians are facing in Burkina Faso, as well as to better plan aid operations for the people in need,” an aid worker told Human Rights Watch.

Under international humanitarian law, warring parties are prohibited from harassing, intimidating, and arbitrarily detaining humanitarian relief personnel.

“By targeting INSO, the authorities are targeting the whole humanitarian community in Burkina Faso,” said another aid worker. “Without an in-depth analysis of the security situation, our work becomes more dangerous or impossible.”

Armed groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State control large swathes of Burkinabè territory and have attacked civilians as well as the military. Security forces have carried out counterinsurgency operations resulting in widespread abuses against civilians, including mass killings that may amount to crimes against humanity.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 2016 and over 2 million have been displaced. The conflict has exacerbated an existing humanitarian crisis in a country that ranks among the world’s poorest. According to the United Nations, 6.3 million people, including 3.4 million children, needed humanitarian assistance across Burkina Faso in 2024. An estimated 1.1 million of these people lived in towns and villages besieged by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or commonly known as JNIM), the dominant Islamist armed group in the country.

In June, the junta withdrew the licenses of 11 international organizations, including the Tony Blair Institute, a think tank advising governments and businesses on strategy and policy, and Geneva Call, a non-profit group that focuses on protecting civilians in armed conflicts, for allegedly not complying with the regulations governing the operation of associations and nongovernmental groups, and suspended a local group for violating the national sports legislation.

That month, the junta also suspended for three months the activities of the international religious association Comunità di Sant’Egidio, accusing it of collecting “personal data on Burkinabè territory and hosting it abroad without prior authorization,” and of the faith-based Swedish development organization Diakonia, citing the need “to preserve public order and safety.” On July 31, the junta announced that INSO faced a three-month suspension for “the collection of sensitive data without prior authorization.”

The junta, since taking power in a 2022 coup, has cracked down on civil society groups, critical media organizations, and the political opposition. It has jailed, forcibly disappeared, and unlawfully conscripted activists, journalists, opposition party members, and judges and prosecutors.

In April 2024, the authorities suspended access to the Human Rights Watch website, following a report alleging that the army had killed over 220 civilians in two villages in the North region. Authorities also suspended BBC and Voice of America radio networks because of their reporting on the Human Rights Watch report.

In August 2025, the junta expelled the top UN representative in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, declaring her “persona non grata” following a new UN report on rights violations against children in the country.

“The charges against the eight INSO workers misrepresent the group’s crucial work allowing humanitarian organizations to operate safely,” Allegrozzi said. “Targeting aid workers risks hindering the delivery of life-saving assistance to people desperately in need.”

Click to expand Image State teachers and school principals hold placards during a protest demanding relief from the upcoming budget, in front of the Ministry of Education in Colombo, Sri Lanka, February 14, 2025. © 2025 CHAMILA KARUNARATHNE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Sri Lanka’s tax policies played a driving role in the country’s devastating 2022 economic crisis and contribute to chronic underfunding of education and other public services.The government should consider eliminating corporate tax exemptions given their high cost, questionable effectiveness, and vulnerability to abuse, and adopt other progressive tax measures.The case of Sri Lanka reflects the challenges many governments face under the current international tax system, highlighting the importance of ongoing negotiations for a UN tax treaty to build international rules informed by human rights imperatives.

(Colombo) – Sri Lanka’s tax policies played a driving role in the country’s devastating 2022 economic crisis and have contributed to the chronic underfunding of education and other public services, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake should urgently adopt measures to uphold its human rights obligations and enact reforms to a system that presently favors companies and wealthy people while failing to deliver adequate revenues. 

October 14, 2025 Tax Giveaways, Struggling Schools

How Low Taxes Drove Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis and Squandered its Education Lead

Download the full report in English

The 101-page report, “Tax Giveaways, Struggling Schools: How Low Taxes Drove Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis and Squandered its Education Lead,” describes how Sri Lanka’s successive governments have adopted policies that resulted in inadequate revenues, contributing not only to Sri Lanka defaulting on its debt but also to a decades-long decline in public education spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to among the lowest in the world. It also documents the impacts of inadequate funding on children’s right to education. Moreover, low corporate and personal tax revenues have led to an average of 80 percent of taxes coming from goods and services, which generally are regressive because they claim a higher share of poorer people’s income.

“For decades, Sri Lanka has been hostage to economic policies that starve its government of revenue and reflect a myopic focus on GDP growth,” said Sarah Saadoun, senior economic justice researcher at Human Rights Watch. “In practice, that means education spending has fallen well behind the pace of growth, turning the country from a global leader in public education to a laggard.” 

Human Rights Watch interviewed over 70 people, including those affected by the economic situation and familiar with the public education system, as well as a wide spectrum of prominent Sri Lankan economic experts. Human Rights Watch also conducted a comprehensive analysis of relevant data and research relevant to Sri Lanka’s tax policies and education spending.

These policy failures have infringed upon children’s right to education, Human Rights Watch found. Sri Lanka’s education spending dropped from between 3 to 5 percent of GDP in the two decades following independence, a time when the country was an education champion among postcolonial countries, to 1.5 percent of GDP in 2022, among the lowest in the world.

Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights Watch

Low tax revenues also contributed to Sri Lanka defaulting on its debt in April 2022, which precipitated an economic crisis including widespread job and income loss alongside a sharp rise in the cost of living that remains devastating for human rights. 

While former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa introduced sweeping tax cuts in 2019 that dealt a devastating blow to revenues, Human Rights Watch found that the problem began in the late 1970s, when Sri Lanka began an economic shift common at that time that deprioritized social spending and liberalized trade. The resulting sharp decline in tax revenue from trade and other sources was not replaced by a progressive tax system that appropriately benefited from the ensuing growth.

Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights Watch Click to expand Image © 2025 Human Rights Watch

In particular, the government began regularly granting companies broad tax exemptions through an opaque body highly vulnerable to abuse. In 2022, the cost of tax exemptions reached a staggering amount equivalent to 56 percent of revenues, or nearly three times the education budget. The government also collects only a small amount of taxes from personal income and assets and has not ensured that tax agencies have the capacity and accountability needed for tax enforcement. 

The report’s focus on education illustrates a broader deprioritization of social spending, but the squandered potential is particularly salient in education, an area in which Sri Lanka was once widely regarded as a global leader. Sri Lanka was among the first countries to establish free primary and secondary education for most people. 

Human Rights Watch found that low spending has led to schools charging fees to cover the cost of basic resources, posing significant hardship to many families. Inadequate public funds have also led to a vast disparity in resources based on students’ socioeconomic status. Low corporate and personal income tax revenues have led the government to heavily rely on taxes and goods and services—called “indirect taxes”—such as value-added tax (VAT) that weigh more heavily on poorer people.

Susikala, a domestic worker living on a tea plantation in Hatton, said she earns around 14,000 Sri Lankan rupees (LKR, about US$46) monthly working 7 days per week and struggles to pay various fees the school charges that amount to around LKR 500 (about $1.65) per month, along with the LKR 5,000 (about $16.50) per month for both of her children to attend for-profit “tuition” classes outside of school. “When teachers ask for books and papers I can't get those things,” she said. “I struggle to give nutritious food to my children.”

In March 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $3 billion bailout to Sri Lanka and creditors restructured the country’s debt, although its debt servicing obligations remain very high. In 2024, the government paid 57 percent of its revenue to creditors. In January 2025, President Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) party took office following a campaign that promised sweeping economic reforms, including reducing regressive taxes and improving education.

The government should consider eliminating corporate tax exemptions given their high cost, questionable effectiveness, and vulnerability to abuse, Human Rights Watch said. The government should also adopt other progressive tax measures, such as a wealth tax. 

The case of Sri Lanka reflects the challenges many governments face under the current international tax system. For example, tax competition pressures governments into offering tax incentives that fuel a race to the bottom, depriving many governments of the necessary revenue to fulfill human rights. These challenges highlight the importance of ongoing negotiations for a United Nations tax treaty to build international rules informed by human rights imperatives and increased cooperation that would enable governments to end this negative spiral.

Under international human rights law, states are obligated to take steps to the “maximum of their available resources” to progressively realize the rights to health, education, social security, and an adequate standard of living, among other economic, social, and cultural rights. States are obliged not only to act individually, but also through international assistance and cooperation. This necessarily implicates states’ fiscal practices and tax policies domestically and in international fora. 

Sri Lanka’s new government has taken some positive steps, such as providing an LKR 6,000 (about $20) bursary to some families to help with education-related costs, but it has only marginally raised the education budget. It should continue to increase the education budget, with a goal of reaching the internationally agreed benchmark of 4 to 6 percent of GDP allocated to education, Human Rights Watch said. The government of President Dissanayake should also urgently adopt measures to uphold its human rights obligations and enact reforms to a system that currently favors companies and wealthy people while failing to deliver adequate revenues. 

“Sri Lanka’s economic quagmire makes clear that growth alone is not enough to fulfill human rights,” Saadoun said. “The government should finally establish a progressive tax system and use its income so that it adequately funds education and other public services that benefit all Sri Lankans.”

Click to expand Image The artwork "Non Violence" by artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd before the start of the United Nations Future Summit in New York, September 21, 2024. © 2024 Michael Kappeler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

A country’s gross domestic product (GDP), which measures total economic output, is central to how governments assess their economies. But this figure, when looked at in isolation, which is most often the case, incentivizes economic systems that value aggregate productivity, without reflecting environmental degradation, inequality or human rights.

A new 14-member high-level expert group, appointed by the United Nations secretary general, is working to change this. Following a commitment in the UN’s Pact for the Future, they have been mandated to develop measures of progress that complement or go beyond GDP as a metric, which they are expected to deliver to the UN General Assembly in 2026. This will then lead to a state-led process to adopt new economic indicators based on the group’s findings.

This week, to help shape and inform the direction of this new group, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN agencies convened a meeting, co-sponsored by Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and Spain, to ensure that human rights are imbedded in these new metrics. They highlighted their transformative potential to reshape economies from ones that champion unchecked economic productivity to those that prioritize people and the planet.

Participants proposed including indicators that would help center human rights at the heart of the new metrics, including by measuring:

Economic inequality: such as income and wealth distribution, and profits versus wagesPublic social spending: such as on healthcare, education, and social securityEnvironment impact: reflecting the environmental and climate costs of economic activity, as well as the economic value of natural assets  Gender equality: recognizing and valuing unpaid care work, predominantly performed by womenLabour rights: for example, the discrepancy between minimum and living wage, unemployment rates, and working conditionsDemocratic control: public participation in economic decision-makingGovernance: the capacity and accountability of state institutions, which research has linked both to democracy and economic performanceExtraterritorial impact: the extent to which economic policies have harmful impacts on other countries’ economies

As the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif noted in opening the conference “Moving beyond GDP is more than just a technical exercise; it’s a fundamental rethinking of our economies.” Measuring economic progress by taking into account what really matters for people can help build healthier and fairer human rights economies.

Click to expand Image Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2025.  © 2025 Lian Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images

The latest session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which concluded last week, offers a glimmer of hope in what are dark times for human rights around the world.

Amidst talk of the erosion of international rule of law and decreasing government willingness to promote human rights abroad and fund rights institutions, countries from across regions acted with civil society groups to defend and protect rights in the world’s trouble spots and on key global issues.

Responding to calls from Afghan and international organizations and UN rights experts, the Council decided by consensus to establish a new independent evidence-gathering body to investigate past and ongoing rights abuses in Afghanistan. The decision puts the Taliban and others responsible for serious crimes in Afghanistan, including the repression of women and girls, on notice that they may someday face justice. Led by the European Union and with support from countries like South Africa and Chile, the initiative also demonstrated commitment to accountability for egregious international crimes, explicitly condemning threats and attacks against the International Criminal Court.

The Council also renewed important UN monitoring and investigation mandates on Russia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Cambodia, ensuring that much-needed independent international oversight continues on these situations. These mandates provide impartial information and assessments that are vital for countering the dangerous spread of disinformation, amplify the voices of victims, such as Sudanese women and girls suffering sexual and gender-based violence, and provide an avenue for human rights defenders facing repression at home, such as in Russia, to engage with the international community.

States also worked together to bridge regional divides on addressing systemic racism and providing reparations for the lasting impacts of enslavement and other colonial atrocities. For the first time since 2019, the Council adopted by consensus an African group-led resolution on racism. While disagreements remain and real action on reparations is still lacking, as highlighted in Ghana’s joint statement, this is a significant step forward, overcoming deep divisions between regional groups.

Crucial issues of economic inequalities and climate change, impacting rights across the world, particularly in developing countries, were also under discussion. Despite differing positions, the Council managed to adopt by consensus imperfect but significant resolutions on economic, social and cultural rights and inequalities and on sea-level rise.

As some governments seek to lower the bar on human rights and question the value of the multilateral system, these Human Rights Council outcomes show that when states come together with civil society they have the power to make a difference.

Click to expand Image Remy Rowhani © Private.

(Beirut) – Qatari authorities have acquitted and released Remy Rowhani, chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in Qatar, after months of arbitrary detention based solely on his religious identity, Human Rights Watch said today. Qatar should immediately end discrimination against Baha’is and provide effective remedy for those affected.

Qatar’s court of appeal reversed Rowhani’s baseless conviction on September 30, 2025, court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch show. Rowhani was sentenced to five years in prison by a lower court in August on charges based on the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of speech and religion. Rowhani was released on October 4, an informed source told Human Rights Watch. However, the prosecutor can appeal the decision within 60 days.

“It is very good news that a Qatari court acquitted Remy Rowhani of all the baseless charges against him,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Qatari authorities should build on this positive development by ensuring that Baha’is no longer face religious discrimination by Qatari government institutions.”

The Baha’i faith, founded in 19th-century Iran by Baha’u’llah, believes in the unity of all religions and people. The Qatari government has a longstanding record of discriminating against Baha’is in Qatar, with hundreds harmed by deportations, blacklisting, and administrative restrictions for no apparent reason other than individuals’ belonging to the Baha’i faith.

Baha’is are also frequently discriminated against elsewhere in the region, including in Egypt and Yemen, and face persecution, a crime against humanity, by authorities in Iran.

Qatari authorities arrested and detained Rowhani in April on charges claiming that he violated public order and social and religious Muslim values in Instagram and X accounts linked to him, the court documents say. Human Rights Watch reviewed the accounts and found that the posts are limited to celebrating Baha’i values and Qatari and Muslim holidays.

The court denied Rowhani’s lawyer’s request to review the documents that outline the charges and evidence, and it did not allow him to defend his client during the first hearing, the informed source said.

Qatar’s deputy attorney general appealed the sentence on September 7 seeking a harsher sentence, according to the appeal document, despite calls by rights groups, United Nations experts, and international media to end Qatar’s discriminatory treatment of Baha’is and release Rowhani.

Human Rights Watch has documented Qatari discrimination against Baha’is, as have UN special rapporteurs on minority issues and freedom of religion or belief. Qatari authorities’ discriminatory treatment against Baha’is has resulted in the separation of families and the loss of employment and income, UN experts concluded.

The authorities have also delayed the community’s attempts to reestablish an existing Baha’i cemetery and refused to accept marriage certificates issued by elected Baha’i institutions in Qatar, according to UN experts.

“Rowhani’s release is a positive step, but Qatar needs to do more than release Rowhani to signal a genuine policy shift in its treatment of members of the Baha’i faith,” Page said.

 

Click to expand Image Jin Minri leads a class on the basics of Christian beliefs at the Zion Church in Beijing, China, August 4, 2018. © 2018 Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

(New York) – Chinese authorities on October 10-11, 2025, arrested nearly 30 pastors, preachers, and church members of the unofficial Zion Protestant Church in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang, Human Rights Watch said today. Among those arrested was the pastor and founder of the Zion church (錫安教会), Ezra Jin Mingri, 56, in Beihai city, Guangxi province.

The Chinese government should immediately free the dozens of people detained across China because of their affiliation with Zion and other unofficial Protestant churches. Until their release, the authorities should provide information about the detainees to their families and ensure that they have access to lawyers of their own choosing.

“The Chinese government’s arbitrary detention of dozens of people affiliated with Zion church reflects an escalating crackdown on religious freedom,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “President Xi Jinping’s government appears intent on reshaping religious practice to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s interests, and congregations that fail to do so face harsh persecution.”

Jin and seven other pastors are being held in Beihai City No. 2 Detention Center, according to a statement by their family members. At least five of those detained were reportedly released; the whereabouts of the rest have not been revealed.

Zion Church, founded in 2007, has previously faced official harassment. In 2018, authorities shut down the church in Beijing and placed a travel ban on Jin and prevented him from visiting his family in the United States. Despite severe restrictions, the church continued to grow and is now one of the largest unofficial Protestant congregations in China, with thousands attending its services across the country.

Click to expand Image Official seal notices are affixed to a back door at the Zion Church after authorities shut it down, in Beijing, September 11, 2018. © 2018 Andy Wong/ AP

The latest crackdown came after the authorities issued an Online Code of Conduct for Religious Professionals in September, banning the circulation of unauthorized religious content online, effectively denying public access to religious teachers and teachings outside of Communist Party control. Jin was arrested for “illegal use of information networks,” a crime under China’s criminal law (article 287-1) which carries up to three years in prison.

The Chinese government has a long history of severely restricting the right to freedom of religion. The 2005 Regulations on Religious Affairs require all religious groups to be registered and controlled by the authorities. Protestant churches face repeated pressure to become affiliated with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the official umbrella organization for Protestants.

But the control has escalated since 2016, when Xi pledged to “Sinicize” religion, and tightened ideological control. The authorities have demolished hundreds of church buildings or the crosses atop them, prevented adherents from gathering in unofficial churches, restricted access to the Bible, confiscated religious materials not authorized by the government, and banned Bible and religious apps. The Sinicization of religion has also meant severe repression of Tibetan Buddhism and Islam.

Other influential underground Protestant churches harshly persecuted in recent years included Beijing Shouwang Church, which was shut down in 2019, and Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church. Its founding pastor, Wang Yi, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2019.

Earlier in 2025, courts sentenced over a dozen people affiliated with the Linfen Golden Lampstand Church, an underground Protestant church in Shanxi province, for fraud. The church’s cofounder and pastor, Wang Xiaoguang, and his wife, Yang Rongli, were sentenced to 9 and 15 years in prison, respectively.

The Zion Church issued a statement on October 12 calling for “the immediate cessation of all arrests, intimidation, and harassment against Zion Church and other house churches in China” and for “the unconditional release of all detained.”

Concerned governments should publicly condemn the Chinese government’s assault on religious freedom and pressure the Chinese government to free those affiliated with Zion Church and all other members of underground churches wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Chinese government’s crackdown on religious practice is tied to its efforts to tighten ideological control, both at home and abroad,” Uluyol said. “Governments should ensure the Chinese government is held accountable for such violations and press for religious freedom in China.”

Click to expand Image The European Commissioner for Democracy and Justice and the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael Mcgrath at the meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs in the European Parliament an institution of the European Union in Brussels in Belgium, January 29, 2025.  © 2025 Martin Bertrand/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Today the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted to adopt its position amending the European Union’s landmark corporate accountability law that will seriously curtail efforts to mitigate the impact of businesses on human rights and the environment.

The “Omnibus I” proposal severely undermines essential elements of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), adopted in July 2024, that requires companies to detect and address human rights and environmental harm throughout their supply chains.

The new limitations, proposed by Jurgen Warborn, a member of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), appointed by the Committee on Legal Affairs as lead negotiator on the file in its compromise text, narrow the scope of the law to apply only to companies with more than 5,000 employees and a turnover of at least €1,5 billion. This would reduce the number of companies covered by the law by over 72% and would exclude most large companies operating or based in the EU.

Warborn’s compromise text also eliminates the law’s requirement for the EU to develop an EU-wide civil liability regime, increasing the complexity for victims, companies, and judges alike as they face navigating potentially hundreds of divergent legal regimes.

Several other political groups in the European Parliament supported Warborn’s compromise text only after he threatened the EPP would vote with far right parties to further undermine the law. Civil society organizations, including SOMO and Human Rights Watch, have documented the role of industry associations and European and US fossil fuel companies in pushing for the Omnibus I proposal. In contrast, an October 2 poll by Ipsos found that EU citizens support holding large companies accountable for human rights and environmental harm across their global value chains. Dozens of companies and investors have also expressed support for strong corporate due diligence requirements.

Lawmakers should spare no effort in the next phase of the negotiation to strengthen the law and possibly reintroduce civil liability at the European level. Not doing so would rubberstamp a race to the bottom that would have real, global consequences.

(Beirut) – Qatari authorities have acquitted and released Remy Rowhani, chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in Qatar, after months of arbitrary detention based solely on his religious identity, Human Rights Watch said today. Qatar should immediately end discrimination against Baha’is and provide effective remedy for those affected.

Qatar’s court of appeal reversed Rowhani’s baseless conviction on September 30, 2025, court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch show. Rowhani was sentenced to five years in prison by a lower court in August on charges based on the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of speech and religion. Rowhani was released on October 4, an informed source told Human Rights Watch. However, the prosecutor can appeal the decision within 60 days.

“It is very good news that a Qatari court acquitted Remy Rowhani of all the baseless charges against him,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Qatari authorities should build on this positive development by ensuring that Baha’is no longer face religious discrimination by Qatari government institutions.”

The Baha’i faith, founded in 19th-century Iran by Baha’u’llah, believes in the unity of all religions and people. The Qatari government has a longstanding record of discriminating against Baha’is in Qatar, with hundreds harmed by deportations, blacklisting, and administrative restrictions for no apparent reason other than individuals’ belonging to the Baha’i faith.

Baha’is are also frequently discriminated against elsewhere in the region, including in Egypt and Yemen, and face persecution, a crime against humanity, by authorities in Iran.

Qatari authorities arrested and detained Rowhani in April on charges claiming that he violated public order and social and religious Muslim values in Instagram and X accounts linked to him, the court documents say. Human Rights Watch reviewed the accounts and found that the posts are limited to celebrating Baha’i values and Qatari and Muslim holidays.

The court denied Rowhani’s lawyer’s request to review the documents that outline the charges and evidence, and it did not allow him to defend his client during the first hearing, the informed source said.

Qatar’s deputy attorney general appealed the sentence on September 7 seeking a harsher sentence, according to the appeal document, despite calls by rights groups, United Nations experts, and international media to end Qatar’s discriminatory treatment of Baha’is and release Rowhani.

Human Rights Watch has documented Qatari discrimination against Baha’is, as have UN special rapporteurs on minority issues and freedom of religion or belief. Qatari authorities’ discriminatory treatment against Baha’is has resulted in the separation of families and the loss of employment and income, UN experts concluded.

The authorities have also delayed the community’s attempts to reestablish an existing Baha’i cemetery and refused to accept marriage certificates issued by elected Baha’i institutions in Qatar, according to UN experts.

“Rowhani’s release is a positive step, but Qatar needs to do more than release Rowhani to signal a genuine policy shift in its treatment of members of the Baha’i faith,” Page said.

 

Click to expand Image Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat Ras Jadir intercepts a wooden boat in the Mediterranean Sea, July 30, 2021. © 2021 David Lohmüller/Sea-Watch

(Milan, October 13, 2025) – Italy should revoke its damaging migrant cooperation agreement with Libya, Human Rights Watch said today. The Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding on migration cooperation will renew automatically for three years on November 2, 2025, if neither party revokes it or makes any revisions by that date.

The agreement, signed in 2017, includes significant material and technical support from Italy to the Libyan Coast Guard, which answers to one of the two rival authorities competing for legitimacy and control in Libya, the UN-recognized Government of National Unity (GNU). This assistance has enabled Libyan Coast Guard forces over the last eight years to intercept tens of thousands of people at sea and return them to Libya, where they face inhumane conditions of detention, a high risk of torture, and other ill treatment. Libyan Coast Guard forces also threaten and endanger nongovernmental rescue vessels trying to bring people to safety.

“The Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding has proven to be a framework for violence and suffering, and should be revoked, not renewed,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Italy needs to stop its complicity with the Libyan Coast Guard, who are implicated in the torture, exploitation, and degrading treatment of the people they interdict and bring back to Libya.”

Civil society organizations, including Refugees in Libya, a group of survivors of migrant-related violence in Libya, are mobilizing action against the Italy-Libya agreement and calling on the EU to suspend all migration cooperation with Libya.

Libyan migration officials from both the GNU and the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, the rival entity that controls eastern and southern Libya, were scheduled to visit Frontex headquarters in Warsaw and the European Commission in Brussels on October 14-16. EU officials should use any contact with Libyan officials to emphasize respect for human rights and call for accountability for abuses, Human Rights Watch said.

Despite overwhelming evidence of horrific detention conditions and abuse of migrants in Libya, the EU supports the Libyan forces’ efforts to detect boats and pull people back, including through aerial surveillance by the EU border agency Frontex over the central Mediterranean. The EU, like Italy, has supplied the Libyan Coast Guard with vessels and has spent hundreds of millions of euros on migration control in Libya since 2015.

On August 24, a Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat, donated by Italy, opened fire on the SOS MEDITERRANEE rescue ship Ocean Viking causing significant damage, while another patrol boat, also built in Italy, shot at a Sea-Watch rescue ship on September 26. The European Commission has insisted it will continue to support Libyan authorities, saying “to improve the situation, we need to remain engaged.”

People forced back to Libya experience serious abuses in migrant detention centers and prisons controlled by unaccountable armed groups and militias nominally linked with the authorities. The abuses include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and unlawful deaths, including as result of torture. Detainees also experience inhuman and degrading treatment and conditions including sexual violence, beatings, overcrowding, deprivation of food and water, forced labor, and denial of access or a right to legal counsel.

The United Nations has said there is evidence of collusion between state forces, including the Libyan Coast Guard forces, and trafficking and smuggling networks, and concluded that state security forces and armed militias have most likely committed the crimes against humanity of sexual slavery and rape against migrants in Libya.

“Continued support for abusive, unaccountable forces in Libya is indefensible,” Sunderland said. “The EU and all of its member states, including Italy, should stop financing and legitimizing violence against migrants and fundamentally reorient its Mediterranean policies to prioritize rescue at sea and safe and legal pathways for migration.”

Click to expand Image Reuters' journalist Issam Abdallah films an interview amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, April 17, 2022. © 2022 Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

(Beirut) – Lebanon’s announcement on October 9, 2025, that it has tasked the Justice Ministry with assessing the legal measures that may be taken following Israeli attacks on journalists during the last war offers a fresh opportunity to achieve justice for the victims, Human Rights Watch said today.

Two years since Israel’s apparently deliberate attack on journalists in south Lebanon, which killed a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah, victims of war crimes in Lebanon remain without effective access to accountability and justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Lebanon’s new government, appointed in February 2025, has yet to take meaningful steps to advance accountability.

“Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdullah should have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Since Issam’s killing, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes.”

Since then, Israeli forces have, according to Reporters Without Borders, killed over 200 journalists in Gaza, many deliberately. Recently, Israeli forces also carried out a strike on a media center in Sanaa and killed 31 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has documented a series of unlawful attacks and apparent war crimes committed by the Israeli military during hostilities, including additional apparently deliberate attacks on journalists, as well as peacekeepers, medics, and civilian objects. Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes, destruction of vast swaths of critical civilian infrastructure and public services, and its use of explosive weapons in populated areas have made it impossible for many residents to return to their villages and houses.

Human Rights Watch has also documented the Israeli military’s widespread use of white phosphorus, including unlawfully over populated residential areas, its apparent deliberate destruction and pillaging of schools, and unlawful use of booby trapped devices. Human Rights Watch also found that Hezbollah failed to take adequate precautions to protect civilians in its attacks on northern Israel between September and November 2024, launching explosive weapons in populated areas and failing to effectively warn civilians of attacks.

Human Rights Watch found that the Israeli strikes that killed Abdallah and injured six other journalists from Al-Jazeera, Reuters, and AFP were apparently a deliberate attack on civilians and therefore a war crime. An investigation by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) found that an Israeli tank fired two 120 mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists,” including Abdallah, in violation of international law. The investigators said that UNIFIL personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the Israeli Merkava tank opened fire.

The journalists were well removed from ongoing hostilities, clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes before they were hit by two consecutive strikes. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target near the journalists’ location. Evidence Human Rights Watch reviewed further indicated that the Israeli military knew or should have known that the group of people they were firing on were civilians.

In January and February 2025, the Israeli military withdrew from most of the southern Lebanese border villages and towns that it had occupied in late 2024, but its forces remained stationed on Lebanese territory in at least five locations. The hostilities resulted in nearly US$14 billion in economic losses in Lebanon, according to the World Bank, including $6.8 billion worth of damage to physical structures alone. Several border towns and villages were reduced to rubble, and more than 80,000 people remained displaced in Lebanon as of May 2025.

Lebanon has not fully incorporated international crimes or laws of war violations into its domestic legal framework. Following his visit to Lebanon, on October 10, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, called on the Lebanese authorities to “report and, where appropriate, prosecute conduct that may amount to international crimes, in accordance with Lebanon’s obligations under international human rights law and, where applicable, international humanitarian law.”

While a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and Hezbollah on November 27, 2024, at least 103 civilians in Lebanon have been killed in the ten months since the ceasefire went into effect, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In March 2024, the then-Lebanese government announced a decision to grant the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over crimes committed on Lebanese territory since October 7, 2023, but the government reversed the decision just over a month later. Lebanon’s judicial authorities should initiate domestic investigations into unlawful attacks, and the government should accede to the ICC’s Rome Statute and submit a declaration accepting the court’s jurisdiction prior to the date of accession, including since at least October 7, 2023, Human Rights Watch said.

“Lebanon’s government can and should honor victims’ demands for justice by enabling the investigation of unlawful attacks and war crimes that caused untold damage and suffering,” Kaiss said.