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Click to expand Image A vote in progress in the House of Representatives at Parliament House on January 20, 2026, in Canberra, Australia. © 2026 Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

This week, Australia passed new laws that expand government authority to ban hate groups and impose tougher penalties for hate crimes. The legislation is part of the government’s response to Sydney’s Bondi Beach mass shooting in December when two gunmen killed 15 people at celebrations for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

States are obligated under international human rights law to protect people from racial discrimination and violence, and hate crime laws can further that goal. However, such laws need to be appropriately enforced to protect the rights of all groups and minimize the risks posed to other fundamental rights, including freedom of association and speech. 

The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill allows the home affairs minister to designate and ban “hate groups” and introduces criminal sentences of up to 7 years in prison for members and 15 years for their directors, recruiters, or financial funders. 

The minister may designate a group if they believe it has threatened people due to their race, nationality, or ethnicity, or has publicly supported such action. Groups could be banned without the opportunity to respond to allegations or challenge evidence against them, because the laws state procedural fairness is not required.

The legislation also broadly empowers the home affairs minister to deny or revoke visas based upon hate speech or association with extremist groups, as well as hate crimes. The law opens the door to banning groups without clear evidence of incitement to violence and could have a chilling effect on free speech. Australia should not join the ranks of governments that have increasingly targeted peaceful civic groups as “undesirable” or “terrorist entities.” 

The scope of protection is also limited. The laws target hate crimes based on race, nationality, or ethnic origin but do not extend protections to victims for reason of religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, or disability. 

While the new legislation will be reviewed in two years, the authorities should strictly monitor the laws’ human rights impacts starting day one.

The laws’ risks highlight Australia’s need for a human rights act. A national charter of rights would protect individuals’ rights by requiring public officials to assess the human rights impacts of bills before they’re introduced. 

Click to expand Image A supporter lights candles in commemoration of HIV/AIDS victims in the Philippines at a ceremony in Quezon City, Metro Manila, May 14, 2016. © 2016 Reuters

(New York) – Major donor nations dealt a devastating blow to the right to health for millions of people worldwide when they cut support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Human Rights Watch said today. Only US$11.85 billion has so far been pledged for 2026-2028 of an urgently needed US$18 billion. All but one of the 10 leading donors reduced their pledges.

“People will die because of donor nations’ decisions to cut pledges to the Global Fund,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Donor nations should immediately step up and close this funding gap.”

The Global Fund provides nearly two thirds of all international financing for tuberculosis programs, more than half for malaria programs, and more than a quarter for HIV programs. Since it began in 2002, the Global Fund estimated it has saved 70 million lives. In 2024 alone, the Global Fund said it treated 25.6 million people with HIV and another 7.4 million with tuberculosis.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 47 nongovernmental organization workers, health care outreach workers, and aid recipients affected by recent cuts to global health financing in Indonesia, Laos, and Nepal, focusing specifically on HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Human Rights Watch found that global health funding cuts in 2025 have already had a dire impact, especially for marginalized groups that face systemic discrimination and barriers to health care, including men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, and people who use drugs.

Those populations that are at greatest risk of HIV/AIDS transmission and illness are also often those systematically discriminated against by their governments and for whom community-based programs supported by the Global Fund and other international global health mechanisms are a sole lifeline to accessing HIV/AIDS testing, prevention, and care. HIV education, counseling, testing, support, and medication distribution by community-based organizations is a proven evidence-based approach to protecting the health of these groups.

By following the US in divestments from global health, donors are creating a cascading collapse in global health infrastructure that threatens millions of lives dependent on both bilateral assistance and multilateral funding, especially for communities facing barriers to health created by their own governments, Human Rights Watch said.

At the Fund’s Replenishment Summit on November 21, 2025, in Johannesburg, France and the European Commission made no concrete financial commitments, though they had been major donors. As of writing, France and the EU have yet to make any public commitments. Human Rights Watch wrote to the European Commission, French President Emmanual Macron, and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson raising concerns, but has received no reply from France or the EU.

Sweden committed after the summit but significantly cut funding by $200 million from its previous funding cycle. The Government replied to Human Rights Watch that it is still committed to the Global Fund and confirmed a smaller commitment of $74.2million (683 million SEK) for 2026. The United States reduced its pledge to $4.6 billion from $6 billion. Japan decreased their pledge by more than half, Germany by more than a quarter and the Netherlands by almost a fifth. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy also cut back their pledges. Of the most recent top 10 donors, only Norway increased its pledge from $193.18 million to $195.7 million.

Donors’ retreat from the Global Fund is particularly alarming in light of the United States’ massive and abrupt cuts to bilateral health aid in 2025. The human impact of these cuts are profound, with estimates of more than 740,000 people having died because of the US aid cuts to date.

Major donors to global health should increase support for multilateral efforts to promote the right to health, rather than follow the United States’ retreat, Human Rights Watch said. Notably, India increased its pledge by 20 percent, Côte d'Ivoire by 30 percent, and South Africa by more than 100 percent.

International aid to support community-based non-governmental programming is critical to carrying out a rights-based approach to health care that addresses stigma and discrimination faced by many marginalized populations. “Just leaving the house as a trans person is scary,” Aika, an HIV positive transgender outreach worker in Indonesia. “Without an outreach worker, the person will be alone, and they won’t get care.”

Nongovernmental organization and health care outreach workers who serve these populations said that the reductions in Global Fund resources would mean that these communities will simply lose access to life-saving care with no alternative source of support. “If the Global Fund stops, new cases will skyrocket,” the director of a group in Indonesia said. Interviewees also said that a reduction in resources will affect monitoring, thus hiding the impact of the funding reductions.

“We are witnessing a coordinated abandonment of the world’s most vulnerable populations that will reverse decades of progress against HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria,” Bleckner said. “Donors should invest in the Global Fund before millions of people die preventable deaths.”

Click to expand Image A 16-year-old boy collects water from a spring near Lega Dembi gold mine in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.  © 2020 Tom Gardner

People living near Lega Dembi gold mine in Ethiopia’s Oromia region have for years complained about serious health impacts, including children born with long-term health conditions, miscarriages, and stillbirths. Several studies have found high concentrations of toxic chemicals, including cadmium, mercury, lead, and arsenic, in the country’s largest gold mine. 

Next week, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child will meet to assess the situation of children’s rights in Ethiopia, including the health rights of children living near Lega Dembi mine. 

From 2018 to 2021, the Ethiopian government suspended Lega Dembi following protests over the mine’s pollution and promised to reopen it only after mine officials addressed environmental concerns. 

But instead, Human Rights Watch found that the Ethiopian government obfuscated the problem. It quashed publication of a government health study, reopened the mine without public announcement, and kept a memorandum of understanding between the government and Midroc Investment Group, the company operating the mine, confidential. Midroc told Human Rights Watch in 2023 and 2025 that the environmental concerns had been addressed through compensation to victims and improved toxic cyanide management, and that all contaminant levels of mine waste were below thresholds set by the World Health Organization. 

The Ethiopian government has a duty to protect children’s rights under international law. Businesses also have a responsibility to ensure they are not contributing to harmful human rights impacts. 

Human Rights Watch and Kontomaa Darimu Alliance, in partnership with a human rights center at Northwestern University in the United States, have submitted concerns and recommendations to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.  

When the committee meets, it should urge the Ethiopian government to suspend mine operations in the interest of protecting child health, allow an independent environmental health assessment to recommend steps before the mine resumes, and ensure victims of abuse are provided effective remedy, including compensation, medical care, and access to justice.  

The Committee should seize this opportunity to bring real change to the lives of children and their families living near Lega Dembi.

Click to expand Image The grandchildren of Patrice Emery Lumumba during a session of the Brussels council chamber, in the case concerning the 1961 murder of Lumumba the first elected Prime Minister of the DRC Congo, January 20, 2026. © 2026 by Benoit Doppagne/Belga/Sipa USA via AP Photo

On January 20, a Belgian court held a closed-door hearing to determine whether to pursue a criminal case against the last living former Belgian official for his alleged involvement in the 1961 assassination of the first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Émery Lumumba, following the country’s independence from Belgian colonial rule.

The historic case was brought by Lumumba’s family, whose perseverance could now lead to the first instance of a European court pursuing individual criminal responsibility for a crime linked to European colonial rule. Former European colonial powers considered Lumumba a threat to their political and economic interests, as he symbolized African self-determination and decolonization.

During a press conference following this week’s hearing, Lumumba’s family described the case as a step toward “justice and truth.” A decision is expected on March 17.

The importance of the case cannot be overstated as former European colonial powers remain unwilling to take legal responsibility for their colonial crimes and abuses. Instead democratic leaders should be genuinely reckoning with historical injustices and taking action consistent with international human rights law and norms on justice, dignity, and accountability. 

Governments should build on the momentum for reparations seen in 2025 at the United Nations, African Union (AU), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and at national levels to address enduring global systemic racial and economic injustices rooted in legacies of colonialism, enslavement, and the slave trade. 

Last year, governments at the UN committed to a Second International Decade for People of African Descent. Meanwhile, the AU dedicated the year to reparatory justice, later extending it to a decade. The AU also joined reparatory efforts with CARICOM.

International human rights law and standards create obligations for states to provide effective remedies and reparations for gross rights violations, many of which occurred during colonization. But political unwillingness continues to denyaffected communities justice.

Without addressing historical injustices, cycles of inequality, exclusion, and violence will persist. Reparations are therefore not symbolic but a legal obligation and a necessary foundation for a just and equitable future.

Click to expand Image US President Donald Trump speaks at the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly, at the UN headquarters in New York City, on September 23, 2025. © 2025 Laura Brett/Sipa USA via AP Photo

Last weekend the United Nations celebrated the 80th anniversary of the General Assembly’s first meeting. The commemoration comes as the world organization established to prevent a repeat of the crimes against humanity and genocide that took place during World War II is under unprecedented attack.

The United States played a leading role in establishing the UN. Now, US President Donald Trump is undermining and defunding large parts of it.

For the past year, the US government has taken a sledgehammer to UN programs and agencies because the Trump administration believes the institution is “anti-American” and has a “hostile agenda.” In UN negotiations, US officials have tried to purge words like “gender,” “climate,” and “diversity” from resolutions and statements. Diplomats have described to Human Rights Watch how US officials aggressively oppose human rights language they see as “woke” or politically correct.

In an apparent attempt to sideline the UN Security Council, Trump has proposed a so-called Board of Peace that he personally would preside over. Trump has reportedly offered seats on his board to leaders of abusive governments, including Belarus, China, Hungary, Israel, Russia, and Vietnam.

Originally the Board of Peace was meant to oversee the administration of Gaza following over two years of onslaught and destruction by Israeli forces, with which the United States was complicit. But the board’s charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, suggesting that Trump’s ambitions for this body have expanded enormously since first conceived.

The board’s proposed charter doesn’t mention human rights. And it makes clear that Trump, as board chairman, would have supreme authority “to adopt resolutions or other directives” as he sees fit.

A seat on the Board of Peace doesn’t come cheap: there’s a US$1 billion membership fee. Some, like French President Emmanuel Macron, already turned down an offer to join. Trump responded with a threat to significantly increase tariffs on French wine and champagne.

The UN system has its problems, but it’s better than a global Politburo. Rather than paying billions to join Trump’s board, governments should focus on strengthening the UN’s ability to uphold human rights.

Click to expand Image Malian tanker trucks drive at the entrance of Boundiali, northern Côte d'Ivoire, on the way to Yamoussoukro and Abidjan to load oil, October 30, 2025. © 2025 Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images

Truck drivers in Niger now face a stark choice: risk your life or lose your livelihood.

On January 6, Niger’s transport minister issued a decree punishing at least 34 fuel transport operators and long-haul truck drivers who refused to deliver fuel to neighboring Mali. Since September 2025, an Al Qaeda-linked armed group, known as Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), has laid siege to Mali’s capital, Bamako, and cut off fuel supplies. Sanctions include revoking both the fuel transport rights of several operators as well as the drivers’ licenses. The minister cited “serious violation of legal and regulatory obligations” as reasons behind the decree.

The dangers facing drivers on the Niger-Mali corridor and in central Sahel are well documented. JNIM has repeatedly carried out targeted attacks on commercial transport, kidnapping and killing drivers. Between September and December 2025, JNIM has attacked several convoys carrying fuel supplies to Mali from neighboring Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal.

Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are members of the Alliance of Sahel States, a mutual defense pact formed by the three military juntas in 2023 in response to escalating violence by Islamist armed groups. It’s within this framework that in November 2025, Niger delivered 82 fuel tankers under military escort to Mali, helping to stabilize fuel availability in the country. The Nigerien authorities are now using the security pact to justify the punitive conditions on transport operators.

The measures raise concerns about violations of international human rights law, including the rights to work and protection from coercion. Nigerien authorities have chosen license revocations over risk mitigation or protective measures, effectively pressuring people to undertake highly dangerous work in violation of their right to freely choose one’s employment.

Protection from being coerced into work is also well established in the 1930 Forced Labour Convention.

Given the armed conflict in Mali, putting pressure on civilians to transport goods used for military purposes into a combat zone could violate Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prohibits compelling participation in hostilities.

Sanctions imposed without sound risk assessments, due process, or effective remedies raise concerns of arbitrariness. When transport operators are left with the choice between losing their livelihoods or risking their lives, the state is failing to meet its obligation to protect them.

Niger’s authorities should lift the sanctions and ensure that any fuel deliveries rely on voluntary participation and are supported by adequate protections.

Click to expand Image M23 forces patrol the streets of Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo, on December 13, 2025. © 2025 Jospin Mwisha / AFP via Getty Images

(Kinshasa) – The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group’s sudden withdrawal from the city of Uvira in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on January 17, 2026, has put civilians at grave risk from abusive Wazalendo militias, Human Rights Watch said today.

After the M23 and Rwandan forces captured Uvira on December 10, M23 forces threatened, harassed, and assaulted people in the city. Fears that the Banyamulenge, Congolese Tutsi from South Kivu province, would be targeted after the M23’s withdrawal led many families to leave the city together with the armed group, though an unknown number remain. Late on January 18, the Congolese army deployed in the city, the second largest in South Kivu. The Wazalendo, loosely organized militias that receive Congolese army support, have a history of committing abuses against people in areas under their control.

“The mere presence of Congolese forces won’t be enough to protect civilians from the Wazalendo if they continue to assist or tolerate the abusive militias,” said Clémentine de Montjoye, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Congolese authorities should act quickly to restore security and ensure the protection of all civilians, including the Banyamulenge.”

Human Rights Watch documented widespread looting, following the M23’s withdrawal, of homes, shops, churches, and public buildings, including those belonging to the Banyamulenge, through witness accounts and verified photographs and videos. Human Rights Watch geolocated videos showing unidentified people in civilian clothes looting the city courthouse, a Methodist church used by the Banyamulenge community, a restaurant, a government office building, and the city’s port of Kalundu. Sources in Uvira reported scores of people injured, and Human Rights Watch is investigating reports of killings of civilians since the M23 withdrew from the city. “We are worried about our security,” said an Uvira resident, who had earlier been threatened by the M23. “Now, there are cases of soldiers or Wazalendo going around asking for people’s phones and shooting at them.”

Human Rights Watch reviewed credible information that Wazalendo militias prevented people from fleeing towards the Hauts Plateaux—highlands covering parts of Fizi, Mwenga, and Uvira territories in South Kivu—raising concerns about safe passage for civilians after the M23’s withdrawal. These concerns were heightened by the continued closure of the border with Burundi.

During the M23’s control of Uvira since December, its fighters have threatened and harassed people deemed to oppose them. Local civil society sources and residents reported multiple cases of killings, enforced disappearances, and forced recruitment by the M23 in the month they controlled the city. Throughout 2025, Congolese soldiers and Wazalendo fighters summarily executed and committed sexual violence against civilians in South Kivu. Wazalendo fighters also harassed, threatened, abducted, and restricted access to basic services for the Banyamulenge when they controlled Uvira in 2025.

The M23 and Rwandan officials have repeatedly invoked the safety of the Banyamulenge to justify their actions in South Kivu. They have also threatened members of the Banyamulenge community who do not align with them, two community leaders said.

On January 17, Banyamulenge community leaders in Uvira held a meeting and said that they had received instructions from the M23 that Banyamulenge people should leave with them or face reprisal attacks by Wazalendo groups, two community leaders and a community member said. Two Banyamulenge among those who left with M23 said a group remained in Kamanyola, a town under M23 control, and it is unclear where they would go next. Congolese Defense Minister Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch on January 20, said that “the Banyamulenge should not be forcibly displaced or deported, and should feel free to return to Uvira if they wish to do so.”

On January 19, the Congolese government announced a “progressive restoration of state authority” in Uvira, including “security, justice and humanitarian measures.” President Félix Tshisekedi and other Congolese authorities should publicly call for the protection of the Banyamulenge and other civilians in Uvira and urge Wazalendo leaders to leave the city and prevent further abuses by Wazalendo militias. Congolese authorities and donors should ensure that adequate financial assistance promptly reaches those affected by the looting and destruction of property.

While the Congolese government has repeatedly stated that Wazalendo groups assist national efforts to resist Rwandan forces and the M23, their actions in Uvira and elsewhere in North and South Kivu highlight the grave dangers posed by militias operating without effective command, discipline, or accountability. The government should ensure adequately vetted and trained security forces are deployed to restore security and protect the population. Civilian and military justice officials should undertake prompt, impartial investigations and fair prosecutions of those responsible for criminal offenses.

In a January 15 statement, the M23 and its political-military coalition, the Alliance Fleuve Congo, stated that they were ready to hand over Uvira to “the International Community” and asked the United Nations secretary-general to deploy a “neutral force.” The UN peacekeeping force in Congo, MONUSCO, completely disengaged from the province on June 30, 2024, but a December 2025 UN Security Council resolution allows for it to resume some level of “ceasefire monitoring and verification” in South Kivu upon determination by the mission and formal notification of the council.

MONUSCO should rapidly deploy human rights and civilian protection experts to Uvira and work with authorities to carry out a risk assessment and vetting of Congolese army units present on the ground, Human Rights Watch said.

The European Union, African Union, and United States should increase humanitarian assistance and press the governments of Burundi, Congo, and Rwanda to prioritize protecting civilians, ensure access by humanitarian agencies, and provide safe passage for civilians seeking to flee the conflict. The US, United Kingdom, the EU, and the UN Security Council should urgently adopt new targeted sanctions against Congolese and Rwandan officials responsible for, or complicit in, violations of international law.

“The M23’s attempt to portray their control of Uvira as the only way to ensure the safety of the Banyamulenge community appears to have exposed civilians to further violence and abuse,” de Montjoye said. “Congolese authorities should deploy well-trained, vetted security forces, disarm and remove abusive militia, and apprehend those found responsible for crimes against civilians.”

On January 19, a court in Makhachkala, the capital city of Russia’s Dagestan region, sentenced women’s rights defender and journalist Svetlana Anokhina to five years in prison for allegedly spreading “fake news” about the Russian armed forces.

Click to expand Image Svetlana Anokhina, personal archive, Dagestan, Russia, 2016. © 2016 Private

The sentence was handed down in absentia: Anokhina left Russia in 2021 after a shelter her organization Marem ran for abused women and girls in Makhachkala was ransacked by Chechen and Dagestani police. The charges against Anokhina stemmed from two posts about Russian war crimes that she published on Instagram in 2022, just weeks into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

For many years, Anokhina was one of my key contacts in Dagestan, a turbulent region in southern Russia infamous for blatant and systematic human abuses by law enforcement and security agencies. A slight woman with her nonconformist clothes and clunky jewelry, she has no patience for religious or traditional biases. She devoted her life to supporting abused women and girls and stood up for their freedom to make their own choices: about what to wear, whom to love, and how to live their lives. 

When Anokhina left Russia, she viewed her departure as a temporary breather after the abusive raid on Marem. However, about six months later, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, and she—an outspoken critic of the war—could no longer return to her home country. The criminal proceedings against her, which resulted in this draconian prison sentence, were launched in 2023, leaving her with no option but long-term exile.

Even from abroad, nevertheless, Anokhina continued her work: providing essential support to and organizing “rescues” of girls and women from acute danger, helping them access safe houses and build new lives from scratch. In 2024, the BBC included her in its 100 Women list, which features some of the most inspiring and influential women worldwide, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad.

When I called Anokhina to commiserate about the politically motivated court ruling, she said it made her “feel sick and disgusted,” but that it would not break her resolve to carry on her work. I hope that one day Anokhina, and many other exiled activists and journalists, will be able to return to a Russia where human rights and fundamental freedoms are valued. 

Click to expand Image President Yowerei Museveni speaks during a news conference in Entebbe, Uganda, July 26, 2022.  © 2022 Hajarah Nalwadda/AP Photo

Uganda’s electoral commission has declared President Yoweri Museveni as the winner of the January 15 elections, securing his seventh term in office with 71 percent of the vote. 

The weeks leading up to the elections were marred by rights abuses. Security officers reportedly beat and arrested hundreds of people during opposition rallies, indiscriminately fired teargas, and kicked and slapped journalists trying to cover the events. 

On November 28, 2025, security officers allegedly shot and killed Mesach Okello, an opposition supporter, in Iganga in Eastern Uganda. The police claimed they were responding to “stone throwing” and “hooliganism.” On December 8, Presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, claims soldiers beat him and his supporters with sticks during a rally in the northern city of Gulu.

In the weeks immediately leading up to the elections, the government ramped up the repression again.

On December 30, Sarah Bireete, a prominent human rights activist was arrested, and on January 12, the government ordered at least 10 nongovernmental organizations to cease their operations indefinitely on vague and unsubstantiated grounds. The exact number of groups that were suspended is unclear. 

The government also ordered a blanket internet shutdown two days before the election, severely restricting access to critical information about the elections for Ugandans. Five days later, although internet access was partially restored by the government, access to messaging and social media applications, such as WhatsApp and X, was still being restricted.

Following the election result, Kyagulanyi posted on X that security officials had surrounded his home on the outskirts of Kampala, switched off electricity and CCTV cameras, and were blocking access to and from the premises. Despite the restrictions, Kyagulanyi was able to escape and is currently hiding in an undisclosed location. His colleagues were not so lucky. His party, the National Unity Platform, reported that two of its senior members were abducted by security forces and remain missing.

Uganda is obligated to promote and protect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and access to information for all, regardless of their political affiliation. The international community should press Museveni’s government to ensure that the human rights violations end, that abuses associated with the elections are promptly investigated, and that those responsible are held to account.

(Johannesburg) – Mozambique authorities need to urgently and impartially investigate the killing of three dozen artisanal gold and gemstone miners during clashes with the police on December 29, 2025, in Nampula province, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities need to hold all those responsible to account and ensure justice for victims and their families.

Local civil society organizations said that the police killed at least 38 people during clashes in the Marraca mining area in Iuluti, Mogovolas district. Iuluti Community Radio reported that the victims’ relatives notified them of at least 13 deaths. Police authorities have officially acknowledged 7 deaths, including one police officer.

“The available evidence indicates that Mozambique police used unnecessary and excessive lethal force, resulting in deaths and injuries to an as-yet unconfirmed number of people,” said Sheila Nhancale, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It is essential for the authorities to fully and impartially investigate these deaths and prosecute those responsible to restore community trust.”

Tensions in the Marraca mining area are part of a broader pattern of recurring disputes over mineral extraction in Mogovolas district, Human Rights Watch said. Local communities and artisanal or small-scale miners have operated for years in areas for which the government had given private companies concessions, without the establishment of effective mediation mechanisms, economic alternatives, or transparent resettlement processes.

The police reported that the clashes began when members of the Naparamas, a local militia group, and supporters of the opposition party National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (Aliança Nacional para um Moçambique Livre e Autónomo, ANAMOLA), led by Venâncio Mondlane, attacked a camp of the Police for the Protection of Natural Resources and the Environment. Police said the attackers wore masks and red headbands and carried bladed weapons. They said they arrested five suspects during operations to restore public order.

Civil society organizations and witnesses dispute this account, saying that most of those killed were artisanal miners and others with no political affiliation. Gamito Carlos, director of the Nampula-based organization Kóxukhoro, told Human Rights Watch that none of the victims had party membership cards. The artisanal miners have not disputed that they were carrying bladed weapons, which are used for extraction at the mining site.

Three local journalists said that informal arrangements existed between some police officers and artisanal miners, who paid between 50 and 100 meticais (US$0.80 to US$1.60) to mine at the site. Witnesses said that when a group of police officers, allegedly unaware of these arrangements, attempted to forcibly disperse the miners, the situation escalated rapidly, and clashes broke out.

A local journalist said that miners told him that police officers fired indiscriminately at people during the clashes.

A local resident said her 18-year-old brother, an artisanal miner, was killed during the clashes that day. “My brother left early to work at the mine and said he needed money for the end-of-year holidays,” she said. “He never came back. The next day we learned he had been killed. Many of his friends also didn’t survive.” Fighting back tears, she said: “He was the family’s provider. Now we don’t know how we will go on.”

Another resident said her husband, 41, was injured during the clashes and disappeared after seeking medical treatment in the city of Nampula. “We don’t know where he is,” she said. “When we call his phone, no one answers. We hear rumors that he may be detained or even dead.” The family reported searching for him at several police stations without receiving any information from the authorities.

A 35-year-old local resident said that he saw at least three bodies of artisanal miners killed by gunfire, several people with serious injuries, and reported the disappearance of a relative who went to the mining site and did not return. “There were adults, children, and women there,” he said. “Everyone went through moments of terror that still traumatize the community today. We ask the government to find solutions to regulate mining without violence.”

Previous incidents in Mogovolas reflect ongoing tensions between the authorities and artisanal miners. In May 2025, about 300 artisanal miners entered a mining area in Iuluti, triggering violence, arrests, and reports of deaths following the prohibition of artisanal mining in areas for which private companies had concessions.

The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials require law enforcement officials to apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force, to use force only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, and to use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. The principles also provide that governments need to ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offense under domestic law.

“Mozambique’s partners need to press the government to ensure a credible and transparent investigation of this dire incident, provide accountability and reparations for the abuses,” Nhancale said. “The government also needs to take measures so that such atrocities never happen again.”

 

Click to expand Image A police anti-riot unit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 30, 2024. © 2024 Thilina Kaluthotage/NurPhoto via AP Photo

(Bangkok) – The Sri Lanka government’s proposed counterterrorism legislation includes numerous provisions similar to the current abusive law and risks facilitating the same kind of repression, Human Rights Watch said today. The bill does not meet benchmarks set out by the United Nations counterterrorism expert or comply with human rights obligations and commitments that Sri Lanka made to the European Union to benefit from trade arrangements under the Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP+.

The Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA), published by the Ministry of Justice in December 2025, would replace the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which has facilitated extensive violations including arbitrary detention and torture since it was introduced in 1979. In 2017, Sri Lanka committed to replace the PTA with human rights-respecting legislation as a condition for the EU to reinstate GSP+, but successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to comply. In his party’s 2024 election manifesto, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake campaigned for the “[a]bolition of all oppressive acts including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and ensuring civil rights of people in all parts of the country.” The proposed law falls short of meeting that pledge.

“Ridding Sri Lanka of its abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act is long overdue, but this proposed law includes numerous provisions that would allow the authorities to commit the same abuses,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should impose an immediate moratorium on the existing law, and prepare rights-respecting legislation through inclusive public consultations.”

Besides provisions similar to the PTA, the draft law includes measures that previous governments proposed in 2018 and 2023 that were dropped following criticism of their rights implications. The Dissanayake government called for public input from experts and civil society, but did not incorporate their previous recommendations.

Sri Lanka has a long history of using counterterrorism legislation to commit rights violations especially against Tamils, Muslims, and perceived government opponents, including human rights defenders. Those abuses have continued under the current government. In separate 2025 cases, the authorities detained for months two young Muslim men who had criticized Israel, under the PTA before releasing them without charge. The government informed the UN that 49 arrests were made under the PTA in the first five months of 2025, compared with 38 in all of 2024. In many instances, the law was used to combat organized crime, not terrorism.

The Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner found that the police Terrorism Investigation Division repeatedly summoned human rights defenders and questioned them about alleged participation in events and demonstrations. In August 2025, police investigated a journalist for terrorism after he reported on the excavation of a mass grave containing remains of people allegedly executed by security forces during the 1983-2009 war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Particularly in the north and east, police conduct baseless “terrorism” investigations into members of civil society in an apparent attempt to intimidate them, and obstruct funding to civil society organizations.

UN human rights experts have found that Sri Lanka’s counterterrorism law contravenes international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

In 2021, the UN independent expert on human rights and counterterrorism and others set out five “necessary prerequisites” to ensure that Sri Lanka’s counterterrorism law complies with international rights standards. They include providing an appropriate definition of terrorism, ensuring precision and legal certainty, including provisions to prevent arbitrary detention, measures that adhere to the absolute prohibition on torture, and providing due process and fair trial guarantees including judicial oversight. However, the latest proposed counterterrorism law does not fully meet any of these standards, Human Rights Watch said.

The bill includes a broad and vague definition of terrorism, which includes crimes that do not constitute terrorism, and could be construed as prohibiting political activism. These include “intimidating the public or any section of the public” or “compelling the Government of Sri Lanka … to do or to abstain from doing any act.” The consequences of an act of terrorism are defined as including death, “hurt,” or hostage taking, but also “serious damage” to property, “robbery, extortion or theft.”

These broad definitions extend to curtailments on speech that are incompatible with international human rights law. The bill criminalizes anyone who publishes or distributes written or visual material “with the intention of directly or indirectly encouraging or inducing the public or any section of the public, to commit, attempt, abet, conspire to commit or prepare to commit, the offence of terrorism.” Due to the vagueness of the law’s definitions, it would be difficult or impossible for Sri Lankans to know what may be deemed a “terrorist publication.”

Like the PTA, the proposed law includes extraordinary powers of arrest and arbitrary detention. A suspect could be remanded (held) without charge by a magistrate for up to one year. In addition, the police could obtain a detention order from the secretary of defence, under which the accused can be held for up to a year and a magistrate would have no power to release them, even if they believe their detention is unjustified. The total period of remand and detention without charge can therefore be up to two years.

The bill empowers members of the armed forces to stop, search, and arrest suspects, and to enter premises and seize documents or other objects without a warrant if they have “reasonable suspicion” of a terrorist offense. The Sri Lankan military has a long record of torture and other ill-treatment and is not trained in law enforcement.

Several sections of the bill purport to offer safeguards against torture, including through checks on a suspect’s welfare by a magistrate and medical officer, and visits to detention sites. However, similar existing provisions are not consistently implemented, including due to a lack of capacity. Security forces have ignored the current requirement to notify the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka of all PTA detentions.

Provisions empowering the attorney general to defer or suspend prosecution if the suspect fulfills conditions that can include accepting guilt and submitting to “rehabilitation” are of particular concern. This could enable to authorities to coerce confessions, while custodial “rehabilitation” programs may amount to punishment without trial. In the past, so-called rehabilitation programs for alleged terrorists and drug users in Sri Lanka have been associated with torture.

The bill grants the president sweeping powers to proscribe organizations and declare curfews, while the secretary of defence can designate anywhere a “prohibited place” where taking a photograph or video is punishable by three years in prison. The police may apply to a magistrate for an order restricting an individual’s movement and activities. These powers have fewer safeguards than in legislation that was proposed in 2023.

“The proposed law shows that Sri Lankan authorities still cling to the idea that counterterrorism legislation can be used to create sweeping and repressive powers that have little to do with combatting terrorism,” Ganguly said. “The EU and other international partners should urge President Dissanayake to stick to his commitments to abolish the PTA instead of repackaging its disastrous provisions in a new law.”

Click to expand Image Top row: Lok Bahadur Ghaley; Rinzin Wangdi; Chandra Raj Rai; Kumar Gautam. Bottom row: San Man Gurung; Birkha Bdr Chhetri; Omnath Adhikari; Chaturman Tamang.   © Private

The recent death of Sha Bahadur Gurung, one of Bhutan’s longest serving political prisoners, is a tragic reminder of the injustice and needless suffering endured by alleged government critics in Bhutan’s grim prisons. 

Gurung, 65, was arrested in 1990 while he was a member of the Royal Bhutan Army and accused of attending protests demanding rights for his minority Nepali-speaking community. He was allegedly tortured, denied proper legal counsel, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He spent the last 35 years of his life in the notoriously harsh Rabuna military prison.

Gurung died on December 15, reportedly while undergoing treatment for an eye condition. The Bhutanese government should fully account for the circumstances of his death, his treatment in prison, and the justification for his prolonged incarceration. That’s unlikely to happen. Despite promoting itself as the inventor of “Gross National Happiness,” Bhutan’s secretive government refuses to even discuss its political prisoners.

There are currently 30 known political prisoners in the country. Seven of them, like Gurung, were soldiers from the Nepali-speaking community and were arrested around 1990 for allegedly supporting protests. They have been locked up in Rabuna ever since. Another 21 are being in held in Chemgang prison near the capital, Thimphu, in a special wing reserved for “anti-nationals.” Most of these prisoners are serving life sentences and some have been detained for decades.. 

The prisoners are being kept in dire conditions, with scant rations and insufficient clothes or bedding for Bhutan’s cold winters. Human Rights Watch was told that all of the prisoners are in poor health and several are severely ill. Simple medicines, such as paracetamol, are only provided to those who can pay for it.

Under Bhutanese law, only King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck can commute life sentences and free these men. His office has told political prisoners’ families not to bother applying for clemency. He should reconsider, show compassion, and end this unjust suffering.

Click to expand Image Internally displaced people fetch water inside a camp in the outskirts of Juba, South Sudan, February 13, 2025. © 2025 Brian Inganga/AP Photo

The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council should use its January 19 ambassadorial-level meeting to address the urgent protection needs and escalating abuses in South Sudan. 

The meeting follows a visit by the AU High-Level Ad Hoc Committee on South Sudan, during which they assessed the 2018 peace agreement’s implementation, which has been undermined by, amongst others, President Salva Kiir’s party’s unilateral amendments. 

Over the past year, the AU has increased diplomatic engagement—including deploying the Panel of the Wise and conducting field visits—but without concrete actions, the human rights and humanitarian situation in South Sudan has continued to deteriorate. 

Violations of international humanitarian law that have taken place during fighting in Upper Nile, Jonglei, Central Equatoria, and Western Equatoria states since early 2025 between government-allied forces and armed opposition groups and allied militias include killings of civilians, forced recruitment, sexual violence, and attacks on civilian infrastructure. Government aerial attacks have continued to target areas densely populated by civilians. On December 3, after the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO) and White Army attacked government positions in Jonglei, government forces bombarded a secondary school in Nyirol as students sat for exams, injuring one person. On December 29, airstrikes in Lankien struck near a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) health facility, a market, and an airstrip, injuring at least 12 civilians, one of whom died.  

Government authorities have also conducted forced recruitment of children and adults and other abuses under the guise of a crackdown against crime in Juba. Repression has increased with arbitrary arrests of political opponents, journalists, and activists. Entrenched impunity and the political accommodation of perpetrators have fueled recurring cycles of abuses. 

The AU Peace and Security Council should press all parties to end attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure immediately, halt the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, and ensure unimpeded humanitarian access to populations in need.

It should sanction commanders and officials responsible for serious abuses and for obstructing humanitarian operations, reconsider its previous position on lifting the UN arms embargo and sanctions, and publicly commit to a clear timeline for establishing a hybrid court without further delay.

By using its leverage and tools at its disposal, the Peace and Security Council can help prevent further abuses against civilians in South Sudan and demonstrate that it does not turn a blind eye to grave violations.

Click to expand Image Fires are lit as protesters demonstrate in Tehran, Iran, on January 8, 2026. © 2026 Anonymous via Getty Images Iran’s security forces have carried out mass killings of protesters after nationwide protests escalated on January 8, 2026.The mass killings by Iranian security forces are a stark reminder that rulers who massacre their own people will keep committing atrocities until they are held to account.UN member states should urgently convene a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to put human rights and accountability in Iran front and center of the international response.

(Beirut, January 16, 2026) – Iran’s security forces have carried out mass killings of protesters after nationwide protests escalated on January 8, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today. Thousands of protesters and bystanders are believed to have been killed, while the government’s severe restrictions on communications have concealed the true scale of atrocities. 

Security forces scaled up their deadly crackdown in a coordinated manner after January 8, resulting in large-scale killings and injuries of protesters and bystanders across the country. Human Rights Watch reviewed evidence that many protesters were killed or injured by gunshot wounds to their heads and torsos. Iranian officials cited in media outlets have admitted that the number of deaths has reached the thousands. 

“The mass killings by Iranian security forces since January 8 are unprecedented in the country and a stark reminder that rulers who massacre their own people will keep committing atrocities until they are held to account,” said Lama Fakih, program director at Human Rights Watch. “United Nations member states should urgently convene a special UN Human Rights Council session to put human rights and accountability in Iran front and center of the international response.” 

From January 12 to 14, Human Rights Watch spoke with 21 people, including witnesses, relatives of victims, journalists, human rights defenders, medical professionals, and other informed sources. Some shared screenshots of witness accounts, audio messages, and images. Human Rights Watch also analyzed 51 verified photographs and videos posted on social media or sent directly to researchers and consulted the Independent Forensic Expert Group of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, which reviewed images of injuries. 

Despite severe communication restrictions, Human Rights Watch has been able to obtain and analyze evidence of the killing of protesters in some provinces, including Tehran, Alborz, Kermanshah, Razavi Khorasan, Gilan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Markazi, and Mazandaran. 

“Anyone you speak to these days has a relative, a friend, or an acquaintance who has been killed or injured,” said one person interviewed. Others shared similar experiences.

In the capital, Tehran, videos show a heavily militarized response to the protests as they grew. Human Rights Watch verified videos that began to circulate on January 11 of body bags and bodies piled up in and around the Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Center in Kahrizak, south of the capital. The bodies were placed there for families to identify their loved ones. Human Rights Watch counted at least 400 bodies visible in several videos from that site alone. This number is an undercount, as bodies were piled on top of each other, making counting difficult.  

Click to expand Image Source: Data by Human Rights Watch and GeoConfirmed. Map data: © OCHA

In Kermanshah, a large city in western Iran, security forces fired at protesters. A witness sent audio recordings to Human Rights Watch on January 8 with an accompanying text message reading: “They [the security forces] are shooting here, there is a lot of tear gas. I am stuck on the street on my way back from work, there are protests all over and every street that I tried is blocked and they are shooting.” 

The protests erupted on December 28, 2025, sparked by the deteriorating economic situation and living conditions, and quickly spread across the country. Protesters demanded human rights, dignity, and freedom, and called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic. State officials have demonized protesters by labeling them “rioters” and “terrorists.” 

State-affiliated media reported that at least 121 security force members have been killed, and verified footage shows some protesters engaging in acts of violence. Human Rights Watch could not independently assess the credibility of these figures. However, Human Rights Watch has reviewed information that in some cases—consistent with longstanding practice—the authorities have pressured families of victims to falsely assert that their loved ones were members of the Basij, a force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps whose members generally dress in plain clothes, as a condition to release their bodies. 

Human Rights Watch also interviewed witnesses who described security forces using lethal force against unarmed protesters in various provinces. The wide-scale, unjustified use of lethal force resulting in mass killings of protesters and bystanders indicate that the authorities have deliberately and unlawfully used firearms as state policy.

Under the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, law enforcement officers may only use force when strictly necessary and to the extent required to achieve a legitimate policing objective. The UN Human Rights Committee, in its general comment on the right to peaceful assembly, has stated: “Firearms are not an appropriate tool for the policing of assemblies. They must never be used simply to disperse an assembly. In order to comply with international law, any use of firearms by law enforcement officials in the context of assemblies must be limited to targeted individuals in circumstances in which it is strictly necessary to confront an imminent threat of death or serious injury.”

The authorities have also interfered with the media, severely restricted access to telecommunications, and shut down the internet in violation of the right to freedom of expression. Access should be immediately restored, Human Rights Watch said. 

UN member states should immediately convene a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch said. States at the special session should make clear that those responsible for grave human rights violations will be held to account. They should ask the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to conduct a special inquiry into these latest atrocities and to offer concrete recommendations to advance accountability. 

The UN leadership and member states should ensure that the Fact-Finding Mission has the resources to carry out its important mandate, which includes preserving evidence of violations, including for future judicial proceedings to bring those responsible to justice.  

“The horrific images of families sifting through hundreds of body bags in an open-air morgue should shock the conscience of the world to take action to hold those responsible, including at the highest levels, accountable,” Fakih said. 

Large-Scale Killings Across Iran 

Human Rights Watch verified photographs and videos showing anti-government protests in 27 of Iran’s 31 provinces. Many were geolocated by GeoConfirmed, a volunteer-driven visual verification platform. While this limited information does not show the full extent of the protests, it indicates how widespread they have been.

Tehran Province 

Witness accounts and verified footage, including from morgues and cemeteries, show evidence of mass killings by the security forces across Tehran province. 

Kahrizak Morgue 

At the Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Center in Kahrizak—commonly referred to as the Kahrizak morgue—which is 18 kilometers south of central Tehran, photographs and videos posted online and verified and geolocated by Human Rights Watch show hundreds of body bags as people search among them, crying and screaming. Large commercial trucks and mortuary vehicles transported bodies there for several days. Reports suggest there is an area specifically for women’s bodies. 

Human Rights Watch counted at least 400 body bags or bodies in three videos shared on social media between January 11 and 13. This is an undercount, as bodies were piled on top of each other, making counting difficult.  

All visible bodies appeared to be in civilian attire. Some were covered in blood; others had gunshot wounds; some bodies had wounds consistent with the spray pattern of metal pellets fired from shotguns; and other corpses had open wounds. Many had EKG sticky pads on their chests, and one man still had an intubation tube in his mouth. 

Click to expand Image Researchers counted at least 400 body bags and bodies visible in three videos posted online between January 11 and 13. The bodies were scattered on the ground, on stretchers, and next to trucks and vehicles around and inside the forensic center. At least 50 body bags were found at the entrance to the buildings alone. Many of the bodies, all of whom were dressed in civilian clothes, were bloodied or had visible wounds. © 2025 Airbus / Google Earth Other Accounts from Tehran

Witnesses also said that many bodies were at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery Complex, 600 meters from the Kahrizak morgue. One person who went to identify the body of a loved one on January 10 said: “When we got close to the [large] halls, we saw bodies piled on top of bodies. They were in body bags, and some had tags with identification details. From the size of the halls, I could estimate that between 1,500 to 2,000 bodies were held there.” The witness said that more bodies were arriving by refrigerated trucks in the late afternoon when they were leaving the cemetery. 

A human rights defender said that a relative who had gone to the cemetery on January 9 to identify the body of a loved one reported that relatives identified 300 bodies, shown on video screens, on that day alone. 

A relative of a young protester in Tehran said that the family searched for their loved one “among a pile of hundreds of bodies” in a Tehran hospital on the evening of January 8. 

Relatives of victims, other informed sources, and verified videos describe the state’s heavily militarized response to the protests in Tehran on January 8, 9, and 10. One person said that on the evening of January 8, her sister was protesting in central Tehran when a friend of hers who was also protesting was shot in the head from behind. 

A person interviewed who knew Robina Aminian, a 23-year-old student, said that she was also shot in the head from behind while protesting in Tehran on January 8. Aminian’s family later identified her body among a large number of bodies in a Tehran hospital. Human Rights Watch also obtained information that a woman was shot in the throat on the evening of January 8 in Tehran as she was marching in front of her husband during the protests. 

A witness said that security forces “began a massacre” as crowds dispersed at protests they attended, and that they pointed their weapons at protesters as they left, including at their torsos, on at least two occasions, ordering them to “return home.” 

Human Rights Watch also reviewed two accounts sent to medical professionals outside Iran by staff in two hospitals in eastern Tehran. In one account, the source refers to a large number of people brought to the hospital with no vital signs. The other reported that nearly 40 bodies had been brought to their hospital on January 8. An activist outside Iran said that medical staff in two hospitals in Tehran had reported that about 500 dead bodies had been brought in by the evening of January 8.  

One geolocated video recorded at night from a building overlooking Police Station 126 in the Tehranpars neighborhood of the capital shows a security force member on a police station roof firing an automatic weapon, as well as other security force members shooting other firearms at protesters and, apparently, toward the person filming the scene. Throughout the 6-minute video, hundreds of shots were fired. 

Alborz Province 

Human Rights Watch received a 21-second video reportedly taken in Fardis, Alborz province. The Guardian reported on the same video it received from activists in Iran after crackdowns were reported in Fardis on January 8. The video shows two people lying on the ground; one has an injury just above his right eye and is bleeding profusely from his mouth. Someone helping him says: “He’s not breathing. Please hold on, for God’s sake, please hold on.” 

Kermanshah Province 

Human Rights Watch reviewed 12 short accounts by witnesses in Kermanshah sent to a journalist on the evening of January 8, who shared them with the organization, shortly before the internet shutdown, who shared them with the organization. The accounts draw a harrowing picture of security forces’ use of lethal force in several areas, including in Shahrak-e Moallem, Maskan, and Darrah Derejh neighborhoods, as well as in Gilan-e Gharb and Eslamabad-e Gharb cities. 

In one account, a witness said: “Kermanshah is a war zone with nonstop gunfire.” Two others described sounds of gunfire continuing for hours. One described a member of the security forces leaving a vehicle and “riddling protesters, mostly women and girls chanting at a crossroad, with bullets.” Another said that “security forces are massacring everyone.” 

Human Rights Watch also spoke with three people who had spoken with witnesses in Kermanshah. One said that, based on credible accounts from one hospital in Kermanshah city, nearly 300 people had been admitted on January 8 with no vital signs, most with signs of gunshot wounds to the head and chest, and 41 people still alive with gunshot wounds. 

A video filmed in the morning and posted to X on January 8 and geolocated by GeoConfirmed shows large numbers of armed security forces rushing toward protesters in Maskan town, a neighborhood in Kermanshah city. One man holding a shotgun fires repeatedly toward cars in traffic as a vehicle swerves to avoid him. 

Razavi Khorasan Province

Witness accounts and verified videos indicate similar unlawful use of lethal force by security forces in the Razavi Khorasan province, including in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, resulting in large-scale killings.  

Human Rights Watch reviewed three short accounts by witnesses in Razavi Khorasan, sent to a medical professional on the evening of January 8, shortly before the internet shutdown. In one account, a medical professional in Mashhad reported direct knowledge of at least 15 deaths, including a woman as well as 5 men whose killings by gunfire he witnessed on one street alone on January 8. Another account reported that dozens of bodies had been taken to two hospitals in Mashhad in the afternoon of January 8. 

A third account revealed the scale of killings in the city of Mashhad: “They have killed so many, as if lambs have been slaughtered on the streets, the ground is drenched in blood. … [T]here were no more [shotgun] pellets after Thursday [January 8]; security forces only fired rifles.”

An account by a medical professional, obtained by a human rights organization and shared with Human Rights Watch, said that between about 7 p.m. on January 9 and 2 a.m. on January 10, about 150 bodies of killed protesters and bystanders were taken to one hospital alone in Mashhad. 

Human Rights Watch reviewed a video said to be taken in Mashhad that showed two men in black uniforms on a second-floor balcony. Researchers were not able to independently identify where it was filmed. One of the men in the video fires three times in the direction of protesters gathered outside the building, as seen by three flashes and loud bangs. 

Human Rights Watch consulted media forensic experts from Deepfakes Rapid Response Force, an initiative of the nongovernmental organization WITNESS, who found no significant indicators of artificial intelligence manipulation. But due to the slowdown effect that had already been added to the video, the results were inconclusive as to whether the video was otherwise modified. 

Other Provinces 

Human Rights Watch obtained information pointing to similar large-scale killings in Gilan, Mazandaran, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, and Markazi provinces. 

Two people from Gilan province said that their relatives reported that dozens had been killed during protests in small towns there, including around the town of Fuman. One person who had spoken to his family in Gilan province said: “My father knew between 15 to 20 people who were killed only in a small town in Gilan.” An account received by a medical professional and shared with Human Rights Watch stated that “security forces shot many dead in Rasht,” Gilan’s provincial capital.  

A witness described a heavy presence of security forces in Amol, Mazandaran province, on January 8 and hearing continuous gunfire in the evening. Two other accounts described a lethal response to protests in Amol as well as Sari and Babol, other towns in Mazandaran, with one reporting: “They have killed many [in Amol] but the news is not getting out.” 

A person Human Rights Watch interviewed who spoke with a witness in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province said that the security forces were using heavy machine guns, shotguns, and rifles against protesters. The witness said they saw 25 bodies at the governor’s compound in the provincial capital, Yasuj, on January 10, and many people with eye injuries from metal pellets. 

A witness said that the security forces cracked down on protesters in Mahallat, Markazi province on January 8 with tear gas and shotguns. She saw three people bleeding, including a boy under 18, who had been shot with pellets in their faces. The witness reported that two people killed that night included a 15 or 16-year-old boy who was shot three times while trying to climb the wall of the intelligence office. The other man was shot in the head.

Authorities’ Harassment of Victims’ Families 

The Iranian authorities have withheld bodies of victims, denied families the right to bury and mourn their loved ones in a dignified manner, and in some cases buried the bodies without the families’ knowledge or consent at locations demanded by officials. 

In one case, the relative of a young protester killed in Tehran on January 8 said that security forces coerced the family to bury their loved one in a cemetery far from her hometown to prevent a crowd from gathering at her funeral. 

Authorities have also coerced families to either make statements that their loved ones were members of the Basij forces and killed by protesters or to pay significant fees to receive the remains. 

Click to expand Image Hoang Thi Hong Thai outside the police interrogation room in Hanoi, April 2025. © Private

(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese government has escalated arrests of perceived dissidents in the weeks before Vietnam’s 14th Communist Party Congress, which is scheduled to begin on January 19, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should end its intensifying campaign against its critics and release everyone imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their political views.

Most recently, Hanoi police arrested the blogger Hoang Thi Hong Thai on January 7 for comments she made on social media critical of the government, which garnered thousands of views. In late December 2025, courts convicted several other dissidents and imposed severe sentences.

“‘It’s that time again’ for escalating arrests and jailing prominent critics ahead of Vietnam’s Communist Party Congress,” said Patricia Gossman, senior associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Not only does the government block citizens from choosing their own leaders, but the authorities gag those they think might complain about the process.”

Vietnam’s party congress, held every five years since 1986, determines the country’s next national leaders. The process is undemocratic and lacks transparency. Citizens who are not party members are prohibited from publicly discussing candidates for the top positions.

Ahead of past party congresses, the police have often intensified arbitrary arrests and home detentions to silence influential critical voices, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the mid-2010s, Hoang Thi Hong Thai, a 45-year-old blogger and businesswoman, has published hundreds of comments on social media focusing on sociopolitical issues and expressing sympathy for rights activists who have suffered repression. As of January 2026, her Meta account had 120,000 followers.

In late April 2025, the police prohibited her from leaving Vietnam, summoned her and interrogated her about her writing, and threatened to arrest her. A few days later, she posted a message on social media apologizing for having no choice but to stop writing as she was being pressured by the police to choose between expressing her views or taking care of her autistic child. “Be a mother, or go to prison.” A few days later, she resumed writing on Meta.

In June, she published an online post criticizing articles 117 and 331 of Vietnam’s penal code for violating the right to freedom of speech enshrined in Vietnam’s constitution, and urged the National Assembly to amend or abolish these laws. Article 117 broadly prohibits “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Article 331 criminalizes acts deemed to “infringe upon the interests of the state” with up to seven years in prison.

The day before her arrest, Hoang Thi Hong Thai had written about the suffering that she and her children experienced during the 11 years since she began posting on social media: “The price we paid was not insignificant: My family was forced to move eight times. My children had to change schools four times. ‘Masked forces’ came to my house and wielded machetes to intimidate me. I was pepper-sprayed in the street. [Thugs] poured glue into my motorbike's lock three times. [Unknown men] caused an accident against me and I still have a scar on my back. Police approached my child (who is autistic) at school and told him that his mother was a ‘reactionary.’ My company's contracts with partners were abruptly terminated. My business was attacked. My family was subjected to economic siege and suffered emotional distress. Yet, during all these years, I never once deviated from [the principles of] justice and human rights in my writing.”

The Vietnamese authorities have also used article 117 to punish at least six other people in recent weeks.

On December 31, a court in Hanoi convicted and sentenced in absentia the prominent human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, 56, to 17 years in prison for criticizing Vietnam’s Communist Party leaders on social media. A former political prisoner who suffered government retaliation for more than two decades, including two prison terms, he was allowed to leave Vietnam for Germany in June 2018 while serving a 15-year prison sentence. He has been living in exile ever since.

Also on December 31, another court in Hanoi convicted and sentenced in absentia the Berlin-based journalist Le Trung Khoa, 54, to 17 years in prison. Le Trung Khoa is the founder and editor-in-chief of Thoibao.de, an online Vietnamese language news outlet that publishes political news and commentary about Vietnam’s leaders. Three of Le Trung Khoa’s alleged “accomplices” include Do Van Nga, a political blogger, Huynh Bao Duc, and Pham Quang Thien, the former director of the Center for Technology and Multimedia Communications of the Government Portal. They were arrested in November and December.

The Vietnamese authorities accused Le Trung Khoa of posting videos and articles “that distorted and slandered the people’s government…and caused confusion.” The police alleged that Do Van Nga wrote nine of the articles and Pham Quang Thien one of them. They accused Huynh Bao Duc of helping edit and insert images into four videos. For these so-called “crimes,” the court sentenced Do Van Nga to seven, Huynh Bao Duc to six-and-a-half, and Pham Quang Thien to five-and-a-half years in prison.

On December 27, an appeal court in Da Nang upheld the 11-year prison sentence of Trinh Ba Phuong for allegedly possessing a sign critical of the Communist Party in his prison cell. His family and defense lawyer said that Trinh Ba Phuong had not been granted access to his original judgment by the time of the appeal trial, as required by law.

“As Vietnam seeks closer economic and security ties with other countries, outside governments should be clear in condemning Vietnam’s intensifying arrests of dissidents,” Gossman said. “The Vietnam government’s unrelenting suppression of dissent needs to be confronted, not ignored.”

Click to expand Image A home near a coal-fired power plant in Cheshire, Ohio, US, April 14, 2025. © 2025 Joshua A. Bickel/AP Photo

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on January 12 that it will no longer ascribe an economic value to saving lives and improving public health when considering whether to curb harmful air pollutants. This move could weaken emissions standards and imperil communities exposed to toxic pollution. 

The EPA, which enforces federal environmental laws, said it would stop estimating the economic value of health benefits from reducing ozone and fine particulate matter, even though it acknowledges that they contribute to pulmonary disease, heart attacks, and premature deaths. 

The EPA has historically estimated both economic costs borne by industry to ensure compliance with a regulation as well as economic costs borne by the public in the absence of such a regulation, including lives lost, illnesses avoided, and productivity gained from reduced sick leave.  

When the EPA limited the emission of particulate matter in 2024, it projected that the new rule would prevent 4,500 early deaths, 290,000 lost workdays, and yield up to $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032. It estimated that every $1 spent to meet the tighter standard could return up to $77 in reduced health costs. 

In announcing the change, the EPA cited uncertainty about the values assigned to the economic benefits of reducing pollutants. While the EPA has used different dollar amounts for different factors since the 1990s, it has never totally done away with calculating their value. While far from perfectly capturing the full benefits of pollution controls, these calculations form a basis from which the agency has assessed benefits to people’s lives and well-being, in addition to increased costs on industry. An agency spokesperson told the New York Times that it would still consider the pollutants’ impact on health without further details. 

Human Rights Watch has documented that fossil fuel operations in particular contribute to elevated levels of these pollutants.  

In a Louisiana region known as Cancer Alley, nearly 90 percent of particulate matter caused by industry comes from about 200 nearby fossil fuel and petrochemical operations. These operations also emit hazardous pollutants called volatile organic compounds, which can form ozone. 

The disproportionately Black residents living on the fencelines of these plants have faced increased risks of cancer, respiratory ailments, and reproductive health harm. Under President Donald Trump, the EPA has closed its environmental justice offices, which were set up to help these communities. 

By calculating the economic costs of compliance without the corresponding benefits, the EPA is severely restricting its mission to protect public health and the environment.

Click to expand Image Protesters, lawyers, and aid workers outside a court in Mytilene, on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece, January 13, 2023. © 2023 Panagiotis Balaskas/AP Photo

After a seven-year legal ordeal, humanitarian workers wept with relief today when a court on the Greek island of Lesbos acquitted all 24 defendants who had been baselessly charged with felonies for saving lives at sea. The courtroom erupted in cheers, shouts, and tears as the verdict was read. “Saving lives is not a crime,” said Sara Mardini, one of the acquitted. 

In August 2018, police on Lesbos arrested Sara Mardini and Séan Binder, volunteers with a small search and rescue group, who spent more than 100 days in pretrial detention. Two Greek nationals were also detained. Prosecutors ultimately charged 24 people associated with the group, Emergency Response Center International, in a case that distorted lifesaving support for migrants and asylum seekers into felonies carrying 20 years in prison.

Greek law on migration-related crimes exempts people helping asylum seekers from any penalty. Yet the prosecution charged that the search and rescue group was facilitating illegal migration and was a criminal smuggling organization. It also charged that fundraising for the group was money laundering. The prosecution also asserted that several defendants participated in smuggling on dates when they were not in Greece.

The full acquittal of all defendants in “the largest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe,” as the European Parliament called it, is significant yet likely insufficient. The prosecution chose to pursue the felony charges after another court had dismissed bogus misdemeanor charges in the same case. Greek courts had already thrown out similar cases.

These prosecutions have had a significant chilling effect. Search and rescue groups have closed their operations in the Aegean Sea. Scores of people have drowned, including a 7-year-old girl whose body was recovered on January 8.

The Greek government should prioritize saving lives. It could apologize to the defendants and make clear that it will no longer pursue prosecutions that criminalize solidarity. It should also throw out a proposed migration bill that would impose restrictive registration requirements and harsh penalties on nongovernmental groups and their members. It should end its abusive crackdown against human rights defenders. Most importantly, the government should immediately halt abusive pushbacks at its borders, and ensure that no one is illegally returned to danger.

Click to expand Image A member of the Ugandan police force gives instructions to supporters of Uganda's incumbent president and National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate Yoweri Museveni entering the rally grounds ahead of the party's closing campaign rally ahead of the 2026 Ugandan general elections, in Kampala on January 13, 2026. © 2026 AFP via Getty Images

(Nairobi) – Ugandan authorities should immediately restore internet access and refrain from imposing blanket shutdowns that undermine fundamental rights and threaten election integrity, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Uganda’s constitution and international human rights obligations guarantee access to information and freedom of expression, rights that are especially critical to protect during election periods,” said Tomiwa Ilori, senior technology, rights and investigations researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Immediate restoration of full connectivity, together with clear commitments against future shutdowns, is essential to safeguard transparency and the integrity of the vote in Uganda.”

On January 13, 2026, Uganda’s telecommunications regulator, the Uganda Communications Commission, ordered all mobile network operators and internet service providers to suspend public internet access nationwide starting at 6 p.m., two days before the general elections. The directive cited concerns about “online misinformation,” “electoral fraud,” and “preventing … incitement of violence that could affect public confidence and national security during the election period.”

The directive blocked social media platforms, web browsing, video streaming, personal email services, messaging applications, and most online services, leaving only a narrow list for critical services such as hospital systems, banking networks, tax platforms, utilities, and the electoral commission portal. It also halted SIM card sales and disabled outbound data roaming to One Network Area countries.

Multiple network measurement sources, including Cloudflare Radar and Internet Outage Detection Analysis, have confirmed a drop in internet traffic in Uganda.

The internet shutdown is part of a broader crackdown on rights. The government, on January 12, ordered at least 10 non-governmental organizations to immediately cease their operations indefinitely, and on December 30, 2025, arrested a prominent human rights activist and critic, Sarah Bireete.

This move follows a troubling pattern of election-related internet shutdowns in 2016 and 2021 by Ugandan authorities, blocking access to information and undermining transparency and public confidence in the electoral process.

Previous shutdowns in Uganda, including a five-day internet blackout during the 2021 elections, led to a ban on Facebook, which is still in effect. Previous shutdowns are estimated to have caused billions of Ugandan shillings in economic losses that harm livelihoods, particularly small businesses and informal traders who rely on the internet for survival.

Ugandan authorities have disregarded repeated calls from international and regional bodies to end this practice.

Blanket internet shutdowns during elections severely restrict communication and access to information at a critical moment for democracy, obstruct election monitoring, and silence the electorates’ voices. They fail the tests of legality, necessity, and proportionality and “can never be justified,” according to international human rights law.

These shutdowns also violate the provisions of article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa also provides that states shall not interfere with an individual’s right to internet access.

Ugandan authorities should restore internet access immediately and commit to refraining from future disruptions in line with Uganda’s Constitution and international human rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities should ensure transparency and accountability during the electoral process, including protection for journalists, election observers, and human rights defenders.

Telecommunications companies should respect human rights and align their practices with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. They should do everything within their power to push back against unjustified internet shutdowns, including demanding a legal basis for any shutdown order and interpreting requests to cause the least intrusive restrictions.

“Ugandan authorities’ repeated internet shutdowns during elections blatantly violate human rights,” Ilori said. “Uganda’s international partners, including the African Union and East African Community, should urge compliance with human rights standards and support independent monitoring during and after the election period.”

Click to expand Image Family members and neighbor (far right) of Alimnur Turganbay, a Kazakhstan citizen detained in China, outside their house in Uzynagash village, located outside Almaty, Kazakhstan on August 4, 2025. © 2025 Chris Rickleton

(London, January 15, 2026) – Kazakh authorities should drop charges against 18 Kazakh activists who peacefully protested against Chinese government abuses in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists, from the Nagyz Atajurt Volunteers group, face up to 10 years in prison for exercising their freedom of expression. Thirteen are in pretrial detention, while the rest are under house arrest. The trial is expected to begin on January 21 in the city of Taldykorgan.

“Kazakh authorities should withdraw the criminal charges against the Atajurt activists and release those in detention immediately,” said Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of aiding China’s repression, the Kazakh government should press the Chinese government to stop its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

The charges of “inciting national discord” stem from a November 13, 2025 demonstration in Qalzhat, Almaty’s Uyghur District, where activists burned three Chinese flags and a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Protesters demanded that the Chinese authorities release Alimnur Turganbay as they were chanting slogans such as “Stop the pressure and injustice against Kazakh and Uyghur peoples” and “Down with the Communist Party! Down with Xi Jinping!” A Kazakhstan citizen originally from Xinjiang, Turganbay has been detained on unknown grounds by Chinese authorities since July 2025. 

This is the first time Kazakh authorities have sought to criminally prosecute in a single case such a large group of activists advocating for human rights in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said.

According to the indictment, the activists “premeditatively gathered … using mass media, with the aim of inciting national discord, as well as insulting the national dignity and honor of representatives of the Chinese nationality.” State-ordered forensic examinations of the protest video—which demonstrators had posted on social media after the event—allegedly found “signs of incitement to interethnic discord or national enmity.”

Evidence suggests Kazakh authorities may be acting at China’s request. Kazakh police initially detained the protesting activists on November 13, and an administrative court convicted them of “hooliganism,” imposing sanctions ranging from fines to 15 days’ detention. 

On November 14, the Chinese Consulate in Almaty sent a diplomatic note to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs calling the protest a “deliberately planned … open provocation” and urged authorities to “take appropriate measures.” Kazakh authorities then opened a criminal investigation into the activists.

Authorities have also targeted other Atajurt activists in recent months. On November 15, authorities arbitrarily detained four other Atajurt volunteers in Astana and held them for ten days for administrative offences. On December 23, a Kazakhstan citizen in the capital city of Astana was fined for sharing information about the protest on Facebook. Officials have warned other Atajurt activists not to provide video or financial support to Atajurt. 

Authorities in Kazakhstan have long misused the vague and overly broad offence of “inciting discord” (article 174 of the criminal code) to silence individuals for actions and speech that are protected under international human rights law. 

International human rights bodies have repeatedly called on Kazakhstan to amend the law, including at Kazakhstan’s last Universal Periodic Review, where the government received and supported at least six recommendations to amend the “inciting discord” offence. Yet, authorities persist in using the law to silence government critics. 

Kazakhstan shares a long border with China and is home to a sizable Uyghur and Kazakh diaspora from Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has carried out severe repression against these Turkic Muslim communities since late 2016. The Chinese government’s abuses in Xinjiang, including those constituting crimes against humanity, have been a point of contention in Kazakhstan-China relations. These abuses include mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, and forced labor. Since 2016, Chinese authorities have punished Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs who have foreign ties by detaining and imprisoning those with family in, or who have visited, any of the “26 sensitive countries,” including Kazakhstan.

In recent years, the Chinese government has also escalated its harassment of critics abroad, known as “transnational repression.” While Kazakhstan has refrained from extraditing ethnic Kazakhs or Uyghurs wanted by the Chinese government, the Kazakh government has sacrificed respect for human rights in an apparent effort to maintain good relations with the Chinese government, Human Rights Watch said. 

In recent years, Kazakh authorities have barred researchers and prosecuted activists exposing Xinjiang abuses from entering the country. In May 2025, Kazakh authorities denied entry to Danish anthropologist Rune Steenberg. Similarly, in 2021, Kazakh authorities barred Gene Bunin, founder of Xinjiang Victims Database, from entering the country for five years. 

In 2019, authorities charged Kazakhstan citizen and Atajurt activist Serikzhan Bilash for “inciting discord.” Bilash was released only after he agreed to cease his Xinjiang activism; he is currently in exile in the United States. Other Kazakh nationals who have intermittently protested the Chinese government’s abuses in Xinjiang have also faced arrest and short-term detention.

Kazakhstan’s international partners should urge the government to drop these unfounded charges, release the Atajurt activists, and uphold freedom of expression. 

“The Chinese government should end its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and stop intimidating peaceful critics abroad,” said Wang. “Kazakh authorities should protect its citizens from Chinese government repression, not prosecute peaceful activists for speaking out against it.”

Syrian government forces and local Bedouin and Druze armed groups all carried out grave abuses during clashes in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate in July 2025.Abuses included summary killings, outrages on personal dignity, and abductions. As many as 187,000 people have been displaced.The Syrian authorities need to demonstrate they are a government for all Syrians by pursuing accountability for atrocities in Sweida at the highest levels and for all involved parties.

(Beirut) – Syrian government forces and local Bedouin and Druze armed groups are responsible for grave abuses during clashes in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate in July 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. Syrian authorities should hold those responsible for abuses on all sides accountable, including by appropriately prosecuting military commanders and senior officials who ordered abuses or are liable as a matter of command responsibility for war crimes.

A checkpoint confrontation between Bedouin and Druze armed groups on July 12 in Sweida governorate escalated into several days of armed clashes. On July 14, government security forces shelled Druze positions in support of Bedouin armed groups, while the Druze responded with attacks against government and Bedouin forces. Hundreds of civilians were killed and injured, and tens of thousands were displaced. While the situation has improved, those displaced still face difficult living conditions.

“The Syrian authorities need to demonstrate they are a government for all Syrians by pursuing accountability for atrocities in Sweida at the highest levels and for all involved parties,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Without full accountability for these abuses, the horrors of the past will be repeated.”

Sweida governorate’s population is predominantly Druze with a Bedouin minority. While these groups have coexisted for decades, the checkpoint confrontation on July 12 triggered fighting between the groups. Government forces intervened to support Bedouin groups, escalating tensions between the government and the Druze community.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 19 victims and witnesses of abuses, including 14 Druze and 5 Bedouin residents of Sweida, and verified corroborating photographs and videos. Researchers also spoke with three local activists, a Syrian journalist who entered Sweida alongside government forces, and three sources with direct knowledge of aid restrictions. 

Witnesses said that government security forces committed summary killings and destroyed civilian property, while allied Bedouin armed groups carried out kidnappings and looting. Druze armed groups attacked and arbitrarily detained civilians. Human Rights Watch documented 86 apparently unlawful killings, including 67 Druze and 19 Bedouin civilians.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that over 93,000 people were displaced within a week of the clashes, and 187,000 by late July, causing critical shortages of food, shelter, and medicine.

Syria’s interim government has failed to take adequate steps to impartially investigate abuses by all sides during the fighting, Human Rights Watch said. On July 16, Syrian authorities condemned the Sweida “violations” as “criminal and unlawful” and pledged to investigate. Between July 17 and 22, the Syrian presidency, military police, and Defense Ministry issued statements promising accountability and announced a committee to investigate “shocking violations” by an “unknown group in military attire.”

A government body was tasked with reporting within three months. On November 16, the committee announced that it had requested a two-month extension and would publish the report by the end of the year. The investigation has yet to conclude.

Since the clashes, humanitarian support for civilians in need has been severely impeded due to government restrictions on access and continuing insecurity. Though access restrictions have since been reduced, bureaucratic delays and obstacles to distribution and coordination within the governorate persist, two informed sources reported. An aid worker said that dozens of people remain missing or abducted, with families having received no information about their whereabouts or condition.

On August 21, UN experts reported that attacks by local militia, transitional authorities and affiliated armed groups on just three villages in Sweida resulted in the killing of about 1,000 people, including 539 identified Druze civilians. The full extent of civilian casualties has not been reported because a significant number of bodies may remain in houses where recovery teams have not had authorization to enter.

On October 2, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria entered Sweida to investigate the July abuses, the first visit by international human rights experts. They have since made further visits to the area.

International humanitarian law, known as the laws of war, is applicable to the fighting between government forces and armed groups in Sweida. Common article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary laws of war prohibit attacks on civilians, summary executions, outrages upon personal dignity, and destruction and looting of civilian property. Serious laws of war violations committed with criminal intent are war crimes.

Military forces under the Syria’s transitional government have previously been implicated in grave abuses against minority populations, notably Alawi Syrians in March 2025. Government investigations into alleged crimes absolved top officials due to lack of evidence of direct orders to commit abuses. However, commanders and senior officials may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility for war crimes committed by their subordinates if they knew or should have known about such crimes and did not prevent them or punish those responsible.

The Syrian government should ensure impartial investigations into the July as well as the March clashes of senior military and civilian officials, not just low-level personnel as has been the case thus far. In January 2026, renewed clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces resulted in 23 deaths, and the displacement of over 100,000 people. These latest clashes between government forces and minority-led armed groups underscore the need for comprehensive security sector reform and accountability for grave abuses.

If the authorities are unwilling or unable to conduct prosecutions that meet international fair trial standards, the UN and concerned governments should step in to support accountability efforts. Syrian authorities should pursue genuine security sector reform by vetting abusive personnel, enforcing discipline, and bringing armed groups under accountable state authority or by demobilizing them.

“The government’s acknowledgment of atrocities isn’t enough if those leading and directing abusive forces are shielded from justice,” Coogle said. “Without senior-level accountability and structural reform of the security sector, Syria will continue to face cycles of violence and reprisals.”

Following the clashes on July 12-14, on July 15, Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said military units would begin handing over neighborhoods to Internal Security Forces, the country’s security and intelligence agencies, once “combing operations” ended and that military police had been deployed across the city to monitor troop conduct. Syrian government forces began withdrawing from Sweida on July 16.

Meanwhile, Bedouin armed groups from across Syria mobilized on Sweida’s eastern and southern edges. The Syrian presidency referred to Druze fighters as “outlaw groups” and praised the nationwide mobilization of Bedouin fighters around Sweida. On July 19, the presidency thanked the Bedouin forces but called on them to withdraw.

On July 16, Israeli forces conducted airstrikes against Syrian military positions. Under an agreement announced by the Syrian government on July 20, Bedouin fighters and families were relocated outside the governorate, increasing displacement and tensions over prospects for safe return. On August 23, about 30 Druze factions in Sweida united under the National Guard Forces, pledging allegiance to Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the Druze community’s spiritual leader.

Abductions of humanitarian workers have disrupted relief efforts. The media reported that on July 16, unidentified armed men abducted Hamza al-Amareen, the head of a White Helmets emergency center, while he was responding to a call for assistance in Sweida city; his whereabouts remain unknown. On August 13, five aid workers were kidnapped in eastern Daraa governorate while transporting assistance to Sweida. The Interior Ministry later said the men were freed but gave no details about those responsible or any action taken. 

Abuses by Syrian Government Forces and Bedouin Armed Groups

Clashes between Bedouin and Druze armed groups in early July prompted the government to deploy units from the Defense and Interior Ministries to Sweida governorate on July 14. Human Rights Watch documented abuses by government forces and Bedouin armed groups against Druze civilians.

A local journalist who entered Sweida with Syrian forces said that Bedouin armed groups entered the city first, followed by army units, and then General Security police forces, including units from neighboring Daraa. He said he witnessed looting, theft, and arson, including by General Security personnel, soldiers beating a detainee, and five arrests of unarmed people in civilian clothing. He also saw about 15 bodies that did not appear to be security force personnel. The journalist also said he saw non-Syrian fighters in civilian clothing moving through Sweida city. One of them threatened to shoot him if he filmed, he said.

Summary Killings

Human Rights Watch documented seven incidents of summary killings between July 14 and 19 in which government forces and affiliated militia killed at least 54 Druze civilians, including children. Many of these killings took place in or near the victims’ homes. 

Abu Saadeh-Baayni Family

On July 15, armed men in military and security uniforms stormed the home of Manar Abu Saadeh, a lawyer, her husband, Abdullah Ismail al-Baayni, and their sons Mazen and Omar, both university students in Sweida city. Her brother, Emad Hamad Abu Saadeh, said that Manar had called him earlier that day and said that armed men had come to their home demanding 20 million Syrian pounds (US$2,000), and threatened to kill them when they did not pay.

Around 11:00 p.m., Emad said, he received a call from his nephew, whom he quoted as saying, “Uncle, they broke the door and are coming for us, if anyone can help, please come.” The line cut off. Emad said he immediately tried to reach local contacts for help, but no one could approach the area because of heavy shelling, checkpoints, and armed clashes.

The next morning, at about 10:00 a.m., Emad said, Manar phoned him, saying the attackers had returned, killed her husband, and set the house on fire. “We’re inside. We can’t breathe, there’s too much smoke,” he quoted her as saying before the line went dead. 

When Emad finally reached the house the following day, he found it partially destroyed and still smoldering. “The house was burned and clearly hit by medium-caliber shells, you could tell from the large holes in the walls,” he said. “They burned it with car tires and grenades; we even found one unexploded. The scene was horrific.” Inside, he discovered the charred remains of Manar, Abdullah, and their two sons. Human Rights Watch could not determine whether they died as a result of the fire or were killed beforehand.

Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated multiple videos consistent with Emad’s account. Footage filmed by the Horan Free League, a news organization in Daraa governate, and shared on social media on July 16 shows military vehicles and armed men in Syrian military-style uniforms in Tishreen Square in the center of Sweida city, and, in another video clip, men in military uniforms and black uniforms repeatedly firing at the family’s home from close range.

In the video, journalists accompany the uniformed men as they access the grounds of the building, where flames and smoke are visible. A shoulder badge showing the seal of the Prophet Mohammed, usually indicative of the Islamic State, is visible on the black uniform of one of the men carrying an AK-style assault rifle. The video also shows a man in military uniform with a blue seal identical to the old insignia of the Islamist armed group Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham, the group that now controls the Syrian government. One video recorded by Emad shows the immediate aftermath of the attack, including the charred remains of at least two people inside the destroyed home. Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm their identities.

Emad said that no emergency services could reach the site due to armed clashes and road closures, and that the family’s bodies remained in the house for four days before relatives buried them there. Witnesses said the attackers spoke in Syrian accents, identified themselves as Ministry of Defense and General Security, and appeared in videos uploaded that same night wearing matching uniforms and using the same vehicles and weapons visible in the footage of the assault.

Badr Guesthouse 

On July 16, armed men stormed the Badr family guesthouse in central Sweida city, killing at least 16 people, including members of the Badr, al-Shaqqi, and al-Lous families, and wounding several others.

A witness, Anwar Asaad al-Awaj, said that about 30 women, 19 men, and 10 children had taken shelter in the guesthouse amid heavy shelling when the attackers, some wearing military uniforms, entered shouting religious slogans and calling the Druze “infidels” and “pigs.” He said the gunmen threw grenades inside before entering and firing. They then forced the men outside, beat and insulted them, and executed them one by one at close range.

Al-Awaj said he saw the gunmen attack those inside the guesthouse. They shot his cousin Ziyad Badr, his neighbor Jawad al-Shaqqi, and a guest in the house, Kinan al-Lous, killing them all. The gunmen stabbed and shot others at close range, including his nephew Omar al-Shaqi, who had an intellectual disability. When the gunmen turned to Anwar al-Awaj, one of the attackers demanded his identification, calling him a “pig” and threatening to kill him, then stabbing him in the chest with a bayonet. “I wished for death to come quickly,” he said. He said the attackers beat his 16-year-old son until he collapsed, but he survived.

In one video from the site, shared on social media on July 24 and that Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated, eight unarmed men, including some older men, are sitting and talking to the camera. One of the men says, “We want life to be not about killing people.” A man dressed in a black uniform holding an AK-style assault rifle is visible. A second verified video from the same location shows the bodies of eight men dead on the floor surrounded by pools of blood, some lying face down with their arms over their heads. Three of the men are evident in both videos. Witnesses said the bodies remained overnight before neighbors dared to retrieve them the following morning.

Salim and Madaya Abu Fakher

On July 19, near al-Omran Roundabout in Sweida city, Bedouin fighters from a nearby neighborhood killed two Druze civilians. A resident, whose name is withheld for safety, said that according to his sister-in-law, Bedouin attackers shot dead his brother, Salim Majdi Abu Fakher, 50, and their mother, Madaya Abu Fakher, 75, inside the brother’s home after the attackers broke in three times demanding gold. The resident said the fighters entered the neighborhood chanting sectarian slogans, while General Security forces simultaneously combed through nearby homes. 

The resident said the attackers also tried to abduct two children during the attack but left them behind when Druze armed groups counterattacked. He later found his mother’s and brother’s bodies, the bullets appearing to have passed through her body into his. A video posted on Facebook on July 22 by Suwayda News has a man taking the video saying it shows the bodies of Salim and Madaya. While the video showing the bodies is blurred, it appears to show a dead man with a chest wound and a dead woman next to him on the ground. 

Shuheib Family

A woman, name withheld for safety, said that armed men stormed the Shuheib family’s home in Sweida city on July 19, separated the men from the women, and summarily killed the seven men in the garden while filming. She said the attackers identified themselves as members of General Security, wore black headbands, and insulted the victims with sectarian slurs such as “Druze pigs.”

Among those killed were her husband, 60, her two sons, 30 and 27, her brother-in-law, 59, and his two teenage sons. She said the attackers forced her and her sister-in-law to walk past the bodies before they took the two women toward Izra’, where they were later evacuated by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. She said her family members were killed “only because they were Druze. … My heart went numb from the shock and pain for my sons.” 

Arnous Family

On July 16, armed men in military-style uniforms summarily killed four members of the al-Arnous family in central Sweida city. A verified video shows the brothers Muaz and Baraa Arnous, and their cousin Osama Arnous forced through the living room of an apartment onto the balcony. The gunmen order the men to jump from the balcony from the multi-story building, and then shot them as they jumped, while another man filmed. Muaz and Baraa’s father, Bashar Qasim Arnous, was also found dead. A relative and two residents said that multiple armed groups entered the apartment building throughout the day, looting valuables, threatening residents, and firing indiscriminately. One witness said some assailants were masked, spoke with foreign accents, and claimed to be from General Security.

Radwan Guesthouse

On July 15, armed men stormed the Radwan guesthouse west of Sweida city, killing at least 14 men and wounding others. A wounded survivor said that more than 20 people were inside when the attackers entered, smashing furniture, destroying religious artifacts, and calling the victims “Druze infidels” then shooting them at close range.

A video circulated on social media that day and later verified by Human Rights Watch shows 10 bodies of men in civilian clothing lying in pools of blood in the guesthouse. Witnesses said the dead included Radwan family members and others who had sought shelter there.

Saraya Family

On July 16, government forces and affiliated fighters killed at least seven unarmed men, six of them members of the Saraya family, in Sweida’s Tishreen Square after storming their home. A verified video shows the men, some in pajamas, being led into the square by armed men in military and security uniforms. One of the gunmen films himself selfie style, saying “God is great,” as another uniformed man next to him smiles, as they lead the men away.

A second video shows the same seven men kneeling in the square with their hands on their heads as the assailants open fire in a sustained burst. A relative said the attackers had promised the men safety before taking them away. The victims, she said, included a farmer, a mill owner, and a university student, as well as Hussam Saraya, a dual Syrian and American citizen. They then looted the house, she said, and threatened the women and children with violence and sexual assault. 

Attacks on Civilian Vehicles 

Human Rights Watch documented three incidents in which government and allied fighters fired on civilian vehicles attempting to flee or pass checkpoints. At least 13 people were killed in these incidents.

In one incident, a Druze man from Sweida city said gunmen opened fire without warning on his family’s car as they drove toward al-Urman on July 16. The vehicle came under fire from multiple directions, then crashed. The attack killed four members of his family—his father, wife, five-year-old son, and a cousin—and wounded several others. “I couldn’t see how many people were shooting because the car’s glass was shattering around us,” he said. “My vision was blurred, and I was in shock.”

In another case, a relative of a Druze family killed near the Rasas junction said she learned that government and General Security forces fired on two cars carrying her relatives as they tried to reach safety on July 16. Both vehicles were hit and caught fire, killing nine people, including children. Photographs reviewed by Human Rights Watch show the burned vehicles and an injured child receiving treatment in a hospital.

Looting and Destruction of Civilian Property 

Eight residents said that security units and armed groups raided homes and businesses, looting valuables, and burning or destroying property, then withdrawing. Some reported that entire neighborhoods were ransacked, with civilians returning to find their homes stripped bare. UN experts reported over 33 villages burned.

A resident of the village of al-Mazraa, northwest of Sweida city, described widespread destruction following repeated assaults by government-affiliated forces and allied armed groups. “In our village, the shelling began from the outskirts, then they stormed houses, looted them, and set them on fire, especially the homes near the edges of the village,” he said. “Someone I know went down to the village and told me that my house and shop had been burned.” He said that at least 30 villagers he personally knew were killed, including two older relatives.

A Damascus resident whose displaced family lived also lived in al-Mazraa said, “I never imagined seeing my childhood home, my grandparents’ home, turned to ash. The walls are black from the fire. They didn’t leave us anything, not even our memories. They burned the olive groves, the grapevines. Everything we lived from.” Photos showed her grandparents’ empty, burned home. 

Outrages Upon Personal Dignity

Human Rights Watch documented acts that amounted to identity-based outrages upon personal dignity. These included forced shaving of Druze men’s mustaches and abusive language referencing Druze identity. Particularly among older or more traditional Druze men in Syria, mustaches have historically carried cultural and symbolic significance.

One video, verified by Human Rights Watch, showed a man in a beige uniform and a flak jacket cutting another man’s mustache with scissors. Behind him, a man dressed in a similar uniform but with the red insignia of the military police, is looking on.

Participating Units

On July 14, the Syrian Defense Ministry circulated a statement on social media saying it had deployed “specialized military units” in coordination with the Interior Ministry responding to “bloody developments” in Sweida. Human Rights Watch obtained information from an informed source and analyzed open-source video material indicating that several Syrian military and security units participated in the military operation in Sweida.

Geolocated video footage shows a reported senior member of the 42nd Armored Brigade filming armored vehicles and troops in Sweida city on July 14. A verified photograph posted on Facebook on July 16 shows reported commanders of the 42nd Armored Brigade taken outside of a café in Sweida. Additionally, a video shared on Facebook on July 16 and analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows a uniformed soldier with the seal of the Prophet Mohammed on his uniform, who says he’s part of the “Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades of the 82nd Division.” He says they are about to enter Sweida to “cleanse” it of Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri and his “followers.”

Another video, posted on Facebook by a Syrian freelance journalist on July 14 and analyzed by Human Rights Watch, shows a convoy of pickup trucks and military vehicles with uniformed soldiers, including at least four vehicles marked by “52nd Division” on the front and “Special Forces” on the side. “Toward Sweida to eliminate outlaw groups,” he posted in Arabic. Another video on social media that same day analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows the same vehicles stopped on a road, with the man filming saying, “may the pigs come to Sweida.”

An informed source also identified the deployment of the 40th Division, based in southern Daraa, the 76th Division, under the command of former Hamzat division leader Saif al-Din Boulad, and the 80th Armored Division, led by Ahmad Rizq. The source said that other security agencies known to have participated include the 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard, the Military Police, and Internal Security forces (including General Security) under the Interior Ministry.

Abuses by Druze Armed Groups Summary Killings

Human Rights Watch documented two mass killings apparently by Druze armed groups in the city of Shahba, north of Sweida city, on July 17. The victims were 19 Syrian Bedouin civilians, including children. Witnesses said that after the withdrawal of Syrian government forces, fighters affiliated with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri’s armed groups surrounded the area, issued a short deadline for residents to leave, and then opened fire.

Al-Qadees Family

One resident, Atif Rayan, said that when he returned home to evacuate his family, he found his wife, Nibal Mousa al-Qadees, 37, shot dead, and his three-year-old son, Ali, decapitated, most likely by an explosive weapon fragmentation.

He later located two of his daughters alive and found a third wounded by fragments. He said Druze fighters detained his family and other residents in a mosque for several days with minimal food and water, while fighters looted homes and prevented families from burying their dead until the following day.

Human Rights Watch reviewed one video and a photograph apparently showing the bodies of Nibal and Ali found in a rocky area. They show the bloodied bodies of a person in women’s clothing and a small child. Both bodies lay in pools of apparently fresh blood. The child’s decapitated head lies close by. While researchers could not geolocate the video, experts in media forensics and AI detection from the Deepfakes Rapid Response Force, an initiative of WITNESS, a nongovernmental organization, analyzed the video file and concluded that there was no evidence of artificial intelligence manipulation.

Al-Hawarin Family

An 18-year-old woman from the al-Hawarin family said her family’s home came under fire from al-Hijri-aligned Druze fighters using rifles with optics and heavy machine guns. When she and her relatives tried to flee, the attackers opened fire, killing five family members, including her mother, 50, uncle, 49, aunt, 44, and two cousins, 15 and 5. She said she survived by pretending to be dead until local residents rescued her and took her to a hospital.

“After they [the fighters] left, I tried to move and smelled smoke,” she said. “I found my mother’s body burning. My uncle had been shot in the head, hand, waist, and face. My mother was wounded in her back and chest. My cousin’s five-year-old daughter, and my uncle’s wife had been shot in the back. They all died instantly.”

Altogether, residents identified 19 Bedouin civilians killed in Shahba that day.

Desecration of Bodies

Human Rights Watch also documented cases of the desecration of bodies, acts that constitute outrages upon personal dignity.

Human Rights Watch analyzed photographic evidence of two incidents of apparent desecration of bodies by Druze armed groups in Sweida governorate. In one, two photographs show the bodies of two men who appear to have been hanged from the gate marking the entrance to Jneineh village. One of the photographs appears to have been posted to the social media account of a Druze fighter, who is seen wearing a uniform with a Druze patch.

In the other, Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated a video posted on social media on July 18 from the predominantly Druze village of Maf’aleh that shows a convoy of vehicles driving down a street in the village with the bodies of two partially clothed men on the front of two vehicles, including one tan pickup with an anti-aircraft cannon mounted on the back. That same type of vehicle, with a Druze militia insignia, is seen in a photograph posted to Facebook the previous day from outside a clinic in Maf’aleh, with a Druze militia insignia, with men celebrating an apparent military victory.

Additionally, a video shared on social media on July 26, verified and geolocated by researchers, apparently filmed from inside a vehicle shows the body of an apparently dead fighter in camouflage clothing on the front of the vehicle driving south through Umm al Zaytoun, a town in Sweida. The driver celebrates, saying that Umm al Zaytoun is free of Bedouins, referring to them with a derogatory term.

Hostage-Taking and Arbitrary Detentions

Both Druze and Bedouin armed groups abducted and arbitrarily detained people during and after the Sweida clashes, unlawfully targeting civilians for revenge, leverage, or exchange.

A Bedouin man from the Salakha area said that local Druze fighters abducted him and about 20 relatives and neighbors, including his 85-year-old mother and a newborn baby, as they tried to flee Sweida on July 15. The group had been travelling with Druze acquaintances who had offered to escort them to Daraa, but they were stopped in Zibin village, where he said residents surrounded their cars, opened fire, and beat them with rifle butts and metal rods. “They pulled us out of the cars and beat us severely,” he said. “They took all our gold, money, and IDs, and kept shouting, ‘Let’s kill them, kill them.’”

He said their Druze captors moved the group among several detention sites—a local party office, a warehouse, and a school—and held them for about 10 days. “The torture was daily.” He said. “Beatings with sticks, insults, and constant threats.” Their captors showed no regard for the vulnerable, he said, including his mother and his daughter-in-law, who had given birth a week earlier. After local older people intervened, the detainees were handed over to forces reportedly aligned with Sheikh al-Hijri and later transferred via the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to safety in Daraa on July 25.

The abductions occurred amid broader population movements coordinated by Syrian authorities. On July 21, government and Red Crescent convoys evacuated 1,500 Bedouins from Sweida to Daraa as part of a fragile ceasefire that also required Bedouin groups to release Druze women they were holding. Despite these arrangements, kidnappings and retaliatory detentions persisted, underscoring the failure of the parties to protect civilians.