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Click to expand Image Trucks carrying humanitarian aid wait in Egypt at the Rafah crossing to enter Gaza on January 27, 2026. © 2026 Ali Moustafa/Getty images

(New York) – Israeli authorities plan to bar 37 international nongovernmental organizations from operating in Gaza and the West Bank on March 1, 2026 for refusing to provide the government with lists of their staff and their biodata as part of new registration requirements, Human Rights Watch said today. The organizations say that these requirements violate the humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence.

International aid groups have long provided lifesaving humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, amid considerable duress and Israeli attacks. On February 22, more than 15 groups appealed to the Israeli High Court, saying the new registration requirements undermine international humanitarian law and threaten to cut off lifesaving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Israel’s politicization of registration requirements for aid groups hamstrings their lifesaving activities while Israeli authorities continue to impose a crippling, unlawful blockade on Gaza,” said Michelle Randhawa, senior refugee and migrant rights officer at Human Rights Watch. “Israel should rescind the registration requirements and stop interfering with organizations trying to respond to the devastating humanitarian crises it has created in Gaza and the West Bank.”

The Israeli government has not committed to filling the aid gap, and only 27 organizations have approved registration.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), if these groups cease operations in Gaza, one in three health facilities would immediately close, 20,000 patients requiring monthly specialized care would lose access to care, waterborne diseases and sanitation conditions would worsen, and there would be immediate and severe gaps in detecting and treating malnutrition.

“We will not transfer sensitive personal data to a party to the conflict since this would breach humanitarian principles, duty of care, and data protection obligations,” an Oxfam spokesperson told Al Jazeera in January. Humanitarian principles emphasize that humanitarian organizations should operate without political interference and maintain autonomy from governments. In a May 2025 press release, 55 organizations operating in the region said that the new rules make INGO registration “conditional on political and ideological alignment, undermining the neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian actors.”

The law, Government Resolution No. 2542, approved in December 2024, mandated all international organizations providing “Palestinian residents” humanitarian aid to register with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism by December 31, 2025, or lose their registration and be forced to cease operations by March 1, 2026. The law gives the Israeli government broad power to deny or cancel the registration of any organization or individual staff member deemed to be a “public safety or state security” risk. The law does not apply to organizations providing services to “Israeli citizens or residents, including residents of East Jerusalem.”

As of mid-October 2025, the UN Satellite Center reported that approximately 81 percent of all structures in Gaza had been damaged. All 36 hospitals and the majority of primary health care centers in the strip have been damaged or destroyed, and as of November, more than 97 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global tracker of malnutrition and food insecurity, determined that between mid-October and the end of November, about 1.6 million people in Gaza—roughly 77 percent of the population—faced crisis-level hunger or worse. 

Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Save the Children, and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) are among the 37 affected organizations that, together with Palestinian civil society groups and the UN, have provided lifesaving goods and services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. According to OCHA, international organizations in Gaza run or support 60 percent of field hospitals and all the stabilization centers for children with severe malnutrition, and they deliver 42 percent of all water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

Despite the ceasefire agreement in October, Israel’s continued restriction of aid entry into Gaza causes shortages of medicines, reconstruction equipment, food, and water. Israel’s deliberate restrictions to aid in pursuit of its political or military objectives violate its obligations as an occupying party under international humanitarian law and constitute a war crime when they amount to using starvation as a weapon of war 

In November, the deputy UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said: “The Israeli authorities have rejected 107 requests for the entry of relief materials,” saying the materials were outside the scope of humanitarian aid or “dual-use” items. The Guardian reported in January 2026 that Israel has allowed commercial shippers to import “dual-use” items for sale on the market.

As of the end of October 2025, “almost $50 million worth of essential goods from operational INGOs, including food, medical supplies, and shelter materials, remain stockpiled at crossings and warehouses.”

Aid workers in Gaza have for the last two years operated amid Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, use of starvation as a weapon of war, extermination and acts of genocide, and massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, amounting to crimes against humanity. As of September, 543 aid workers were confirmed killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza. Human Rights Watch found in May 2024 that Israeli forces had attacked eight known aid-worker locations, where the organizations had provided their exact coordinates. Humanitarian workers are protected under international law, and targeting humanitarian workers is a war crime.

Since October 2023, at least 255 journalists, 1,700 medical workers, and 967 educational staff have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The ban of the 37 groups follows Israel’s ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which severely limited the agency’s humanitarian assistance capabilities, including blocking aid distribution into Gaza and issuing closure orders for UNRWA-operated schools in East Jerusalem. In October 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s allegations that UNRWA lacks impartiality are unfounded and that its obstruction of the agency’s work is at odds with international law.

In the West Bank, settler violence is on the rise, illegal settlements are expanding, and campaigns of forced displacement and housing demolitions are ongoing. In January and February 2025, Israeli authorities forcibly displaced 32,000 people from three West Bank refugee camps, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. As of February 2026, the UN reports that Israeli authorities have not permitted any of them to return.

“Beyond providing immediate relief, humanitarian workers advocate for civilian protection under international law and work to preserve human dignity,” Randhawa said. “Making the distribution of humanitarian aid to Palestinians a national security concern is yet another Israeli ‘assault on dignity’ of Palestinians and part of a larger pattern of debilitating Palestinian civil society and the international presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) for the Sudan has released a damning report on atrocities by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during their takeover of El Fasher, North Darfur, in late October 2025.

It concludes that the RSF, which is fighting Sudan’s military for control of the country, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity and that its “conduct, and inferred intent, present indications pointing to genocide.” The report warns that without decisive measures to advance accountability and protection of civilians, “the risk of further genocidal violence remains acute.”

The 18-month siege on El Fasher, the mission members found, was deliberately calculated to leave the population on its knees. It preceded “three days of horror” during which RSF forces rampaged through the city, killing, forcibly disappearing, and raping thousands. They further found that “[i]dentity-based targeting linked to ethnicity, gender, and perceived political affiliation was a central element of the RSF operation.” They concluded that the hallmarks of at least three underlying acts of genocide were present.

The atrocities in El Fasher were wholly predictable, fitting into what the fact-finding mission described as the RSF’s “modus operandi” across Darfur and making clear that only a radical shift in global response to RSF crimes can prevent further atrocities.

The report provides a compelling roadmap on protection and accountability as conflict expands into the Kordofan region.

The UN Security Council should immediately endorse the deployment of a civilian protection mission and enforce and expand the UN arms embargo from Darfur to the whole of Sudan. Other countries should speak out against the UAE’s ongoing military support to the RSF, and the UN should investigate the UAE’s potential complicity in these crimes.

UN member states, notably Security Council members, should act to advance accountability, including through targeted sanctions, supporting the International Criminal Court and expanding its jurisdiction across Sudan; and pursuing universal jurisdiction cases, which could draw on the confidential dossiers the FFM is preparing on individual perpetrators. States should work with UN leadership to support the mission’s ongoing investigations, ensuring it has the necessary resources.

States should commit to decisive action when convening to discuss the mission’s report in Geneva on February 26. Without such action yet more Sudanese civilians will suffer similar horrors to those laid bare in this report.

Click to expand Image Supporters attend the International Anti-Corruption Day Commemoration in Durban, South Africa, December 8, 2024. © 2024 Eliah July/Gallo Images via Getty Images

(Johannesburg) – South African authorities have failed to protect whistleblowers, who expose corruption and criminal activities in government and state-owned enterprises, from attacks and killings, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities need to conduct effective, prompt, and impartial investigations to hold those responsible to account and to ensure justice for the victims and their families.

During the State of the Nation Address on February 12, 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa repeated a previous commitment to introduce a new Whistleblower Protection Bill in parliament. But the bill has not been passed and as the killings in 2025 of two whistleblowers, Mpho Mafole and Marius Van Der Merwe, demonstrate, whistleblowers cannot afford more unfulfilled promises.

“The scale and frequency with which whistleblowers are attacked and killed for exposing criminal syndicates and corruption is alarming and raises serious concerns for their safety and protection in South Africa,” said Nomathamsanqa Masiko-Mpaka, South Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “South African authorities should urgently enhance safety measures for whistleblowers and address limitations in the existing legal framework.”

Unidentified people killed Mafole in a drive-by shooting on June 30, 2025, in Johannesburg. Mafole was a 47-year-old municipal forensic auditor and group divisional head for corporate and forensic audits for the city of Ekurhuleni. He had flagged procurement irregularities in a 1.8 billion rand (approximately US$112.9 million) mobile chemical toilet tender and submitted his audit findings on June 26, four days before his killing. Investigative journalists have reported that Mafole was tracked by his killers starting when he left his home around 8 a.m. until shortly before 6 p.m., when he was killed.

Thabani Goodwill Ntshalintshali was arrested on July 25, and charged with Mafole’s murder. His trial is scheduled to start on March 24, 2026. A warrant has also been issued for a second suspect, Hlanganani Agripper Mncwango, who is still at large.

On December 5, 2025, unidentified people shot Van Der Merwe multiple times in full view of his family outside their home in Brakpan, east of Johannesburg. Van Der Merwe was a former police official who testified off-camera before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System (Madlanga Commission). He highlighted serious allegations of criminality and corruption in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department.

On February 5, 2026, Wiandre Pretorius, a police reservist, survived an attempt on his life by individuals who reportedly fired 16 bullets at his vehicle as he was leaving his home in Boksburg. On February 7, he allegedly died by suicide. He had been implicated by Van Der Merwe in the 2022 killing of Emmanuel Mbense, allegedly at the hands of the police .Three others out of twelve people identified as persons of interest in Mbense’s death have been killed, reportedly “execution style.”

“Whistleblowing is central to countering corruption and improving transparency, [yet] it has also proven to be fatal in too many instances,” Nkululeko Conco, attorney at Corruption Watch, a South African group, told Human Rights Watch. As such, legislative reform should “consolidate the fragmented approach to whistleblowing, which is articulated in various pieces of legislation.”

Whistleblower attacks in post-Apartheid South Africa have a long history with many whistleblowers over the past two decades being victims of targeted killings or abusive attacks, in retaliation for exposing corruption and criminality.

While the Protected Disclosures Act 26 of 2000 nominally provides legal protection against reprisals for workers who disclose information about wrongdoing in public and private sectors, the law is woefully inadequate, Human Rights Watch said. In 2023, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development issued a discussion document proposing reforms to the whistleblower protection regime, which highlights how the act and other related legislation could be strengthened.

Proposals included expanding the definitions of whistleblower beyond the employer-employer relationship; shortening time frames for investigating a disclosure; improved measures to keep a protected disclosure confidential; making it an offense not to act on a protected disclosure; establishing a mechanism to help whistleblowers with legal assistance; and enhancing the powers of regulatory bodies such as the South African Human Rights Commission to deal with protected disclosures.

President Ramaphosa first made the commitment to “finalize the Whistleblower Protection Framework and introduce the Whistleblower Protection Bill in Parliament” during last year’s State of the Nation Address. One year later, this has not happened.

In this year’s address, President Ramaphosa made a similar commitment, saying: “We cannot accept that those who speak out against corruption are victimized and targeted. The Whistleblower Protection Bill will be introduced in Parliament. Among other things, this will criminalize retaliation and provide psychosocial, legal, and financial support to whistleblowers. And there will be a special focus on restructuring our procurement system with a view to ending corruption.”

The South African government urgently needs to translate the commitment into concrete actions, Human Rights Watch said. These include the prompt passage of the Whistleblower Protection Bill and the implementation of comprehensive safeguards for whistleblowers such as effective witness protection.

“South African authorities cannot afford to recycle empty promises because the lives of whistleblowers are at risk,” Masiko-Mpaka said. “Whistleblowers do not need promises, but specific, measurable, and tangible steps to ensure their safety and end the risk of retaliation and violence.”

Click to expand Image Memorial ceremony held on February 21, 2020 at the Saint Theresia Cathedral l in Kumbo, North-West region, Cameroon, for victims of the Ngarbuh massacre. © 2020 Private

(Nairobi) – The lenient prison terms for defendants on trial for the February 2020 massacre in Ngarbuh, in Cameroon’s North-West region, compounds the authorities’ insufficient efforts to hold senior military officers accountable and compensate victims’ families, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 20, 2026, a military court in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, sentenced three security force members and a pro-government militia member who was tried in absentia for the killing of 21 people—as well as other abuses—by the military and Fulani militiamen in Ngarbuh on February 14, 2020. The court handed down sentences of between 5 and 10 years and modest fines.

“Prosecutors did not pursue any evidence about who planned and ordered the killings,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The failure of Cameroon’s prosecutors and judiciary to investigate those bearing command responsibility, combined with the denial of reparations, exacerbates the suffering of victims’ families.”

The trial, which lasted more than five years, was marred by serious shortcomings. Authorities never arrested or charged senior officers who authorized and oversaw the operation. Seventeen ethnic Fulani militiamen accused of murder remain at large. Victims’ families had only limited access to and participation in the proceedings, key evidence was excluded, and the court rejected claims for compensation.

Human Rights Watch research found that government forces and allied ethnic Fulani militiamen killed 21 people in Ngarbuh, including 13 children and a pregnant woman. The assailants also burned at least five homes, looted dozens of properties, and beat residents during what appeared to be a reprisal operation against a community suspected of harboring separatist fighters. Since 2016, brutalviolence has engulfed Cameroon’s Anglophone North-West and South-West regions, where armed separatist groups are seeking independence.

Initially, the government denied any involvement of its forces in the killings and publicly discredited human rights groups, United Nations agencies, and media outlets that reported on the massacre. On March 1, 2020, following domestic and internationalpressure, President Paul Biya established a commission of inquiry.

The commission concluded that security forces and members of “local vigilance groups” carried out a reconnaissance operation in Ngarbuh, where they confronted separatist fighters, killing five. In the ensuing violence, 13 civilians were killed. The commission found that soldiers then attempted to cover up the killings by burning homes and filing a false report.

President Biya ordered disciplinary proceedings against the commander of the 52nd Motorized Infantry Battalion (Bataillon d’Infanterie Motorisé, BIM), who had authorized the operation, as well as criminal proceedings against three members of the security forces—two lower-ranking soldiers and a gendarme—who were arrested in June 2020.

The trial opened on December 17, 2020. The defendants included the three security force members—Baba Guida, Gilbert Haranga, and Cyrille Sanding Sanding—and the 17 ethnic Fulani militiamen. Only one of them, Tata Nfor, also known as “Bullet,” was identified by name and tried in absentia.

On January 15, 2026, the court convicted the three soldiers and Nfor as co-perpetrators in murder, arson, and destruction; Guida and Sanding were also convicted of disobeying orders and Haranga of disobeying orders and violence against a pregnant woman.

On February 20, the court sentenced Haranga and Nfor to 10 years in prison, Guida to 8 years, and Sanding to 5 years. Each was also fined 183,100 CFA francs (about US$328).

Under Cameroon’s penal code, murder is punishable by life in prison, and co-perpetrators are subject to the same penalties as principal offenders unless otherwise provided by law. The sentences imposed on two defendants in this case are relatively light, taking into account the gravity of the crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

While international law does not prescribe strict sentencing guidelines, international practice provides that punishment for serious crimes should reflect the gravity of the crime and serve the purposes, among others, of deterrence and retribution.

Barrister Menkem Sother, the lawyer representing the victims’ families, told Human Rights Watch that the public prosecutor initially requested five-year prison terms for the three security force members, contending that they were “brave soldiers” who had long participated in military operations. The judges ultimately confirmed a five-year sentence for Sanding, who has already served that time and is expected to be released in the coming days.

Sother requested 1,700,000,000 CFA francs (about $3,049,970) in compensation on behalf of the victims. The court rejected the claim as “unjustified,” asserting that the victims had already received a total of 80,000,000 CFA francs (about $143,528). Sother said, though, that there is no proof that any payment has been made.

The Ngarbuh proceedings were repeatedly delayed, often due to the absence of judges and other court officials. The court refused to admit key evidence, including death certificates to identify all of those killed, and the victims’ families were allowed only minimal participation. The military court in Yaoundé is about 450 kilometers from Ngarbuh, making it difficult for family members to attend. Family members’ lawyers had expressed concern about the issue. Only three victims’ relatives and one witness testified before the court, Sother said.

Defense and civil parties’ lawyers have 10 days to appeal the court’s decision. Henri Athanase Atangana, a defense lawyer representing Guida and Haranga, told the media that he would consult his clients before deciding whether to do so. Sother told Human Rights Watch that he does not intend to appeal, saying: “I have carried this cross alone.”

At the outset of the trial, there was sustained mobilization in support of the victims’ families, with several lawyers offering pro bono representation and numerous national and international human rights and civil society organizations attending or closely monitoring the proceedings. However, this collective engagement gradually waned, and for the final three years the families were represented solely by Sother, who represented their interests with unwavering dedication.

The UN Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa, which is based in Yaoundé and is mandated to promote and protect human rights, including through ensuring the rule of law and accountability for human rights violations, assigned a lawyer to attend one hearing in 2022. “But after that, I’ve never seen her again,” Sother said.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Cameroon ratified in 1984, provides that states parties should ensure that any person whose rights are violated has access to an effective remedy, determined by competent judicial, administrative, or legislative authorities, and that such remedies are duly enforced.

“The Ngarbuh trial has delivered neither full accountability nor meaningful redress,” Allegrozzi said. “The United Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa should offer legal and technical assistance to the victims’ families, to enable them to file a well-grounded appeal seeking reparations and to ensure continued protection of their rights throughout the process.”

Click to expand Image Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior shoots the ball to score teams first goal during a Champions League playoff soccer match between SL Benfica and Real Madrid in Lisbon, Portugal, February 17, 2026. © 2026 Joao Bravo/Sports Press Photo/Sipa USA/AP Photo

Just months before the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off, the world of football is again rocked by cases of discrimination both off and on the pitch.

Members of the football community, including footballers and fan groups, have long warned of pervasive discrimination in the sport.

During a UEFA Champions League match this month, Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior reported Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni directed a racial slur towards him. Making matters worse, Benfica’s manager, José Mourinho, sought to blame Vinícius for instigating the alleged abuse in the way he celebrated a goal. Victim-blaming doesn’t just obstruct the fight against racism, it fuels and legitimizes it.

Reports allege that Prestianni later claimed he used a homophobic slur against Vinícius, not a racial one. If true, that would be an appalling attempt to refute the allegations.

Fellow players expressed support for Vinícius, who has been a repeated victim of racial abuse. UEFA, European football’s governing body, has opened an investigation and issued a provisional suspension for Prestianni.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Football Association (FA) recently charged Cardiff City in response to its fans directing homophobic chants at opponents Chelsea during a December English Football League Cup match. The FA also sanctioned Reading’s kitman, Richard Bone, for making homophobic comments toward referee Matt Corlett during an August 2025 game.

These cases come after FIFA, the global governing body for football, egregiously canceled its own planned anti-racism and anti-discrimination campaign at the 2025 Club World Cup in the US. FIFA did not share the reasons, and it has been described as a step backward by fans and rights groups including Human Rights Watch.

Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, FIFA has a responsibility to tackle human rights risks, including discrimination.

“Vinícius’ case and continued reports of homophobic chants remind us of the hate faced by many in football simply because of who they are,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport and Rights Alliance. “We are concerned hate speech is likely to occur during the 2026 World Cup.”

Given the continued prevalence of discrimination in football, FIFA should be setting an example, not avoiding its responsibilities. FIFA should reinstate its anti-discrimination campaigns ahead of the tournament and consider imposing harsher punishments for any discrimination, whether by players, staff, or fans.

Click to expand Image © 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch Iran’s intelligence agencies and security forces have carried out mass, arbitrary, violent arrests and detentions of protesters, including children, since December 28, 2025. Tens of thousands are reported to have been arrested across the country. Waves of arrests have continued following the countrywide massacres of January 8 and 9, 2026.Authorities have subjected detainees to torture and other ill-treatment. Those detained are at serious risk of death in custody, grossly unfair trials, and secret, summary, and arbitrary executions. Authorities have systematically refused to provide any information about the fate and whereabouts of detainees, thus forcibly disappearing them.UN member states should demand Iranian authorities immediately release all those arbitrarily detained, disclose the fate and whereabouts of people forcibly disappeared, halt any planned executions, and allow independent international bodies and monitors, particularly the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, unhindered access to the country, including to all prisons and detention facilities. Judicial authorities in other countries should act to open criminal investigations, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Governments with embassies in Iran should send high level observers to all capital trial proceedings and urgently request to visit all sections of detention facilities.

(Beirut) – Iran’s authorities have waged a brutal campaign to terrorize the population through mass arbitrary detentions, torture, and enforced disappearances in the aftermath countrywide massacres of protesters and bystanders by security forces on January 8 and 9, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today.

Evidence examined by Human Rights Watch shows that senior officials, Iran’s security and intelligence agencies including the police, known as FARAJA, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and its intelligence organization, the Ministry of Intelligence, and prosecutorial and judicial officials have orchestrated a coordinated, brutal mass clampdown to quash further dissent and conceal their atrocities. In addition to mass arrests, they have held detainees in incommunicado detention including in unofficial facilities, broadcast hundreds of coerced “confessions,” including by children, and carried out large-scale enforced disappearances while imposing severe restrictions resembling martial law in many cities.

“As a whole nation remains in shock, horror, and grief, and families still search for their loved ones in the aftermath of the massacres of January 8 and 9, authorities continue to terrorize the population. Arrests continue and detainees face torture, coerced “confessions,” and secret, summary, and arbitrary executions,” said Bahar Saba, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Given the immense dangers those detained and forcibly disappeared face, international monitors should immediately be given unhindered access to all detention facilities and prisons.”

A prisoner whose voice recording was received by Human Rights Watch stressed the importance of maintaining international scrutiny, saying, “Do not forget the detainees… Be our voice, if you do not raise your voice, they will eliminate us all.”

Those forcibly disappeared include individuals arrested and may include cases of people who participated in the protests but never returned home. Some families have received calls informing them that their loved ones had been killed but have not had the bodies of their loved ones returned, or received any information about them despite repeated inquiries.

A January 26 statement by the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization indicated that at least 11,000 people had been summoned by intelligence and security forces as of that date. According to judiciary’s spokesperson, 10,538 individuals had been referred for prosecution and 8,843 indictments were issued by February 17.

Human Rights Watch spoke with 23 people both inside and outside Iran, including detained protesters; relatives of people killed, detained, and/or forcibly disappeared; people participating in protests; lawyers; human rights defenders; medical professionals; and journalists. Sources provided information about the situation in areas across the country, including the provinces of Alborz, Eastern Azerbaijan, Fars, Golestan, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Kouzestan, Kurdistan, Lorestan, Mazandaran, Razavi Khorasan, and Tehran.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed videos of security forces violently arresting protesters and their heavy presence on the streets after the mass killings, including 139 videos of forced “confessions” broadcast by the state broadcaster—Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)—and state-affiliated media as of February 6. Human Rights Watch also reviewed official statements, reports, and publications by independent media and human rights organizations.

Authorities have repeatedly vowed “speedy trials” and a “harsh response” without “any leniency,” while labelling protesters “criminals,” “enemies of God,” and “terrorists.” On February 3, a criminal court in Qom sentenced 19-year-old wrestling champion, Saleh Mohammadi, to death for alleged involvement in the death of a member of the security forces. Mohammadi was convicted after summary proceedings that did not even last a month and relied on forced “confessions” that he said were extracted under torture. The court has ruled that Mohammadi’s execution should be carried out in public.

On February 19, Amnesty International reported that children were also among 30 people facing the death penalty whose cases were documented by the organization. In a measure reminiscent of sham trials broadcast in 2022 that resulted in arbitrary executions of several men, IRIB started broadcasting segments of trial proceedings, including against two children, for alleged offences in connection with the protests.

The exact number of those arrested since the start of the protests remains unknown, but human rights groups have reported the figures to be in the tens of thousands. As of February 13, the Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees, a network of activists outside Iran, had published the names and details of over 2,800 people arrested.

Those interviewed said that prosecutors and prison officials have systematically denied detainees access to their families and lawyers and refuse to provide information about detainees’ fate and whereabouts, thus subjecting them to enforced disappearance. Enforced disappearances are grave crimes under international law and are considered ongoing so long as the authorities refuse to acknowledge the fate or whereabouts of those disappeared.

A human rights defender who has spoken to several detainees’ relatives in the provinces of Ilam and Kermanshah said that officials responded to families’ requests with insults and profanities. Verified videos posted online and verified by Human Rights Watch show scores of concerned families gathering outside prisons, prosecutors’ offices, and police stations in search of their loved ones.

Human Rights Watch has also documented cases of torture and other ill-treatment, including severe beatings with batons; kicks and punches; sexual and gender-based violence; food deprivation; and psychological torture, such as threats of execution, and denial of medical care to those injured. These cases, which can also amount to serious international crimes, are believed to be a fraction of the true scale of gross detention violations given that many people remain in incommunicado detention.

Iran’s authorities have imposed and maintained a heavy military presence applying severe restrictions against the population across numerous cities in the aftermath of the massacres. Several witnesses described measures resembling curfews and martial law, including checkpoints across cities and intra-city roads and armed agents routinely stopping vehicles and searching cars and passengers’ mobile phones. These descriptions were corroborated in videos verified by Human Rights Watch.

Security and intelligence forces have continued to carry out arrests of real and perceived dissidents. Those targeted include protesters, lawyers, medical professionals, human rights defenders, students, schoolchildren, athletes, journalists, political activists, environmentalists, and members of ethnic and religious minorities including Baha’is.

Since the start of the protests, the IRIB and media outlets affiliated with the IRGC have broadcast hundreds of protesters’ coerced “confessions.” They further heighten fears that people whose forced “confessions” have been aired will face the death penalty, and arbitrary executions.

Coerced television “confessions” violate the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, the rights to presumption of innocence, and to a fair trial. The Islamic Republic has a long history of using coerced “confessions” to quash dissent and in cases leading to death sentences and arbitrary executions after grossly unfair trials.

Fears of a wave of death sentences and arbitrary, summary, and secret executions are growing in light of official statements and the execution spree of recent years. Since the start of the protests, officials have vilified protesters, repeatedly referring to them as “criminals”, and mohareb, an individual “waging war against God,” which is a capital offense.

UN member states should demand that Iran’s authorities immediately release all those arbitrarily detained, disclose the fate and whereabouts of people forcibly disappeared, halt any planned executions, and allow independent international bodies, such as the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, unhindered country access, including to prisons and detention facilities, hospitals, morgues, and cemeteries.

Governments with embassies in Iran should send high level observers to all capital trial proceedings and urgently request to visit to all sections of detention facilities.

“Systematic impunity has enabled Iranian authorities to repeatedly commit crimes under international law,” Saba said. “Other countries’ judicial authorities should initiate criminal investigations of international crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national laws, with a view to prosecute those suspected of criminal responsibility.”

Click to expand Image A woman described to Human Rights Watch how several members of Iran’s security forces first restrained her and then severely beat her on the street.   © 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch Mass Arbitrary and Violent Arrests, Unlawful Detentions

Officials and state-affiliated media in Iran have stated that authorities have arrested thousands of people across the country, but independent rights organizations have reported that there have been tens of thousands of arrests.

 

Several sources who had spoken to people in prisons across the country said that authorities had emptied prison wards to hold detainees together and in isolation from other prisoners, in an apparent attempt to stop the flow of information.

Protest detainees are also held in unofficial detention facilities run by security and intelligence bodies, and other unregistered and secret locations, placing them at heightened risk of torture and arbitrary, summary, and secret executions. Iranian authorities have a track record of using secret, unofficial, and makeshift detention facilities, in particular during protest crackdowns, to hold detainees without registration.

Security forces have continued to arrest protesters on the streets, at checkpoints, and in home raids. A spokesperson for the Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees told Human Rights Watch that many people were arrested at home, days after they had participated in protests.

In one case, based on credible information received, Revolutionary Guard forces conducted an early morning raid on the house of Milad Ebrahimi, an injured protester in Kamyaran, Kurdistan and arrested him on February 1. The source said Ebrahimi sustained a gunshot wound during the protests but did not seek medical care at a hospital fearing arrest. Security forces also arrested his brother, Hamed Ebrahimi, for objecting to the arrest.

Witness statements and state media reports indicate that security forces have used video footage from CCTV cameras, and drones to identify those participating in protests.

Relatives of detainees and lawyers interviewed said that the authorities prohibited access to lawyers during the investigation phase, consistent with authorities’ decades-long pattern of denying detainees access to legal representation, including independent lawyers of their choice.

Under Note to Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, individuals charged with certain offenses, including national security offenses, are denied the right to access an independent lawyer of their own choosing. Only lawyers approved by the head of the judiciary can be appointed to defend them. The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran and human rights organizations have documented a pattern of complicity by many judiciary-approved lawyers in grave human rights violations. As a result, families and detainees have said they do not trust them.

“Detainees have no access to lawyers,” a lawyer said. “Families do not want to retain Article 48 lawyers. Independent lawyers who go to officials to take on protest detainees’ cases are told by the authorities, ‘Are you an Article 48 lawyer? No? Then leave, you cannot take the case.’”

In practice, even in cases with judiciary-approved lawyers, detainees are denied access to legal counsel during the investigation phase including during interrogations.

Witnesses said that, consistent with their track record, authorities have also harassed families of detainees, warning them not to speak up or publicize the situation of their loved ones.

Incommunicado Detention; Enforced Disappearances

The authorities have held those arrested during and after the protests in incommunicado detention. In many cases those detained are forcibly disappeared, as authorities have refused to provide families with any information about their fate and whereabouts.

In one case, authorities arrested Youresh Mehrali Beiglou, an Azerbaijani Turk activist, on January 4 in or around Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province, after releasing a video in which he spoke about the protests. After the arrest and for a period of over a month, he was allowed to make only one brief phone call to his family, and they were denied information about his whereabouts.

Another Azerbaijani Turk activist, Ali Babai, was arrested on January 14. Other than one brief phone call informing his family that he was in an intelligence ministry detention facility, the authorities have denied his relatives information about his fate and whereabouts.

In Karaj, Alborz province, security forces raided Jahangir Kazemi’s home on January 14 and arrested him. His family received two brief phone calls from Kazemi, who is reportedly held in solitary confinement, but has been denied visits and information about his situation. Kazemi’s wife, Fatemeh Golmohammadi, was arrested on January 27. The couple, who have young children, have been denied access to a lawyer.

A relative of a detainee in a northern province, described the response of prosecution officials to detainees’ families:

“When we ask officials at the prosecutor’s office [about our loved one], they tell us, ‘They are criminals, if they weren’t, we would not have arrested them,’ “When we ask what their crime is, they respond, ‘You yourselves know better.’”

Families have been gathering outside prisons, police stations, and prosecutors and governors’ offices. Human Rights Watch has reviewed four videos showing such gatherings.

Researchers geolocated videos showing these scenes outside the county courthouse in Karaj, Alborz province, Qazvin Central Prison, Qazvin province, and outside the governor’s office in Yasuj, Kohgiluyeh, and Boyer-Ahmad province. 

Verified videos analyzed by Human Rights Watch from the provinces of Alborz, Esfahan, Lorestan, and Razavi Khorasan corroborated these accounts. Collectively, the videos show large numbers of armed security forces patrolling cities on foot or in vehicles, including trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, discharging weapons and using megaphones to order people to stay indoors.

In one video published online on January 29, and reported to have been recorded outside a police station in Kerman, concerned families are seen speaking to an official from behind a closed door, repeatedly saying that their loved ones are missing. One man is heard saying, “Why is there no one to answer us… my child has disappeared for 24 hours, but no one answers… is there not a manager, a supervisor, someone to step outside? So many people are here worried for their children.”

Click to expand Image Many concerned families in Iran have been gathering outside prisons, prosecutors’ offices, and police stations in search of their loved ones. © 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch

Those forcibly disappeared may also include people who participated in protests but never returned home.

An informed source said that two of their students, a young man and a young woman, had remained disappeared since January 8, when they took part in the protests in Tehran: “The family knows they were in the protests and has since been to all police stations, hospitals, and morgues, but there is no trace of them. They do not know if they are dead or alive.”

An activist outside Iran who has been in touch with relatives of detainees and the missing in the provinces of Ilam and Lorestan said that he was aware of 12 people who didn’t return from the protests. Human rights defenders and journalists provided similar accounts from other provinces.

In some cases, families have spoken publicly about their search for their loved ones. On February 1, Sekhavat Salimi, a former political prisoner, published a video online in which he said that he had searched for his son, Mohammadi Ali Salimi, for days after the family received a call informing them that he had been killed and they should collect his body: “For 10 to 15 days, I searched everywhere in Tehran and Karaj. I went to Kahrizak [morgue], and to Behest-e Zahra and Behesht-e Sakineh [cemeteries]. I searched for my son everywhere but did not find him or his body... There is no trace of him, I do not know what to do.”

Torture and Ill-Treatment 

Security forces including FARAJA, Revolutionary Guards, the Ministry of Intelligence, and plainclothes agents, have tortured protesters, including on the streets during arrests and after restraining them and in detention facilities. These ongoing gross violations and crimes under international law are consistent with Iranian authorities’ decades-long record of torture.

Witnesses described violent arrests of protesters. A protester from Tehran said they had seen security forces severely beat a man they had arrested and restrained:“They had handcuffed him, covered his eyes with a medical mask, and sat him on a motorbike. There, right before everyone’s eyes, they started beating this fully defenseless man. They repeatedly struck him on the head with a baton and beat him on his back and arms.

Click to expand Image A protester described how security forces beat a young, defenseless man they had already restrained and sat on a motorbike, including by repeatedly striking him on the head with batons. © 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch

Another source said security forces severely beat their relative, a 16-year-old boy, while restrained in a city in Khuzestan province, breaking one of his ribs, then left him on the street. The child had started running when security forces ordered him to stop.

A woman who was detained in a city in Razavi Khorasan said several agents violently arrested her while subjecting her to sexualized insults and profanities: “Suddenly, around five or six members of security forces attacked me and started beating me on the back of my head and neck with batons and gunstock. I am a small sized woman and there were six of them, all men. They handcuffed me from the back and made me lie on my stomach, faced down. Then they took me to their vehicle while constantly swearing at me and put my face on the trunk of the car. When I objected to my arrest telling them that I had not done anything, they hit me in the face with a shield, and I got a bloodied nose.”

Human Rights Watch also analyzed videos depicting violent arrests. One video analyzed, published online on January 2 and said to be recorded in Neishabour, Razavi Khorasan, shows several uniformed and plainclothes security forces’ members beating a woman and pushing her into a private car.

Human Rights Watch also received credible information about violent home arrests, with security forces beating the person arrested as well as other family members. The relative of a detainee in Kermanshah province said that security forces beat his brother during the arrest, adding, “This is no exception, all arrests I know of have been violent and carried out with beatings.”

Based on witness accounts, informed sources, and reports by other human rights organizations, security and intelligence forces have committed torture and other ill-treatment in detention facilities.

A detainee who was held in solitary confinement in Razavi Khorasan province said she could hear other detainees being tortured and saw young people beaten with batons. Accounts from Kermanshah and Fars provinces described severe beatings resulting in injuries and sexual and gender-based violence.

“Everyone you see has been horribly tortured,” a prisoner in central Iran said in a voice recording. … “All [confessions] are coerced, they [authorities] would write up what they want themselves or would dictate what to write… and if you did not accept to sign, they would hit you with a shocker [electric shock weapon] on the head. You are sitting there blindfolded, shackled, and in handcuffs, encircled by several men, you would accept anything.”

An informed source said security forces arrested and beat a 16-year-old boy at his home in a northern province, then transferred him to detention facilities run by intelligence bodies where he was severely tortured and was denied food for 5 days. Security forces repeatedly beat him to the point he lost consciousness on four occasions. Relatives who were able to visit him days later saw bruises on his face but were not able to see his body as they were only allowed to speak to him behind a glass barrier.

People interviewed said that many protest detainees had wounds from metal pellets, or other injuries such as broken ribs, but were denied medical care in prison.

Human Rights Watch received credible information that the authorities pressured the Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi, arbitrarily detained since December 12, to condemn the protests that started on December 28. According to the information, Mohammadi was tortured and otherwise ill-treated at the time of her arrest, including being severely beaten with sticks and batons causing injury to her head and her genital area.

Security forces also dragged her by her hair and threatened her with further violence. On February 7, a revolutionary court in Mashhad sentenced Mohammadi to seven years and six months in prison for vaguely worded national security offenses and supplementary punishments, including a two-year travel ban.

Forced Televised Confessions; Death Penalty Risk

Since January, the IRIB and state-affiliated media have aired hundreds of coerced “confessions” by protest detainees. Human Rights Watch reviewed 139 clips aired as of February 6.

These videos systematically label detainees “rioters,” “terrorists,” and “agents” of foreign intelligence services, prior to any judicial proceedings and when detainees are denied access to lawyers. Some were taken during arrests, on the streets, in buses or vehicles used to transfer detainees, and in police stations. They depict women, men, and children, often blindfolded and in handcuffs, “confessing” to “collaboration with enemies” and various offenses including some that carry the death penalty.

In at least two videos reviewed, two girls aged 16 are coerced into making self-incriminating statements, including that they had received foreign support and instructions. Another video shows a 16-year-old boy, introduced as a “leader of riots” making a coerced “confession.”

Several other videos also depict people who appear to be under the age of 18 and therefore likely children. In one video, two men interrogate a visibly terrified young person in handcuffs on the street, accusing him of carrying stones in his cross-body bag with the intention of throwing them at security forces.

In some videos, detained protesters make statements about engaging in conduct that falls under the exercise of human rights, including chanting slogans, inviting others to take to the streets to protest, writing slogans on the walls, filming the security forces’ use of force against protesters, and sharing footage and images of protests with Persian speaking media outside Iran.

Click to expand Image Since the start of the protests, Iran’s state media have broadcast hundreds of coerced “confessions” of protesters, including children. They heighten fears that people whose forced “confessions” have been aired will face the death penalty and summary and arbitrary executions. © 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch

In one video, a man, identified as Rasoul Salehi, is accused of having committed a “grave crime” by attending a peaceful gathering outside a government building in Yazdanshahr in Esfahan province and inviting people to protest if authorities did not release the detainees. A video of the gathering, in which Salehi is seen giving a speech and demanding the release of detainees, widely circulated online in early January.

Amid a surge in acts of persecution against members of the Baha’is religious minority, including an increase in arrests and detentions, on February 1, the IRIB aired coerced “confessions” of three young adults, including two members of the Baha’i community, Venus Hosseininejad, arrested on January 8, and Peyvand Niami, arrested on January 15 in Kerman.

Consistent with the authorities' long-standing campaign of spreading disinformation and inciting hatred and discrimination against Baha’is, the video clip sought to portray them, among other youth, as members of an “organized, violent, and foreign-backed network” with links to “Zionist networks” and “Satanism.”

According to information the Baha’i International Community provided to Human Rights Watch, at least 50 members of the Baha’i religious minority have been arrested between January 8 and February 13.

On February 4, in a letter published by media outlets outside Iran, Hosseininejad’s parents wrote that they were refused information about the intelligence body that had arrested their daughter for 15 days and had only received three brief phone calls from her. In one of the calls, they wrote, Hosseininejad said that she had agreed to “cooperate” under “severe physical and mental pressures” by giving false confessions because she was “promised” that she would be released.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed footage in which Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje’i, the judiciary head, interrogated detainees, including a woman, in front of a camera. The interrogations were reported by state media to have been carried out during a five-hour visit he made to a detention facility. Two other officials, including the Tehran prosecutor, are shown in these videos.

Iran’s laws criminalize a wide range of conduct that fall under the exercise of human rights, including some that are subject to the death penalty. Capital offenses also include acts that do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes,” limited only to intentional killing, as well as vaguely worded charges that contravene the principle of legality, such as “waging war on God” and “corruption on earth”.

A new law to “Intensify the Punishment of Spies and Collaborators with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States,” adopted in 2025, has further expanded the scope of the death penalty. The law imposes capital punishment for a range of vaguely worded offenses pertaining to collaboration and cooperation with “hostile states” and further criminalizes and subjects to long prison terms acts such as “sending footage, images or information to [media] networks, citizen journalists or online foreign [social media] pages where [such acts] contravene national security.”

The sheer number of coerced “confessions” that have been aired, official statements that routinely describe protesters as “those waging war on God,” and the authorities’ increasing use of the death penalty as a tool of political repressiongive rise to growing concerns about a wave of death sentences and arbitrary executions against protest detainees in the coming weeks and months. These include child detainees, some of whom have already been charged with capital offenses. In flagrant violation of the absolute prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people under age 18, Iran’s authorities continue to impose and implement death sentences against children.

De Facto Martial Law and Militarized Clampdown

In the days that followed the massacres, the authorities imposed curfews and enforced martial law-like restrictions across many cities while carrying out waves of arrests of real and perceived dissidents.

One protester from Tehran told Human Rights Watch that, “from 8 p.m., there was effective martial law. You could not really go out.”

Interviewees said that security forces had set up and maintained checkpoints in cities and intra-city roads including the in provinces of Kermanshah, Ilam, Lorestan, and Khouzestan.

Human Rights Watch has analyzed videos from several provinces corroborating these accounts.

In one video published online on January 15, 11 armed members of the security forces both in uniforms and plain clothes are seen along with a vehicle passing through a residential alley. The person who posted the video online said it was taken in Karaj, Alborz province. Due to the lack of geographic information, Human Rights Watch could not confirm the location. The forces are heard repeatedly warning through a megaphone that “no one should be near the windows,” ordering residents to “go inside” and “part ways with the rioters.”

Another video published online on January 20, and geolocated by Human Rights Watch to a city in Esfahan province, shows dozens of armed forces in uniforms and plain clothes with their faces covered patrolling a large street. The video shows four tan vehicles consistent with those used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps mounted with heavy machine guns and four white Toyota pickup trucks carrying at least four armed men in each vehicle. The forces repeatedly shout “go inside” then chant slogans vowing obedience to the Supreme Leader. A burst of automatic gunfire and other solo gunshots can be heard. One uniformed man in the back of a white pickup truck fires five shots into the air.

A third video, initially geolocated by a GeoConfirmed member, AndyNovy, and analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows more than 40 members of the security forces in vehicles, motorbikes, and on foot in several locations along the Hashemiye Boulevard, Kowsar Boulevard, and Vakil Abad Highway, in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan. The video was filmed at night from a moving car. No pedestrians could be clearly seen in the video.

Another video from Boroujerd, Lorestan province, published online on January 17, and also geolocated by AndyNovy, shows a row of at least 15 military vehicles, including six-wheeled green trucks, trucks with pedestal-mounted heavy machine guns, and at least 22 members of the security forces armed with rifles along Takhti Boulevard. Riot police at an assembly point with vans nearby appear prepared to detain or arrest people. The number of vehicles and personnel indicates that the police action was deliberately planned and organized.

In the ongoing clampdown, authorities have targeted lawyers and medical professionals and other groups such as journalists, medical, students, human rights defenders, and members of ethnic and religious minorities.

On January 31, the domestic newspaper Shargh reported cases of eight detained lawyers, six of them arrested in the city of Shiraz, Fars province alone. As of February 16, the Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees had recorded the names of 20 lawyers arrested across the country since January 16.

Lawyers have also been held incommunicado and without access to their families and legal counsel. In an interview with a domestic newspaper, the lawyer for Shima Ghousheh, one of the first lawyers arrested, stated that he did not have access to his client and was not given any information about the charges against her. 

Two lawyers who spoke with Human Rights Watch said that the real number of lawyers arrested across the country was higher and that each was aware of other arrested lawyers whose cases had not become public.

Authorities have also targeted medical professionals including doctors and nurses who have provided medical care to injured protesters in hospitals and private clinics, arbitrarily arresting them and subjecting them to enforced disappearances. As of February 16, the Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees had published the names of 39 medical professionals arrested across the country in connection with the protests.

A lawyer and a journalist interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that, in addition to large-scale arrests, intelligence bodies have been routinely summoning real and perceived dissidents, including student activists and lawyers, and coercing them to sign statements that they would not engage in any forms of activism.

Click to expand Image Caption: Residents react after a missile hit an apartment building during Russian attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine, June 17, 2025. © 2025 Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war—defined by a relentless series of apparent war crimes and crimes against humanity—has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties and triggered Europe’s largest displacement crisis since World War II.

Throughout the war, Russian forces have repeatedly shown disregard for international humanitarian law and civilian life. From Kharkiv, Izium, and Mariupol to Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Kherson, they have struck hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks, devastating entire neighborhoods, often the result of indiscriminate attacks using explosive weapons in populated areas.

In areas that fell under Russian occupation, including Bucha, Izium, and Kherson, Russian forces have carried out summary executions, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and torture. Civilians were held in basements and makeshift detention sites, beaten, and subjected to electric shocks and mock executions. Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees still in Russian custody face daily physical and psychological abuse. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported or forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian occupied areas.

Russian authorities continue to commit routine abuses in occupied territories, imposing Russian laws, unlawfully seizing property, and coercing Ukrainians into adopting Russian citizenship and performing military service. Occupying authorities have imposed Russian language and Russian curriculum in schools as part of a systematic campaign to suppress Ukrainian identity, language, and culture.

Since 2022, Russian forces have also repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy grid, infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival. The latest wave of strikes has left over one million Ukrainians with severely interrupted heat, water, and electricity during winter months. As United States-led peace negotiations continue, Ukrainians joke grimly after each brutal night that these missiles are the Kremlin’s true “peace offerings”.

Four years on, the scale of documented atrocities demands concrete accountability across Russia’s entire chain of command, from those on the ground to Russia’s highest political and military leadership. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for senior Russian officials are an important milestone toward redress for victims. Ukraine’s allies, including the European Union and its member states, should fully support justice for all grave crimes throughdomestic and ICC investigations, act to enforce arrest warrants, encourage the expansion of universal jurisdiction prosecutions, and back Ukraine’s strong and resilient civil society groups documenting violations and assisting survivors.

Click to expand Image Free speech activist Pimsiri Petchnamrob in Bangkok, Thailand. © 2020 The Momentum

(Bangkok) – A Thai court on February 20, 2026, sentenced a prominent free speech activist and three others to 32 months in prison for criticizing King Maha Vajiralongkorn under Thailand’s royal insult law, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Bangkok Criminal Court found Pimsiri Petchnamrob, 35, guilty of lese majeste (insulting the monarchy) for her speech during a democracy rally in Bangkok in November 2020 that criticized what she considered to be the monarchy’s unchecked power. She was also convicted for referring to a 2017 statement by the United Nations expert on freedom of expression that the lese majeste law should have no place in a democratic country. She was also found guilty of violating Covid-19 containment measures and using loudspeakers without permission.

“Sentencing free speech activists to prison sends a chilling message that the monarchy and the law protecting it are untouchable,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government’s prosecution of Pimsiri specifically for criticizing the lese majeste law marks further backsliding on fundamental freedoms in Thailand.”

Three other democracy activists—Arnon Nampa, Somyot Pruksakaseksuk, and Promsorn Viradhammajari—were also convicted at the same trial of lese majeste charges and sentenced to two years and eight months for criticizing the king.

The four defendents’ original sentences of four years were reduced by one-third because the court considered their testimony useful. Hours after being sentenced, the court granted Pimsiri bail of 150,000 Thai baht (US$4,800) on the condition that she remain in Thailand and not reoffend while she appeals the verdict.

The court’s decision appears to follow the Constitutional Court’s ruling in January 2024 that the campaign to amend the lese majeste law amounted to an attempt to abolish Thailand’s constitutional democracy with the king as head of state, Human Rights Watch said.

The continued use of Penal Code section 112 on lese majeste, which carries punishment from 3 to 15 years in prison for each offense, amounts to excessive restriction on the right to freedom of expression. Since the military coup in 2014, at least 1,987 people have been prosecuted in Thailand for exercising their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly, including at least 285 who faced lese majeste charges.

In July 2025, UN human rights experts issued a statement urging Thai authorities to drop charges against Pimsiri and other activists on trial.

Thai authorities have often detained critics of the monarchy for months before trial without access to bail. Arnon, one of the four defendants and a human rights lawyer, also faces 14 royal defamation charges related to his speeches and online commentary calling for reforms of the monarchy. All of his bail applications have been denied. In August 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for his immediate release.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Thailand has ratified, protects the right to freedom of expression. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the covenant, has stated in its General Comment No. 34 that laws such as those for lese majeste “should not provide for more severe penalties solely on the basis of the identity of the person that may have been impugned” and that governments “should not prohibit criticism of institutions.”

Thailand, a current member of the UN Human Rights Council, supported multiple recommendations regarding freedom of expression from its 2021 Universal Periodic Review, but has made no progress implementing them. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has opposed efforts to reform Penal Code section 112. His conservative Bhum Jai Thai Party, which won the general election on February 8, has rejected a proposal to pardon those charged with lese majeste or to adopt a moratorium on prosecutions and pretrial detention of people under the law.

“The abuse of lese majeste charges in Thailand should end and all those held should be released,” Pearson said. “As Thailand prepares to have its human rights record reviewed at the UN Human Rights Council in November, the United Nations and concerned governments should urge Thailand to promote free expression and other fundamental freedoms rather than suppress them.”

Click to expand Image Syrian security forces take control of al-Hol camp in the desert region of al-Hasakah Province, Syria, on January 21, 2026, following the withdrawal of Kurdish forces the previous day. © 2026 Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto via AP Photo

(Beirut) – The wellbeing of about 8,500 people held in camps housing families of men suspected of Islamic State (ISIS) affiliation in northeast Syria remains uncertain, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 30, 2026, the Syrian government announced that the camps, called al-Hol and Roj, would be imminently closed. After control of al-Hol was transferred to Syrian authorities on January 20, most residents reportedly left in a largely unplanned and chaotic manner, and authorities said on February 22 that they had fully evacuated and shut down the camp. 

The camps have long held thousands of women and children, most of whom have never been charged with a crime and were detained for years in life-threatening conditions because their countries failed to repatriate them. 

“For years, many governments claimed that difficulties negotiating with a non-state actor in charge of the camps was why they couldn’t repatriate their citizens, but now that excuse won’t hold,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Seven years is a long time to kick the can down the road. These countries need to bring their citizens home.”

Until mid-January, the camps housed approximately 28,000 people. About 12,500 are foreigners from more than 60 countries; 4,000 of them are Iraqi. Roj camp remains under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and is also expected to close. 

Human Rights Watch spoke with four foreign women in the camps and five employees of organizations working in the camps between November 2025 and February 2026.

Since the government took control of al-Hol on January 20, the population has dropped, with many people leaving in a largely unplanned and chaotic manner.

In Roj camp, those interviewed said that guards have conducted near-nightly raids, beating and threatening detainees, and separating boys from their mothers. 

While ending arbitrary and indefinite detention in the camps is long overdue, the way these departures have unfolded has exposed women and children to serious risks, including trafficking, exploitation, and recruitment by armed groups, Human Rights Watch said. Syrian authorities should prioritize identifying and protecting those who have left, ensuring safe shelter, access to health care, psychosocial support, and child protection services, and establishing individualized screening procedures that respect due process and avoid punitive or discriminatory treatment.

Three women in Roj camp, which houses 2,300 foreign women and children, said they have been experiencing near nightly raids by the Asayish, Kurdish internal security forces, which involve beatings, destruction of property, verbal harassment, and threats, theft, and extortion.

On February 9, one woman said, armed men kidnapped her neighbor’s two sons and refused to return them unless their mother paid US$2,000. “When they returned the boys, the oldest one was beaten and bloody,” she said.

A Trinidadian woman said that on January 31, “a big entourage of cars started coming in” around 11 p.m., with security forces “shooting in the air” then banging on tents and ordering women to come out. She said the women were gathered in a playground in freezing temperatures while guards insulted them. 

She said that boys age 11 and over were separated from their mothers and beaten and quoted a guard saying, “this is the last day you are going to see these boys, we are going to take them away and kill them.” She said guards forced the boys to put their heads down and arms behind their backs “like prisoners,” while searching women in groups. “They started ripping off people’s jackets. They started slapping me and hitting my head, pulling off my hijab.” She said the raid lasted four and a half hours.

On February 12, she said that the raids and beatings continued. 

Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify these accounts, though aid workers reported hearing similar concerns.

Human Rights Watch asked the SDF for comment but has not received a response as of the time of publication. 

Since the fall of the Assad government in Syria, the US-led coalition against ISIS supporting has stepped up its efforts to facilitate the repatriation of foreigners through the establishment of a Joint Repatriation Cell. 

“[Bosnian authorities] carried out one repatriation in 2019 of a few women and children while leaving the rest of us without explanation,” said a woman who said her parents have been seeking her release for two years. “We feel discriminated against because we are the same citizens of Bosnia and our basic rights are being violated.” 

While some countries have long ignored the call to repatriate their citizens, others are trying to ensure that their citizens are never able to return. The United Kingdom and Denmark have revoked the citizenship of many or some of their nationals, leaving several stateless. Australia has recently confirmed that it will not support the repatriation of 34 Australian women and children with alleged links to ISIS, with the government saying it will provide “absolutely no support.” Australian authorities have also issued a temporary exclusion order against at least one citizen in the camps, leaving the person effectively stateless. 

Human Rights Watch has found that many of the children who were returned to their countries are reintegrating successfully.

Some women in the camps do not want to return. Uyghurs, Afghanis, or Iranians may be at risk of refoulement (mistreatment) if returned. For these women, a proper resettlement plan is needed, Human Rights Watch said.

Other women fear they will be separated from their children if they are detained in their home countries. “This will by default happen to 100 percent of the women who will be prosecuted upon return,” said Beatrice Eriksson, cofounder of Repatriate the Children. “These women have been 24/7 with their children since they were born, and in many cases, they are the only caregiver. Many say they don’t want to add that trauma of separation to their children when they have already gone through so much, but what is the alternative? Stay in Syria and settle there?” 

Iraq ramped up repatriation efforts following the fall of the Syrian Assad government in December 2024. At its peak in 2019, al-Hol housed around 31,000 Iraqis. On February 9, Iraq’s National Security Adviser, Qasim al-Araji, said Iraq had repatriated all but 300 to 350 families from al-Hol. Iraqis are transferred to a camp in Ninewa Governorate, for security screening and rehabilitation. 

Separately, on January 21, United States armed forces began transferring 5,700 male detainees, including Syrians, Iraqis, and third country nationals, from northeast Syria to Iraq for trial. Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said they include 157 boys under 18. A few hundred other boys and young men are held in so-called rehabilitation centers, most after being forcibly separated from their mothers in the camps. 

All governments should urgently ensure the repatriation of their nationals. Pending repatriation and possible camp closures, all parties to the conflict should cooperate to ensure the well-being of camp residents and take urgent steps to improve the dire conditions. Anyone unlawfully detained should be immediately released or detained according to law including ensuring full due process rights for anyone charged with crimes. 

“After years of terrible conditions in the camps, women and children are fleeing in fear, with nothing, and could risk further ill-treatment,” Coogle said. “Unless there is evidence they have committed a crime, all residents regardless of nationality need to be given support to return, reintegrate, rehabilitate, and rebuild their lives.

Click to expand Image Cars drive through an intersection near a monument in Yaoundé, Cameroon, September12, 2025.  © 2025 Welba Yamo Pascal/AP Photo

Cameroonian authorities are arbitrarily detaining non-Cameroonian nationals deported from the United States and detaining and abusing journalists who tried to interview them. But US President Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t seem to care.

In January and February, under a secret agreement, the US government deported to Cameroon 17 men and women—including asylum seekers and a stateless person—from 9 African countries: Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe.

Cameroonian authorities immediately detained the deportees, despite having no legal basis for doing so. A lawyer assisting some of the deportees said representatives from United Nations agencies spoke to them about the possibility of seeking asylum in Cameroon. However, the deportees told the lawyer they felt pressured to return to their countries of origin.

Several deportees were ineligible for asylum in the US but had court-ordered protections against deportation to their countries of origin due to fears of persecution or torture. The Trump administration circumvented these protections by sending them to a third country – one that Human Rights Watch and others have consistently said is unsafe for deportations.

For years, parts of Cameroon have been wracked by violence and armed conflict, the government has cracked down on opposition and the media, and armed groups and government forces have committed widespread abuses, including torture in detention. In 2022, we documented how Cameroonian asylum seekers deported by the US experienced harms in Cameroon after their return.

Cameroon is party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has national refugee legislation, yet two people the US sent to Cameroon have already returned to their country of origin. Fifteen remain in detention in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé. The forced or coerced return of anyone to a country where they face risks of persecution, torture, or other serious harm is refoulement, prohibited under international law.

The Cameroonian government should immediately release the remaining deportees, ensure protection from refoulement, and arrange their return to the US. It should also respect freedom of the press and hold relevant authorities accountable for abuses.

Given the risks of torture, refoulement, and other abuses in Cameroon, the US violated international law by deporting people there. US courts and Congress should press for the return of those deported to Cameroon and for an end to deportation agreements with third countries, which lack safeguards and have consistently resulted in abuses.

Click to expand Image A 17-year-old Carrefour resident, associated with a criminal group, stands on a terrace, gazing out over the horizon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 2024. © 2024 Nathalye Cotrino/Human Rights Watch

A new United Nations report details how criminal groups in Haiti are exploiting the near-total absence of the state, as well as widespread hunger and violence, to recruit children who then face abuse. These criminal groups traffic children by using threats and material incentives to force them into criminal activity, sexual abuse, and sexual slavery.

At least 26 criminal groups operate in and around Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where an estimated 500,000 children live in areas under their control. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently stated that child recruitment tripled in 2025, with children estimated to make up between 30 to 50 percent of criminal groups.

According to the new report, issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, these groups use children in often dangerous roles that help strengthen the groups’ power and profits. Boys are deployed as lookouts to track police movements, forced to transport weapons and ammunition, collect extortion payments, and take part in kidnappings and fighting. Some are subjected to violent initiation rites, the report says, including beatings and forced participation in killings and rapes, which appear designed to “isolate the children from their families and communities.”

The report found that girls as young as 12 face sexual exploitation and sexual slavery, including in the form of coerced “relationships” with criminal group members. While they are often forced to perform domestic work, some are also used to gather intelligence, assist in criminal operations, and in certain groups wield weapons. Children who attempt to escape, as well as their families, risk violent retaliation.

These findings are consistent with Human Rights Watch’s documentation of serious abuses against children by criminal groups and the failure of Haitian authorities to prioritize children’s protection and rehabilitation. Social protection programs cover only a small number of vulnerable households. Schools, which should be protective spaces, remain closed in many areas that criminal groups control.

Haitian transitional authorities should strengthen social protection programs for families in vulnerable situations, ensure schools can function as safe spaces, expand access to psychosocial care, and develop community-based reintegration programs for children who experience serious abuse.

Without immediate action to help children leave criminal groups and reintegrate into communities safely, the criminal groups will continue to profit from exploiting them. Through sustained reforms and strong international support, Haiti can begin to restore trust in state institutions and break the cycle of abuse.

Click to expand Image A coal-fired plant in the town of Poca near the Kanawha River, in West Virginia, US, August 28, 2018. © 2018 John Ray/AP Photo

US President Donald Trump’s administration today rolled back another air-pollution protection, this time for one of the most toxic substances on earth: mercury.

The action reverses then-President Joe Biden’s decision in 2024 to reduce the levels of allowable mercury air emissions for coal-fired power plants, restoring them to their previous levels. Trump had already given dozens of US power plants a presidential exemption, which environmental rights groups contend is illegal, to postpone attempts to meet the 2024 standards even before today’s repeal.

The previous policy increased monitoring and reporting requirements as well as restrictions on extra-toxic lignite, the most polluting form of coal. Lignite also contains the highest levels of mercury; microorganisms absorb mercury from air pollution, which then flows up the food chain as methylmercury. Studies show that even very low levels of methylmercury have “no threshold of safety.”

Because mercury is such a dangerous poison that needs regulation, Human Rights Watch has long done research and advocacy on the heavy metal and considers it a global rights concern. Mercury is a highly toxic substance that attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children. Exposure is also of concern to pregnant people as it is especially damaging to developing brains and the toxin crosses the placental barrier into the fetus. Mercury also passes through breastmilk and across the brain-blood barrier easily. The damage is irreversible and lasts a lifetime.

Reducing mercury pollution in the United States—which ratified the 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury—has been a public health success and an important example of making regulation work. The Trump administration’s loosening of restrictions for the coal industry’s benefit won’t make all progress disappear, but it is an important loss.

While the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, has publicly praised the administration’s deregulation campaign, these destructive actions are a setback for maternal and child health—among the most sensitive developmental stages, affecting people throughout their lives.

Click to expand Image Relatives of a person who went missing after a migrant boat sank on February 26 on the beach near where the shipwreck took place off the coast of Steccato di Cutro, near Crotone, in Calabria in southern Italy. March 7, 2023.  © 2023 Alfonso Di Vincenzo/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images

In the early morning hours of February 26, 2023, the Summer Love shipwrecked off the coast of Calabria, Italy. At least 94 people, including 35 children, died in what is known as the Cutro shipwreck. According to survivors, the boat was carrying up to 250 people, most from Afghanistan, Syria, and Pakistan.

The anniversary comes after the deadliest January in the Mediterranean Sea in over a decade. The International Organization for Migration estimates that at least 454 people died or went missing in the Mediterranean in January alone, nearly one-third of the 1,340 estimate for all of 2025.

In recent days, 15 corpses have washed up on the shores of Calabria and Sicily, presumed victims of the devastating Cyclone Harry in mid-January that likely claimed hundreds if not a thousand lives at sea.

January also saw the beginning of the trial of two Italian Coast Guard officers and four Customs Police (Guardia di Finanza) officers, all of whom were accused of negligence leading to a shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter for the Cutro shipwreck, a rare opportunity for accountability. Survivors and families of the victims deserve to see justice done.

According to the UN, at least 34,129 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014. The EU’s deadly border policies, combined with Italy and other EU countries’ failure to respond appropriately to migrant boats in distress—as allegedly was the case in the Cutro shipwreck, the June 2023 shipwreck near Pylos, Greece, and the recent boat disaster near Chios, Greece—have contributed to this staggering death toll.

The EU has abdicated its responsibilities for search and rescue at sea while simultaneously deputizing countries with abusive policies like Libya and Tunisia. EU governments criminalize nongovernmental rescue groups and violently push people back at EU borders.

We can only guess the actual number of people who have died in the Mediterranean. Even the lowest estimates reveal the unconscionable record of the EU’s failures.

At a time when the rights-based international order is under threat and xenophobia seems all too common, it can feel quixotic to call for humane and rational migration policies. But they are possible and they start with saving lives.

Click to expand Image North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers a speech during the ruling Workers’ Party Congress in Pyongyang, February 19, 2026. © 2026 Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Photo

(New York) – North Korea’s ninth Party Congress started on February 20, 2026, amid escalating repression of young people, strict control of information, and widespread forced labor, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea is the country’s most important political meeting. Party Congresses have historically occurred irregularly: the last three were in 1980, 2016, and 2021. Past Party Congresses have set ideological direction, reset policy, and consolidated political power. North Korea has no competitive political parties, and the Workers’ Party of Korea controls all state institutions.

“North Korea’s leadership claims the Party Congress will shape the country’s future, but this is most likely a message of fear, coercion, and deprivation,” said Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should address economic hardship, lack of opportunity, and barriers to health care, instead of silencing youth and extracting labor through coercion.”

Since the last Party Congress, in 2021, the government has increased repression, with ideological and information controls focusing on young people. The authorities have also tightened market restrictions that deepened economic inequality between rural and Pyongyang residents, continued the widespread use of unpaid forced labor, and deployed about 11,000 soldiers to Russia for combat under abusive conditions.

Official statements support the tighter control over youth. In January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un praised young people who subordinated their “precious dreams” to state demands, including their involuntary deployment to “difficult and labor-consuming” overseas worksites and military operations, a reference to the war in Ukraine. He framed obedience and sacrifice as core civic virtues, while condemning the “moral depravity” of young people abroad.

Since 2021, the government has aggressively enforced legislation that criminalizes access to foreign information and cultural expression, including the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law, the Youth Education Guarantee Law, and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law. These laws ban watching or sharing foreign media, using South Korean expressions or accents, and “non-socialist” styles of singing, dressing, or getting married, with punishments ranging from forced labor to long prison sentences or including execution.

People who have fled the country have reported a sharp escalation in punishments for information-related offenses, particularly affecting young people. Kim Il-hyuk, a rice trader from South Hwanghae province who left North Korea in 2023, told Human Rights Watch that “[relatively] tech-savvy young people were especially targeted for surveillance” in his hometown. He described witnessing the public execution of a 22-year-old man in 2022 for listening to South Korean songs and sharing foreign media.

Foreign-based media with contacts in North Korea have similarly documented intensified crackdowns on youth language, cultural expression, and access to foreign media, through government propaganda at schools, workplaces, and Workers’ Party youth league organizations.

Prior to previous Party Congresses, the authorities intensified mass mobilization campaigns to demonstrate loyalty and produce visible achievements. In late January, state media reported the country was “accelerating” preparations for the meeting, as workers rushed to complete factories and infrastructure development. These preparations have relied on unpaid labor through labor quotas imposed on workers, students, and children, with punishment for failing to meet targets.

The impact of government repression is compounded by North Korea’s songbun system, a discriminatory socio-political system that, although never publicly acknowledged as a formal policy, has long been promoted by the party and embedded in ideology and governance. Songbun determines access to food, housing, education, health care, and employment. During periods of heightened political control, people the party deems politically unreliable face greater risk of deprivation, harsher punishment, and limited ability to avoid forced labor.

These abuses occur amid chronic food insecurity, malnutrition, and limited access to health care, disproportionally affecting children, people with disabilities, and older people from lower songbun categories. North Korean state media has reported that Kim Jong Un has acknowledged disparities in living standards and access to public services, promoting large-scale construction of hospitals and medical facilities in underdeveloped areas. However, these projects rely heavily on forced labor and mandatory donations from the population, and health care facilities face continued shortages of medicine, equipment, and trained staff.

In 2014, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that North Korean authorities committed crimes against humanity based on state policy. The UN human rights office in 2025 reported that repression has worsened in North Korea over the past decade, and in 2024 it found the government’s use of forced labor was widespread and in some instances may constitute the crime against humanity of enslavement.

Kim Jong Un’s government should use the Party Congress to publicly commit to reforms that would end criminal penalties for accessing information, halt forced labor mobilizations, abolish discriminatory practices linked to songbun, and allow independent international monitoring of the country’s human rights and humanitarian situation.

Foreign governments should support accountability efforts at the UN, increase support for human rights monitoring groups abroad, assist those who have fled North Korea, and press for independent access to monitor human rights in the country.

“Concerned governments should ensure that violations of human rights, particularly the repression of young people, is central to all discussions with North Korea,” Yoon said. “The Party Congress should reinforce that need, not be a distraction from it.”

Click to expand Image Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych wearing a helmet honoring Ukrainian athletes killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine during skeleton training at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Italy, February 9, 2026. © 2026 Press Association via AP Photo

The disqualification of the Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych from the 2026 Winter Olympics shines a critical light on Rule 50 (2) of the Olympic Charter prohibiting political, racial, or religious “propaganda” at Olympic venues. He was disqualified for wearing a helmet displaying images of Ukrainian athletes killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The decision by the Ad Hoc Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an Olympic panel, while rejecting Heraskevych’s appeal, sympathizes with his motivation to commemorate those who have died. But it found the Athlete Expression Guidelines to be reasonable, proportionate, and correctly applied in this case.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, an Afghan athlete, Manizha Talash, was disqualified after displaying the message “Free Afghan Women,” highlighting denial of rights to millions of women and girls under Taliban rule. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s interest in keeping playing grounds free from political propaganda is a legitimate aim, and freedom of speech is not absolute. However, there is a case to be made that commemorating the dead, whether from war, disease, or sexual violence, is not a political statement that could legitimately be banned. 

The war has undeniably devastated Ukraine’s sports community, severely limiting athletes’ ability to train and compete, including at the Olympic level. Ukrainian authorities reported in February that more than 650 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed, and that Russian attacks have destroyed over 800 sports facilities, including training centers for Olympians and Paralympians. Many athletes now train without reliable electricity, heat, or water, often amid air sirens and shelling as attacks on their home cities continue.

Athletes do not surrender their human rights in competition and should not feel censored from speaking out on human rights, social justice, racism, or bigotry at the risk of losing all they have trained for. Indeed in 2022, the IOC amended the Olympic Charter to acknowledge their responsibility to abide by “respect for internationally recognized human rights” and adopted a Strategic Framework on Human Rights.

The IOC and other international sports bodies need to assess the human-rights impact of their rules and ensure they protect both the integrity of competition and fundamental rights. Rules designed to keep sport free from propaganda should not silence remembrance of victims or expression about serious human rights abuses. 

Click to expand Image Demonstrators mark the anniversary of a far-right extremist attack on February 19, 2020 in Hanau, Germany, that killed nine persons of predominantly Muslim background, February 17, 2024. © 2024 Hasan Bratic, picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Six years ago, on February 19, 2020, a far-right extremist shot and killed nine and injured six people predominantly of Muslim background in Hanau, Germany. The attack was motivated by racism and Islamophobia.

Today, we remember: 

Ferhat Unvar

Hamza Kurtović

Said Nesar Hashemi

Vili Viorel Păun

Mercedes Kierpacz

Kaloyan Velkov

Fatih Saraçoğlu

Sedat Gürbüz

Gökhan Gültekin

The attack in Hanau was not an isolated racist hate incident. Official statistics reflect a steep rise of racist, antisemitic, and Islamophobic hate crime, with actual numbers of incidents expected to be much higher. Systemic anti-Muslim discrimination remains to be a daily reality in Germany as a result of ineffective government protection of Muslims and persons perceived as such. Where protection falls short, groups targeted by hate crime will face an environment that can threaten their lives.

The authorities’ investigations into the attack were deeply flawed and, still today, there are unresolved questions about the police’s response when some victims called the emergency hotline as the incident unfolded. A comprehensive official investigation has not been conducted and, six years later, victims’ families are still fighting for accountability.

The families’ efforts to commemorate their loved ones have also come under attack after they criticized political actors.

Bereaved families, survivors, and supporters founded the Initiative 19. Februar Hanau as well as individual initiatives in victims’ names. These grassroots groups have become a central, survivor‑led force in the advocacy for remembrance, justice, and full accountability. Ahead of the sixth anniversary, the initiative is once again calling for commemorations and acts of solidarity across Germany.

Serpil Temiz Unvar, the mother of Ferhat Unvar, said last year that these initiatives “have contributed to society coming together in this case more than in similar events in the past. But these individual efforts, as important as they are, are not enough to bring about fundamental societal transformation.”

A 2023 government-commissioned report on anti-Muslim hostility in Germany—following the Hanau attack—showed the widespread nature of hatred and discrimination affecting Muslims and persons perceived as such and outlined concrete recommendations for government action.

However, the German government is not taking action. As far-right political forces gain strength in Germany, the government should finally take seriously the threats against racialized communities and support civil society fighting for their protection every day.

The government should invest in protecting Muslims and all other minority communities in Germany, such as through sustained funding for independent, community‑based protection and support centers, because it is ultimately an investment in the safety and cohesion of the entire society.

Click to expand Image Gailon Lawson, from Trinidad and Tobago, poses for a portrait at Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria, March 31, 2019. © 2019 AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo

Since 2019, more than 90 Trinidad and Tobago nationals, including at least 50 children, have been arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria for alleged links to the Islamic State (ISIS). After enduring years of life-threatening conditions, their situation in recent weeks has only gotten worse.

Trinidadian women detained in Syria’s Roj camp, which is under control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, recently reported to Human Rights Watch what they described as escalating abuses by Asayish, Kurdish internal security forces, including night raids, beatings, threats, and degrading treatment. In a message to Human Rights Watch, one woman described armed men entering the camp late at night, firing into the air, forcing women and children from their tents at gunpoint, separating boys from their mothers, and beating the children. “It’s the most humiliated and powerless I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” she said. She said the men beat her as well and shouted, “You will never be free. You are garbage. You’ve failed your children. They are going to die.” The attack continued for four hours.

More than 40,000 foreigners from 60 countries have been held in camps and other detention facilities in northeast Syria since the fall of ISIS in 2018-2019. Since then, at least 40 countries have repatriated more than 12,000 of their nationals. Despite numerous promises to repatriate its own nationals, Trinidad and Tobago has only accepted back two boys in April 2025.

Most Trinidadian detainees are children who never chose to live under ISIS. Many were taken to Syria by parents who sought to join ISIS or live in the “caliphate.” Thirty or more were born in Syria. Not one Trinidadian being held in northeast Syria has been charged with a crime or had access to a judge to challenge their detention, which is unlawful.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago has long cited the difficulty of engaging with a nonstate armed group controlling the camps as a barrier to repatriation. As control of the area shifts and international engagement with Syria’s transitional authorities increases, that justification is less convincing.

The lives of dozens of Trinidadian women and children are hanging in the balance.

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar should act immediately to bring the country’s detained nationals home.

Click to expand Image Exterior of the Swedish Migration Agency's offices in Stockholm, March 9, 2022.  © 2022 ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

Ayla, 21, Jomana, 18, and Ilya, 19, came to Sweden as children, though at different ages and under different circumstances. Today they face the same reality: all have been ordered to leave the country alone while their families remain.

These cases stem from Sweden’s increasingly restrictive migration policy, under which young people who turn 18 before obtaining permanent residency are no longer considered part of their parents’ family unit. The Swedish Migration Agency states that residency based on parental ties is granted only in exceptional cases involving “special dependency.” A normal parent-child relationship is not sufficient.

On February 17, 2025, a multiparty proposal to stop these deportations did not gain a majority in the Parliamentary Committee on Social Insurance, despite cross-party recognition that the practice separates families.

Jomana Gad, 18, arrived in Sweden at age 4 and faces deportation to Egypt. “I have my whole life here,” she told media, describing her hopes for education and work. Ayla Rostami, 21, who arrived at 15, recalls seeing Sweden as a place of freedom. Ilya Taheraki, 19, came at age 8 and applied for permanent residency at 15. He was rejected days after turning 18. He and Ayla now face deportation to Iran. 

Young people cannot be deported from Sweden if they have permanent residency, but many children spend years in the country on temporary permits. Combined with long processing times and increasingly restrictive policies—including stricter family reunification rules, higher income requirements, and narrowed humanitarian protection such as limits on “particularly distressing circumstances”—the safeguards that keep families together have weakened. As a result, some “age out” at 18 and lose their right to remain in the country as they can no longer claim residency based on ties to their parents. 

Sweden is a party to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, under which failing to prioritize the best interest of the child and to protect the private and family lives of children and young adults within the context of immigration is a violation of the country’s international legal obligations. 

Instead, Sweden should halt deportations that separate young adults from their families and ensure children’s asylum and family reunification cases are processed without delays that cause them to age out of protection. The government should also create clear pathways to residency reflecting the years individuals have spent in Sweden, including schooling and community ties, and reintroduce humanitarian grounds for “particularly distressing circumstances.” 

Click to expand Image Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers remarks at the 2024 National Healthcare Congress at the Kremlin, in Moscow, October 29, 2024. © 2024 Mikhail Sinitsyn/Kremlin Pool/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock Russian authorities are restricting access to safe abortion care and limiting the ability of women and girls to get accurate information about their reproductive choices.Russian authorities are jeopardizing women’s rights, health, and even lives, as part of their harmful “traditional values” crusade and effort to boost population growth.These policies reduce access to quality medical care and violate the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Russian authorities should bring their policies and regulations in line with international law and reproductive care standards.

(Berlin) – Russian authorities are restricting access to safe abortion care and limiting the ability of women and girls to get accurate information about their reproductive choices, Human Rights Watch said today.

Authorities at all levels have openly pressured private clinics to stop performing abortions, toughened licensing requirements, revoked their licenses, and reclassified drugs used in medical abortion as controlled substances, making them harder to access. The Health Ministry’s 2025 guidelines for medical professionals, applicable to both public and private facilities, pressure women seeking an abortion to continue the pregnancy.

“Russian authorities are jeopardizing women’s rights, health, and even lives, as part of their harmful ‘traditional values’ crusade and effort to boost population growth,” said Holly Cartner, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “Although abortions in Russia are not banned outright, accessing this essential health service is becoming increasingly difficult.”

An analysis of government data exposes an egregious increase in restrictions on abortion care since 2023. There has been a dramatic drop in the number of facilities willing and able to provide such care, undermining women’s and girls’ rights to life, to health, and personal autonomy.

Although abortion is still legal in Russia, authorities have banned the “promotion” of a “child-free lifestyle” and, in many regions, “incitement” to abortion. In October 2025, the government announced the imminent creation of a special register to track pregnancies and their outcomes, which would violate women and girls’ right to privacy.

Access to safe abortion care is a core public health and human rights concern. Denying access to abortion is a form of discrimination and jeopardizes a range of human rights, including to life, health, and information; to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; to privacy and bodily autonomy and integrity; and to decide the number and spacing of children. Abortion bans force pregnant people to self-manage abortion or travel greater distances for abortion care. Such bans are harmful to women’s and infant health, including resulting in increased mortality.

In recent years, with the birth rate reaching the lowest numbers in decades, the Kremlin has advanced the ideology of “traditional family values,” which presents a family strictly as a heterosexual pair with multiple children and designates a woman’s role primarily as that of wife and mother. When promoting 2024 as “Year of the Family” in Russia, President Vladimir Putin emphasized that, “The main purpose of the family is about having children, about procreation, and thus, the perpetuation of our people and our centuries-old history.”

In Russia, abortion care is legal up to 12 weeks on request, up to 22 weeks in cases of rape, and at any time for valid medical reasons. Abortion is free under the country’s universal health insurance in public facilities and for a fee in private commercial clinics licensed to provide abortion care. Reproductive services are guaranteed as part of the right to health under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Russia enforces a waiting period of two to seven days, depending on the term of pregnancy, between the initial medical consultation and the abortion, ostensibly to prevent women from “making a rash decision,” but which in reality is often used to pressure women to reconsider, in line with the Health Ministry’s mandatory counselling guidelines. Mandatory waiting periods delay abortion and create logistical hurdles by requiring multiple visits to a clinic. These obstacles can be especially harmful for those already facing significant barriers, including adolescent girls.

Russian law allows girls ages 15 to 17 to access abortion independently in public health facilities, but younger girls need a parent or guardian’s authorization. Under civil law, girls under 18 need parental or guardian consent to receive any health services in private clinics, including abortion care. Parents or guardians can request and receive health information on their children, including on pregnancy, until the child turns 18. Human Rights Watch has documented extensively that forced parental involvement in abortion exposes adolescents to harm and delays their care.

Regional authorities across Russia, following federal efforts to boost birth rates, have increasingly pressured private clinics to give up their abortion licenses, resorting to threats or coercion. This pressure, coupled with burdensome requirements on the clinics, severely limits the availability and geographical accessibility of abortion care. Over 200 clinics across the country have lost their licenses to perform abortion since 2023, but the number that stopped providing abortion services is even higher. In January, Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Patriarchate’s Commission on Family, Motherhood, and Childhood, under the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, reported that at least 852 private clinics had, with the “assistance” of governors and the church, “voluntarily” stopped providing abortion care. In some regions, the availability of abortion services decreased radically.

Vologda region has put in place a de facto ban on abortion, forcing women to travel to another region, which is especially hard for those from rural areas, those with low incomes, and young and marginalized women, who often already face the greatest barriers to accessing care.

The government’s policy to promote population growth has led to public hospitals increasingly pressuring women to continue their pregnancies, including during mandatory consultations following a request for abortion. Clerics sometimes participate in these consultations, arguing that abortion is killing and therefore, a grave sin.

In many regions, government authorities offer medical professionals financial and other incentives to convince women to continue a pregnancy. Some medical professionals have incorrectly told women that abortions very often cause infertility. Mandatory counseling, biased information, and the involvement of clerics in clinical decision making are inconsistent with World Health Organization (WHO) guidance and violate standards of informed consent and noncoercion.

Discussion of reproductive autonomy and abortion is increasingly under attack, and anti-abortion rhetoric is rampant in Kremlin-controlled media. In 2024, the State Duma outlawed “child-free propaganda,” and in January 2025, a court fined a woman under this law for a social media post with a photo of a prominent film director who supposedly wanted to “make movies, not children.” Since 2023, regional legislators in at least 25 regions made “incitement to abortion” a punishable offense, and a similar federal draft is under discussion at this writing. In December 2025, a judge in Saransk fined a local resident under the region’s “incitement to abortion” ban for offering to pay for his partner’s abortion.

These policies are reducing access to quality medical care and violate the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Restrictions on discussion of and access to reproductive rights, including family planning and abortion information, violate the right to freedom of expression.

“Access to quality reproductive care, including safe abortion, is a human right,” Cartner said. “Russian authorities should bring their policies and regulations in line with international law and reproductive care standards.”

For additional details, please see below.

Methodology

Human Rights Watch generated data on the number of facilities licensed to conduct abortions by comparing the October 2025 register of medical licenses to an archived version dated October 2023, provided by the Center for Data and Research on Russia, a research group. A researcher coded the facilities as either public or private, and their locations. Based on this data, Human Rights Watch found evidence of a significant reduction in the number of both private and public facilities licensed to conduct abortions.

The data does not allow researchers to establish how many, or which clinics lost their licenses due to the authorities’ intervention, gave up their licenses in light of new, more cumbersome and costly requirements coupled with pressure by the authorities (ad hoc inspections, hostile rhetoric, etc.), or gave up their licenses for other reasons. The data also does not provide information about how many facilities still provide abortion care in practice.

Human Rights Watch also sourced information from media reports, databases of regional laws, data from the state procurement portal, and government statistics through November 2025. The researchers did not interview affected women or medical professionals to avoid putting them at greater risk but included relevant comments from social media.

Growing Number of Clinics Refuse Abortion Services

Since 2017, Russian medical facilities have been required to have a specific license to provide abortion care. Recently the government has intentionally strictly enforced onerous licensing requirements, which include having an operating room, an in-patient ward, an anesthesiologist, and an emergency care doctor in attendance, and healthcare protocols, such as mandatory psychological consultations. During this period, over 200 medical facilities have terminated or lost their licenses. The licensing burden may disincentivize clinics and hospitals from providing this essential health service.

In seven Russian regions and in Russia-occupied Crimea, not a single private clinic is currently licensed to provide abortion services, based on Human Rights Watch’s analysis of the licensing register maintained by the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare. The head of Crimea’s Health Ministry under occupying authorities said that, as a result of their “deliberate, systemic work,” the last remaining private clinic in Crimea, where almost 2 million people live, stopped performing abortions in 2025. In October 2023, Crimea had 11 clinics licensed to provide abortion care.

Between 2023 and 2025, authorities in the Tver region, with a population of 1.2 million, and the Republic of Mordovia, with a population of 759,000, terminated abortion licenses in all local private clinics, 17 in Tver and 11 in Mordovia, respectively. Mordovia authorities also shut down abortion services in all public facilities except for three public hospitals in the regional capital, Saransk. In 2025, the only private clinic providing abortion care in the Magadan region, with a population of 135,000, lost its abortion license.

In the Nizhny Novgorod region, with a population of roughly 3 million, 54 out of 64 private clinics lost abortion licenses between 2023 and 2025. Between July and November 2025, 33 public hospitals in that region stopped performing abortions. In some Russian regions, private and even some public clinics still licensed to perform abortions had stopped providing the service by October 2025.

In March 2024, the Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Associations said it received numerous complaints from women in various regions that private clinics were denying abortion care. A government official in Tatarstan said that 19 licensed clinics had “voluntarily” stopped providing abortions in the region in 2023. In Zabaykalsky Krai, a region with close to a million residents, public medical facilities gave up abortion licenses en masse under pressure from regional health authorities. In 2023, 27 towns in the region had hospitals that provided abortion care, but by 2025, there were only 6.

In some cases, the authorities clearly stated their intention to restrict access to abortion. The Nizhny Novgorod region governor Gleb Nikitin, said “We are against making the path to this controversial decision [to have an abortion] simpler.”

The government’s pressure on private clinics is a core component of the efforts to curb access to abortion. Authorities in multiple regions reported that they were in negotiations with local clinics to convince them to stop performing abortions, and publicly demanded that the clinics “voluntarily” give up their abortion care licenses.

Andrei Turchak, the head of the Altai Republic, with a population over 2 million, also promised to restrict abortions in private clinics, in a post on his Telegram channel in October 2025. The last remaining private clinic providing abortion care in the region gave up its license after the governor publicly gave the clinic what he described as his “last warning.” Authorities also conducted inspections of clinics providing abortion care and cited many clinics for violations.

The Russian Orthodox Church has long advocated an abortion ban and works closely with the government by aggressively condemning abortions in their public rhetoric, suggesting legal initiatives to restrict abortions, and having priests participate in mandatory pre-abortion consultations with the aim of pressuring women to reconsider.

In October 2025, Pavel, metropolitan bishop of Primorye, called on local clinics to follow the example of 750 private clinics across the country, which he claimed had “voluntarily” stopped performing abortions; the regional governor supported the call. The head of the Patriarchate’s Commission on Family, Motherhood, and Childhood boasted that between February 2023 and January 2026, 852, or 30 percent of private clinics across Russia, stopped performing abortions.

Shrinking Access to Medical Abortion

According to the WHO, medical abortion can be safely self-managed by women, including at home, up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. However, medical abortion has become increasingly difficult to obtain in Russia, despite being recognized as safe and effective, typically using mifepristone and misoprostol. In 2024, the Health Ministry reclassified them as controlled substances, with the heavier requirements making their procurement and use more burdensome, and the increased probability of ad hoc inspections and penalties for alleged violations.

Mifepristone and misoprostol are part of the list of essential medicines by WHO, meaning that countries should provide them as part of their core obligations to guarantee the right to health, and governments should ensure that they are both available in adequate quantities and physically and financially accessible for those who need them. In light of the new restrictions in Russia, however, many clinics stopped administering mifepristone and misoprostol. In July 2025, Mikhail Murashko, the Russian Federation health minister, expressed satisfaction that, due to joint efforts by the ministry and the State Duma, abortion pills were “impossible to buy and banned from sale in pharmacies” across the country.

Some public hospitals provide only procedural abortion (dilation and suction curettage), not medical abortion. Medical professionals and women in several regions reported that some doctors, instead of providing medical abortion as requested, suggested that the patient should wait and get a procedural abortion later in the pregnancy. In April 2025, the Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Associations said it received complaints from women whom doctors had denied medical abortion.

In 2024, 81 percent of abortions on request provided by private clinics were medical abortions, compared with only 44 percent in Health Ministry hospitals, according to government statistics. In occupied Crimea, where not a single private clinic is currently licensed to perform abortions, only 23 percent of abortions on request in public hospitals in 2024 were medical abortions. In Dagestan, the figure is 12 percent. Medical statistics show that only 15 percent of girls ages 15 to 17 who had abortions in 2024 had medical abortions, almost all through private clinics.

In 2023, the Kursk region’s Deputy Governor Andrei Belostotskiy said that four local private clinics stopped performing medical abortions and expressed hope that all the remaining clinics would do the same.

In recent years, authorities have made it harder for clinics to provide medical abortion services by enforcing burdensome requirements to have an operating room, an in-patient ward, an anesthesiologist, and an emergency care doctor in attendance.

Refusals to Provide Abortions

In February, the governor of Vologda, a region with over a million residents, publicly shared his plan to put an end to abortions in the region. Subsequently, media outlets reported that medical personnel started to systematically and arbitrarily refuse to perform the procedure, in blatant violation of Russian law. Forcing women to continue pregnancies due to systemic or arbitrary refusals violates the right to health and, as human rights bodies have found, may amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

When local medical facilities refuse to provide abortions, women are forced to travel to other regions to obtain abortion care. Anna Minina, a woman in Vologda region, sought an abortion in February 2025. Minina told the feminist association “ONA” that medical professionals refused to provide abortion care, forcing her to travel over 200 kilometers to neighboring Yaroslavl to access abortion care. Another local resident said in an interview that she too was denied an abortion, despite undergoing all necessary procedures and consultations, and also had to travel to Yaroslavl.

Some regional and local officials continue to enforce Russia’s law guaranteeing access to abortion. Local prosecutors issued 19 formal warnings to Vologda health care facilities over the arbitrary refusals to perform abortions and brought at least two cases against hospitals. In one case, a hospital official testified in court that the regional health ministry had verbally instructed them to stop performing abortions. Judges found both hospitals guilty and imposed fines.

However, medical personnel continued to arbitrarily refuse to provide abortion care, and the governor stated that no abortions were performed in the region in July 2025, compared with 112 in July 2024.

On the regional government’s official social media page, numerous women criticized the reported “successes” in lowering abortion rates, pointing out that women who seek abortion care end up traveling to neighboring regions, such as Yaroslavl.

Pressure on Women and Girls to Continue a Pregnancy

Authorities and healthcare providers in many regions systematically gave women and girls biased and sometimes inaccurate information to dissuade them from having abortions, creating another arbitrary barrier to accessing abortion care. In July 2025, the federal Health Ministry updated reproductive counseling instructions for healthcare providers that make it mandatory for all women requesting an abortion to undergo a “consultation.”

The explicit purpose of the mandatory psychological “consultation” is to “save” the pregnancy. These guidelines portray Russia as a “global ideological center of support for traditional spiritual values” and instruct providers to emphasize the benefits to women of early childbearing and having multiple children.

They prohibit doctors from bringing up the option of abortion. If a woman or girl nevertheless insists on terminating the pregnancy, they are required to attend another session with a psychologist who, in violation of professional principles, is often set on persuading the patient to continue the pregnancy. As a psychologist from an Ivanovo hospital described it, “we bring in a lawyer and a priest, so that the woman could make the one and only correct choice, to keep the child.” The participation of priests in such “consultations” has been increasingly reported across the country.

Tatarstan officially launched the program of mandatory “consultations” in 2024, with 64 percent of women who had sought an abortion withdrawing their requests after “consultation,” double the number in 2023, according to the region’s health minister.

Chechnya and Ingushetia reported that 100 percent of women in those regions who had requested an abortion in February to September 2025 continued the pregnancy after a consultation. Dagestan apparently experienced a sudden and sharp increase in the withdrawal of abortion requests, reporting that in August and September 2025 that 99.75 percent of women who had sought an abortion instead registered for prenatal care, compared with an average of 52 percent earlier in the year.

Mandatory counseling, biased information, and religious involvement in clinical decision-making are inconsistent with WHO’s guidance and violate standards of informed consent and non-coercion.

According to the government’s own information, authorities in multiple regions provide financial incentives to doctors for not performing abortions. For example, in Vologda, doctors receive 5,000 roubles (US$64) for each woman they “convince” to continue the pregnancy, and a bonus of 25,000 roubles ($320) after the baby is delivered. Providing financial incentives to deter women from exercising a legal medical option violates international standards on informed consent and reproductive autonomy.

Abortion is a common health intervention and very safe when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration. However, Russian health officials and practitioners pressure women to continue pregnancies by falsely claiming that a large proportion of women experience infertility after an abortion. Some doctors and websites of medical facilities misinform their patients that 15, 20 and even 25 percent of women experience infertility following an abortion and that an abortion results in incurable psychological trauma.

Under international human rights law, everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes the right to seek and receive information concerning health issues, and to make informed decisions about their health care. Government refusal or failure to use scientifically and medically appropriate research and health education to inform health policy is inconsistent with its obligations to the public and undermines the right to health.

In October, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova announced the planned creation of a federal register in 2026 that will include all pregnant women and girls and the outcomes of their pregnancy—presumably, including abortion—“for monitoring purposes.” While Golikova emphasized that “all the data will be strictly protected,” Russian authorities have consistently failed to safeguard personal information, including medical records, and this new move threatens to undermine privacy rights and the obligation of governments to do no harm through collecting health data, which should be done with full transparency and in consultation with women and girls.

Anti-choice activists have intimidated and harassed doctors who perform abortions. They have also conducted “inspections” of medical facilities during which they attend pre-abortion consultations under false pretences and then report to the authorities whether doctors, in their view, made sufficient efforts to convince women to reconsider. They also organized “training,” including funded by the government, for medical personnel on how to convince women to continue the pregnancy.

Bans on “Incitement to Abortion”

Since 2023, 25 Russian regions have made “incitement to abortion” a punishable offense, based on a Human Rights Watch review of regional legislative databases. Under these laws, individuals face fines of up to 50,000 roubles ($632), and legal entities, up to 500,000 roubles ($6,325). Another five regions also ban incitement to abortion without any stipulated penalties. At least 19 other regional parliaments are also considering such bans.

Most bar “incitement” through deceit, persuasion, bribery, or suggestion. Six extend the definition of incitement to “other” methods, creating additional risk of broad and arbitrary application. The head of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection criticized the definition in regional legislation as “unclear,” expressing concern that it could apply even to discussions with close relatives, but this has not led to any changes in these laws.

In December, a judge in Saransk fined a local resident 5,000 roubles ($63) under Mordovia’s “incitement to abortion” ban. The charges stemmed from allegations by his partner that he offered to pay for an abortion when she told him she was pregnant with twins. Mordovia was the first region to outlaw such “incitement” in 2023.

Legislators are already discussing the introduction of a similar federal law. Russia’s federal “gay propaganda” law, adopted in 2013, had been preceded by “gay propaganda” prohibitions in several regions.

In November 2024, Russia adopted a law to ban “childfree [lifestyle] propaganda.” In December 2024, anti-extremism police in Russia-occupied Sevastopol brought charges under the law against a woman over her old social media post that supposedly promoted “forgoing childbearing in favor of a carefree lifestyle.” The “offending” post, which the authorities described as “misanthropic,” featured a photo of a prominent film director who supposedly wanted to “make movies, not children.” In January 2025, a Russia-installed court fined her 50,000 rubles ($632). 

Russia’s Obligations Under International Human Rights Law

As a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Russia has legal obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. These include the duty to ensure the availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of health facilities, goods, and services. This requires states parties to ensure “the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas concerning health issues.”

In its General Comment No. 22 on the right to sexual and reproductive health, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said that the right to sexual and reproductive health is “indivisible from and interdependent with other human rights” and “essential to the realization of the full range of [women’s] human rights.” It has also specified that sexual and reproductive health care and information should be characterized by non-discrimination; physical, financial, and information accessibility; and a lack of barriers.

Both this committee and the committee that oversees compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women found that denying women and girls access to safe abortion, including abortion on request, can violate their rights, including their rights to life and health. In some cases, barriers to abortion access may even amount to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. 

The CEDAW Committee has highlighted that failing to provide necessary services that specifically affect women constitutes a violation of reproductive rights and discrimination. To comply with these international standards, states need to dismantle discriminatory practices and legal restrictions that prevent equitable access to reproductive health services. The treaty also requires states to eliminate discriminatory gender stereotypes, including those that portray women primarily as mothers, which underpin many of Russia’s current policies and narratives on “traditional values.”

Click to expand Image Hasael on his fishing boat moving through a mangrove forest in Siargao, Philippines, 2025. © 2025 Camille Robiou du Pont/Human Rights Watch   The Philippine authorities have sought to permanently move entire communities from various areas to sites deemed safer, without adhering to international standards aimed at protecting the rights of those affected.Past failures in the region underscore the urgent need for authorities to ensure inclusive, rights-based solutions, including through fully consulting those affected.The Philippines government should develop rights-respecting planned relocation, and international organizations and donors should provide their support.

(Tokyo) – Philippine authorities relocating communities displaced in 2021 by Typhoon Odette have ignored the rights of residents, especially those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said today. Initiatives for relocation on Siargao island in the southern Philippines have lacked meaningful consultation, accessible information, and inclusive participation, undermining rights and putting residents at risk of future extreme weather events.

After the Storm

Climate Change, Planned Relocation, and People with Disabilities in Siargao, Philippines

View the web feature here

In December 2021, Typhoon Odette—known internationally as “Rai”—swept across the Philippines, including Siargao, flattening homes, killing hundreds of people, and displacing thousands. Entire coastal communities were left without shelter, clean water, or access to public services. People with disabilities and their families described significant obstacles in evacuating and staying safe during and after the storm. Since then, the Philippine authorities have sought to permanently move entire communities to areas designated as safer, called planned relocation, without adhering to international standards aimed at protecting the rights of those affected.

“Siargao island authorities have relocated people, including those with disabilities, to sites that are inaccessible and lack basic services,” said Emina Ćerimović, associate disability rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The Philippine government needs to fully consult people with disabilities and the wider community to ensure that future planned relocations uphold their rights.”

Between May and September 2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 48 people, including 25 people with disabilities and their families who live in 4 municipalities on Siargao island—Del Carmen, Pilar, San Isidro, and Santa Monica—community representatives, climate change experts, United Nations representatives, and government officials in Manila, Butuan City, Surigao City, and Siargao.

Click to expand Image Overview map of Siargao and nearby islands where Human Rights Watch conducted research on unplanned relocations and planned relocations in the aftermath of Typhoon Odette, internationally known as “Rai.” Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch

“My husband carried me on his back through the floods,” said Jocelyn Iytac Eguna, 65, who has a physical disability, describing the typhoon that devastated Siargao and nearby islands. “I felt I had lost hope and really wanted to die. It’s really difficult for me. Other people can just run away but I had to be carried.”

Following Odette, the Philippine government instituted a No-Build Zone policy in coastal and riverbed areas of Siargao, part of the protected conservation area, to prevent residents from returning to their homes “for their own safety.” However, the authorities did not meaningfully consult displaced communities about their needs and preferences for the future, nor did they offer those displaced adequate alternative housing or sufficient information on plans to provide a durable solution.

Click to expand Image Satellite imagery shows designated No-Build Zone (NBZ) established by the national government on the aftermath Typhoon Odette, prohibiting the building of residential homes in this area, October 1, 2023 © 2026 Airbus. Google Earth. Source: No-Build Zone (NBZ )= The boundaries of the NBZ have been traced by georeferencing and digitalizing a map produced by DENR-PAMO-SIPLAS and provided by Del Carmen’s Mayor’s office to Human Rights Watch on February 5, 2026. Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch 

In the past decade, storms in the Philippines have displaced at least 43.8 million people. As climate change accelerates, the number of those displaced is expected to increase. A recent study found that human-induced climate change has “more than doubled the likelihood of a compound event like Typhoon Odette.” In November 2025 alone, two back-to-back typhoons in the country affected more than 12 million people, causing hundreds of fatalities and displacing more than 466,000 people, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Under the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions for a durable solution for people displaced by disasters. International standards set out three durable solutions for the displaced: dignified return, local integration, or permanent planned relocation to a new, comparable site. Most residents displaced by Typhoon Odette immediately returned and rebuilt homes in the No-Build Zone, where they face an uncertain future.

Because people’s lives, livelihoods, and identities are deeply tied to their homes, climate adaptation and disaster prevention measures that allow people to remain in place should be prioritized whenever possible. According to the UN Guidance on Planned Relocation (2015), planned relocation should be considered only as a last resort to protect life and health, and based on consultation with affected communities or at their request.

Municipal governments on Siargao have responded in various ways to the typhoon and the No-Build Zone designation. Immediately afterward, the San Isidro municipal government undertook, without consulting the affected families, an unplanned and inadequately supported relocation of 40 families from the San Isidro riverbank to Josephath, a site uphill, which has undermined their rights. Community members and local government officials said that relocated families have inconsistent access to water and difficulties in accessing the river and services in the community. People with disabilities are particularly at risk of injury and lack of access due to the inaccessibility of the site.

Similarly, the Pilar municipal government, with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), moved several families to a site that the local community said floods regularly, undermining the whole purpose of relocation. As a result, during extreme weather, the families remain cut off from access to the rest of the village, including the local primary school, which also serves as an evacuation site.

The municipalities of Santa Monica and Del Carmen, which are currently developing planned relocations, should learn from these mistakes and act to ensure a rights-respecting process, Human Rights Watch said.

Mayor Alfredo Coro of Del Carmen acknowledged that the municipality had yet to consult affected communities but expressed his commitment to make the planned relocation human rights-centered and disability-inclusive. If Del Carmen’s planned relocation successfully upholds human rights, it could serve as a model for municipalities across the Philippines, and perhaps in the 77 other countries where disaster-related planned relocations have been documented.

The Philippines is obligated under international human rights law to respect, protect, and fulfill everyone’s economic, social, and cultural rights, and to protect them from reasonably foreseeable climate change risks, including sea-level rise and other climate change impacts. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), authorities at all levels are obligated to ensure protection and safety of people with disabilities in situations of risk, including disasters.

As the national and local governments expand planned relocation in Siargao, it is crucial for them to safeguard human rights through meaningful consultation and accessible information. Ensuring the rights of those most at risk, including people with disabilities, will result in better protection and safety for all, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Philippine government and international donors should provide local authorities in Siargao with sufficient support to develop durable solutions for those uprooted by Typhoon Odette or increasingly exposed to climate risks,” Ćerimović said. “Climate change magnifies existing inequalities, and past failures in Siargao underscore the urgent need for authorities to ensure inclusive, rights-based solutions, including through planned relocation.”

Relocations on Siargao Island

Typhoon Odette

On December 16, 2021, Typhoon Odette made landfall in the Philippines, including on Siargao, claiming hundreds of lives and destroying numerous buildings, affecting 99 percent of the Siargao’s population. People with disabilities and their families described facing significant barriers while evacuating and trying to stay safe during and immediately after the storm.

Jocelyn Iytac Eguna, 65, who has a physical disability and uses crutches, has lived all her life on Halian, a small, flat island in the Dinagat Sound two hours by boat from Siargao. When Odette struck, her house was damaged and she became trapped inside with her husband. Feeling she was a burden, she urged her husband to save himself. “But my husband said he wouldn’t leave me because I have a disability,” she said through tears:

My husband carried me on his back through the floods, with electric wires damaged and down, and coconut palms falling around us. He carried me all the way and stayed with me. I felt I had lost hope and I really wanted to die. It’s really different for me: other people can just run away and I couldn’t. I needed to be carried. The next few days were difficult: there was no food; we survived mostly on coconut water.

Eguna said the trauma left her with deep psychological wounds. When asked if she had received any psychosocial—mental health—support, she responded, “None. You are the only one who had come to ask me how I feel.”

Many other people with disabilities described similar experiences:

Ronie Ticmon Ruaya, 50, a polio survivor who also lived all his life on Halian, said he decided to stay home with his wife and his children during the storm: “It’s really difficult because of my disability.… If you don’t have polio, you can just immediately run fast, but because of my condition, I just can’t.”Mary Jane Bual, from Jaboy in Pilar, also decided not to evacuate. Her 16-year-old son has intellectual and physical disabilities, and she said he does not always understand or respond well to changes. “It’s hard to explain to John Francis why he needs to leave the house,” she said. “We could have just forced him to leave by carrying him. But we decided to stay and shelter together.”An aunt of a 12-year-old boy with developmental and physical disabilities on Halian described his extreme distress as the family tried to shelter inland without adequate protection from the storm and elements. “It’s really a big difference [compared with other children], because he can’t speak,” she said.

Following Typhoon Odette, the national government instituted a No-Build Zone policy alongside Siargao’s coast to prevent displaced residents from returning to their homes. The government stated it was for safety reasons, but ultimately neither the national nor local authorities provided communities with durable solutions through rights-respecting planned relocation. The authorities did not meaningfully consult with the communities about their needs and preferences, and most received no visits from the authorities. In the days and weeks that followed, without any other options, most returned and rebuilt their homes there.

Applicable International Law and Standards

International human rights law on planned relocations is set out in various human rights treaties that the Philippines has ratified, notably the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is also established in international standards and guidance, such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons, which authoritatively interprets to comply with international legal obligations, and the Guidance on Planned Relocation, to help governments plan and carry out relocations of communities at risk in a rights-respecting manner.

With regard to the specific needs of people with disabilities, Philippine government officials acknowledged national laws and policies guaranteeing disability rights, including the National Adaptation Plan of the Philippines, the Magna Carta for Disabled People, and the National Resettlement Policy Framework. But they said that no practical measures are in place to safeguard disability rights, including to inclusion and participation, accessible information, protection and safety, accessibility, or access to public services.

Unplanned Relocations: Pilar and San Isidro Municipalities

Click to expand Image Jimilito Gonzales shows the height water reached inside his home, built after Typhoon Odette, after flooding caused by extreme rainfall on January 16, 2023, in Jaboy, Pilar, Siargao, Philippines. © 2025 Emina Ćerimović/Human Rights Watch 

In Siargao’s Pilar municipality, the local government with the support from IOM relocated several families from Jaboy village to a nearby site. Community members reported—and Human Rights Watch observed—that the new site floods regularly, cutting residents off from the rest of the village and the only evacuation site. This is particularly dangerous for Jimilito Gonzales, a 48-year-old man with an intellectual disability, who doesn’t know how to swim and relies on his brother to reach safety. His brother said:

We carry him there [to the village]. I would place him on the makeshift raft made of banana leaves and push the raft. Sometimes, the water is up to our necks, and sometimes it’s above our head and we need to swim and push the raft.

IOM confirmed that the organization’s primary support was in providing climate resilient housing for the site, but that they also supported pre-relocation assessments and consultation efforts in Pilar. IOM emphasized that responsibility for determining site suitability rests with the local government and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which, according to IOM, issued a certification confirming the site’s suitability for relocation, noting that the area had a low flood and low landslide susceptibility rating. Nevertheless, IOM acknowledged that assessments based on historical hazard data can be limited in their ability to foresee future hazards. To address this, IOM said it is collaborating with governments to improve site assessment methodologies, including by modeling future risk patterns, and interviewing community members with lived experience.

Satellite imagery comparison before and after the passage of Typhoon Odette on December 16, 2021, showing the destruction across Jaboy village, Pilar, Siargao island. (From left to right): December 4, 2020 © 2026 Planet Labs PBC. January 6, 2022 © 2026 Planet Labs PBC. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch.  

Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from October 10, 2022 shows a relocation site less than 100 meters from Jaboy village, Pilar, Siargao island. The land occupied by those houses within the relocation site appeared partially inundated after the passage of Typhoon Odette on December 16, 2021. Image: October 10, 2022 © 2026 Vantor. Google Earth. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch

Regarding consultation, IOM said they consulted affected families in Pilar, including by sharing information about the site and arranging visits before relocation. However, a relocated resident said that “we had no choice,” as they had lost their homes and the site was the only land available, despite being known to flood regularly.

IOM representatives as well as local government officials acknowledged that land availability is a major constraint and said they had not received formal complaints about flooding in Jaboy from the local government or community members. Nonetheless, based on the concerns reported by Human Rights Watch, IOM said it was committed to “coordinate further with the communities and local and national partners to understand what further support is needed, explore comprehensive solutions, and advocate for potential means through which these needs could be met.”

Click to expand Image Water stains mark the exterior walls of homes after flooding caused by extreme rainfall on January 16, 2023, in Jaboy, Pilar, Siargao, Philippines. © 2025 Emina Ćerimović/Human Rights Watch  

The IOM reiterated that long-term responsibility lies with the local government, and recognized the need to build capacity at local levels.

While other community members who remained in Jaboy believed that the municipal government had a plan to relocate them to safer areas, Pilar’s representatives said there were no such plans for Jaboy. 

Immediately after Typhoon Odette, authorities in San Isidro municipality relocated several families from the riverbank in San Isidro to Josaphath, an uphill location originally intended as temporary. Officials and an elected representative said in May 2025 and again in September that the site had become permanent because it is considered safe from flooding, and it was easy to move people there because the local government already owns it.

However, community members and local government officials agreed that the site lacks regular access to water and the steep road isolates people with disabilities. Zenaida Tomines, 52, who has a physical disability, said she fears another big storm since the evacuation site—a primary school—is down the same steep road. “I am afraid for my own safety because of my disability,” she said. When Human Rights Watch asked San Isidro officials about plans to address the accessibility problem, they said there were no plans to address it.

A close-up view of San Isidro main center shows the destruction of dozens of houses across the village after the passage of Typhoon Odette on December 16, 2021. (From left to right): September 24, 2019 © 2026 Vantor. Google Earth. December 19, 2021 © 2026 Vantor. Google Earth. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch. 

Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from May 10, 2025 shows an area at the end of a steep road where 40 families, including people with physical disabilities, were relocated from the bank of the San Isidro River after the passage of Typhoon Odette on December 16, 2021. Image: May 10, 2025 © 2026 Airbus. Google Earth. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch

Planned Relocation: Del Carmen Municipality

Typhoon Odette caused severe destruction in Del Carmen, the island’s largest municipality, destroying nearly 5,000 homes and displacing thousands of residents. Essential services, including water and electricity, were widely disrupted. Local authorities believe that their eight-year effort to restore the mangrove forests prior to Typhoon Odette had helped reduce the storm’s impact.

A close-up view of Del Carmen village before and after the passage of Typhoon Odette that made landfall on Siargao island on December 16, 2021. (From left to right): June 15, 2019 © 2026 Vantor. Google Earth. December 19, 2021 © 2026 Vantor. Google Earth. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch.  

To carry out the No-Build Zone policy, the municipal government has been preparing permanent planned relocation sites. The authorities intend to relocate about 1,000 households to three sites, including the entire population of Halian island, which the authorities say will become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Other high-risk coastal communities in downtown Del Carmen are also expected to be relocated, though timelines are unclear.

In the nearer term, the municipal authorities intend to relocate about 250 households from Halian to Mabuhay, on Siargao. The authorities selected the site because it provides easy access to the ocean, which enables the predominantly fishing community to maintain their traditional livelihoods, reflecting some consideration of residents’ livelihood needs.

The Del Carmen government has been working closely with the Philippines Department for Housing Settlement and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to secure approvals and funding for the relocation. Mayor Alfredo Coro told Human Rights Watch that the municipality is committed to building the first 10 houses even if they do not have full external support.

Click to expand Image Estimated travel time by boat from Halian island to reach Del Carmen Port. The Halian community is planned to be relocated to Barangay Mabuhay, approximately 4.5 kilometers by road from Del Carmen downtown. Analysis and Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch Click to expand Image © 2026 Human Rights Watch

So far, however, the Del Carmen authorities have not consulted with those they intend to relocate or taken steps to learn of their needs and concerns. A representative of the DHSUD in Butuan City, which oversees Siargao island, said in September that if approved the project would include social preparation and consultations “to ensure community acceptance.” This approach, however, does not meet international standards for meaningful consultation since it suggests a predetermined outcome rather than information exchange, genuine engagement, and collaborative decision-making.

When responding to a question on ensuring inclusion of people with disabilities in Del Carmen’s planned relocation efforts, the representative said: “We have really good laws, but implementation is slow. [There is] a lack of funding, not a lack of willingness to respond to the needs of people with disabilities.” In a May 2025 interview, Mayor Coro conceded that disability-specific rights and needs had not been discussed.

Existing plans reviewed by Human Rights Watch did not incorporate accessibility or disability-inclusive design, including accessible routes. Mayor Coro said he was committed to adapting the plan to respect human rights, including disability rights. “We are more active in collaborating with people with disabilities sector [and encourage them] to be more vocal of their demands, so we can hopefully provide services that they want.”

Key Human Rights Issues Relating to Planned Relocation

Consultation

Under international human rights law, planned relocation needs to be preceded by meaningful, informed, and participatory consultation with affected communities, as required by the rights to an adequate standard of living, and access to information, among other rights. Beyond ensuring that planned relocation is a measure of last resort, national and local governments have an obligation to ensure that affected communities are meaningfully involved in decisions about a potential move. This includes the right to be informed, offer input at multiple stages of the process, and to have their views taken into account before any final decisions are made. The Guidance on Planned Relocation emphasizes that planned relocation should be voluntary and conducted in a way that respects the human rights, dignity, and safety of all.

Mayor Coro acknowledged that consultation had been lacking: “We didn’t consult much the community, because we wanted to first ensure we would have legal opinion to identify the land that can be used. We don’t want to provide false hope, without first finalizing the relocation site.”

A government official from Del Carmen said that a public hearing for the relocation of the Halian community was held on Siargao island in September 2025, making participation nearly impossible for Halian residents, particularly people with disabilities, due to the costly two-hour boat ride. The official confirmed that only people in positions of authority were invited and that organizing the consultation in Halian was beyond their budget.

For people with disabilities, who have historically been excluded from decisions affecting their lives, the right to be closely consulted and actively involved is crucial. Article 4(3) of the disability rights treaty obligates governments to closely consult with and actively involve people with disabilities through their representative organizations in policy development, planning, and implementation.

The UN Guidelines on Consulting Persons with Disabilities details how inclusive consultation helps ensure that policies, strategies, and programs are effective; that barriers to inclusion are identified and addressed, and, in the context of planned relocation, that the process responds to everyone’s needs. Consultations should be timely and frequent, and include reasonable accommodations, accessible information and communication, sufficient preparation time, and physical accessible venues.

Philippine law and policies, notably the Philippines Post-Disaster Shelter Recovery Policy Framework, identifies consultation as a core component of recovery efforts.

People with disabilities and local government representatives in Siargao said that authorities did not meaningfully consult or involve people with disabilities in the relocation plans, including those carried out San Isidro and those planned for Del Carmen. None of those interviewed reported having been consulted or involved in decisions regarding planned relocation.

Johanna Mary Pacle, 21, who has a physical disability and lives in Del Carmen’s No-Build-Zone, said, “As a person with a disability I am used to not being consulted. I would like consultation so I can learn more.”

Her father, Junuan Escanan, 48, said little information had been provided: “We are still waiting to actually see what plan the government has, it’s rather become a rumor now than reality. I don’t know where and when, it’s just talk.” He emphasized the importance of participation: “I was born in this home. I would like to be consulted if there are plans to move us.”

While some municipal officials said they were concerned about building expectations, early and inclusive consultation with communities is crucial for effective and dignified solutions. Evidence from the special rapporteur on internally displaced persons in a 2024 report shows that outcomes are better when relocated communities have information about options and are involved in the decision-making about whether to relocate.

Right to Information

Everyone interviewed for this report said that the authorities had provided no information about relocation plans, and what they knew was mostly rumors from other residents.

The right to information is a core component of a human rights-based approach to planned relocation. Moreover, the 2010 Framework provides that “[n]ational and local authorities … need to provide IDPs [internally displaced persons] with all the information they require to choose a durable solution, while also ensuring that IDPs can exercise this choice without coercion.”

Relocation fundamentally alters people’s lives, and they have the right to receive information throughout all stages of the process, so they make informed decisions, including whether to relocate or remain. Information should be provided in a clear and accessible manner and should include anticipated disaster and climate risks as well as the social, physical, and economic impacts of the relocation.

The 2015 Guidance provides that adequate, advanced, up-to-date, and accessible information on the rationale for relocation, as well as alternatives considered, is essential to minimize the risk of forced evictions.

Under the disability rights treaty, the government is obligated to ensure that people with disabilities can “seek, receive, and impart information on an equal basis with others and in all forms of communication of their choice,” including accessible formats and technologies, such as sign language, Braille, and easy-to-read formats. The goal is to ensure information is accessible, understandable, usable, and supports autonomy and equal participation.

Arnold Alaban, 43, a vendor with a physical disability who lives in the Del Carmen No-Build Zone, said that he had not received any concrete information about the planned relocation efforts. “I’m not really informed about it,” he said. “I don’t know anything, just that it means that people have to move. No one spoke directly with me about it.”

Ruel de Rosario, 48, who also has a disability and also lives in Del Carmen, said that the last time he heard anything about the No-Build-Zone was immediately after Odette. “The DENR [environment department] posted signage over this area after Odette. The signage was removed after a couple of months.” He and others said they had never received official information about risks or plans for relocation, relying instead on rumors.

The lack of reliable information has raised concerns among many residents on Halian island and Del Carmen’s downtown coastal area that they will be forced to relocate without their consent. In May 2026, Mayor Coro said that they do not intend to forcibly relocate the residents and the same was reiterated by a Del Carmen official in January 2026 regarding the Halian community.

Right to Housing

Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes the right to housing as a component of everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living. Many current residents of Del Carmen are “tenured migrants,” people recognized under Philippine law for their long-term, subsistence living for which they are granted rights to stay in the protected area. The Siargao Islands Protected Landscapes and Seascapes Act recognizes the occupancy of families who lived on the land for five or more years before the island was designed as a protected area for conservation in 1996.

The law further provides protections in case “these areas are subsequently identified as crucial for conservation” to be transferred to “alternative sites ... provided that their transfer shall be undertaken using humanitarian considerations including payment of compensation, providing tenure to alternative land and facilities of equivalent standard, and other measures to reach agreement with the affected tenured migrants.”

The 2015 Guidance sets out that if the government later uses the vacated land, it “should ensure that land vacated in a Planned Relocation is used in a manner that … enables Relocated Persons to retain access to that land and its resources, to continue their preexisting livelihoods, and to maintain spiritual and cultural practices, for as long as practicable.” This would be applicable, for instance, to displaced residents from Del Carmen’s coastal communities whose land was used for an expanded port or tourism purposes, or those on Halian if tourism were expanded on the island.

People with Disabilities, Durable Solutions and Views on Relocation

Most people with disabilities and their families living in the four municipalities on Siargao island said that they wished to stay, citing their strong ties to the land, reliance on livelihoods linked to the ocean, and the ability to easily access needed services. Ruel de Rosario, 48, who has a physical disability, said, “I’ve lived here since birth. My mother, who is 77, lives here as well as my 18-year-old daughter.” Analyin Rosas, 27, who has a disability, said, “I’ve lived here since I was born, my father was also born in this house.”

To make informed decisions about whether to relocate or remain, community residents need information responsive to their concerns. Those in Siargao who expressed a willingness to relocate emphasized the need for clear information and assurances that they could work in the new site and earn an income sufficient for an adequate standard of living. They also hoped relocation would provide secure, permanent housing.

“I’d agree to be relocated to have a house of my own,” said Arnold Alaban, who sells small items to tourists at the Del Carmen port, “It would have to be not far from where I would be able to make a living.”

Rosas, said, “I’ve lived here since I was born. My father was also born in this house.” She has no independent income and lives with her year-old son at her father’s house. She said the relocation “would be okay, but we would need to be near the ocean since my father is a fisherman.” Her father and three adult brothers depend on coastal access to work as fishermen and boatmen for tourists.

For others, relocation raised concerns about losing not just work but their sense of identity. Hasael Compra, 44, who has a disability and has fished since he was 12, said, “It’s my skill, it’s my life, and my livelihood. When I am in the water [fishing], it doesn’t matter if it rains or it’s sunny or windy, regardless of the weather, I like being in the water.”

Suitability and Accessibility of New Sites

Experiences in some Siargao municipalities highlight that poor site selection may have negative consequences for all, but particularly people with disabilities. The officials did not adequately consider disability rights—such as accessibility, safety in situations of risk, or access to services—leaving people with disabilities cut off from accessing community services and at heightened risks during extreme weather events.

The national and local governments, in addition to ensuring that the process of planned relocation respects human rights, are responsible for ensuring an adequate standard of living at relocation sites, including adequate and accessible housing. The disability rights treaty and the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, as well as national law, such as the Philippines Accessibility Law, require the authorities to select sites accessible to all and close to services so that people with disabilities can live independently and participate in the community.

The site in Pilar is frequently flooded, putting people with disabilities at a particular risk. The San Isidro site, which was intended as temporary but became permanent, lacks consistent access to water and is located on a steep hill, making daily life especially difficult for residents with disabilities.

In Del Carmen as well as other municipalities planning relocation, the authorities have an opportunity to learn from the problems in Pilar and San Isidro and design a relocation process that addresses the rights of people with disabilities and their concerns. Rosario described his fears:

I am concerned it will be hard for us to be moved from our homes, and moved where? If there is a house, it would be a better option than if they just moved us to a land with no house. I have a disability now and cannot build it myself. My concern is also being transferred to a faraway place, where it would be hard for me to go to the market. I grew up here. I know everything around here. It’s near the center. I can obtain everything. I can use my wheelchair and get whatever I need.

The relocation site needs to be good for me as a person with disability. It needs to be accessible for people with disabilities, for the wheelchair to be able to get in and out. Transportation is really important because I cannot just walk to the town center, to get to the market or the pharmacy here. Living far away from here would also create additional expenses and limit my access to the market and the pharmacy. Here I can just use my wheelchair and get to all facilities I need.

Pacle similarly expressed a need for physical accessibility and access to work: “I want to be able to walk and use my wheelchair at the new site.”

The 2015 Guidance provides that planned relocation processes need to ensure access to employment opportunities. Relocation sites that isolate communities from employment opportunities or markets may violate human rights obligations. This is of particular concern to people with disabilities, who are protected from employment discrimination under article 27 of the disability rights treaty.

Recommendations

To ensure rights-respecting and all-inclusive planned relocations, local authorities on Siargao island, provincial authorities in Butuan City, and national authorities should:

Use relocation only as a measure of last resort. Exhaust all possible in-place risk-reduction and adaptation measures before considering moving people. Ensure displaced communities have access to basic services and will not be at greater risk during future extreme weather events.Ensure inclusion, participation, and consultation. Ensure the full inclusion of all affected people, including people with disabilities, in decision-making about whether and how to plan relocation. Consultations should be timely, accessible, and designed to ensure meaningful participation to protect everyone’s rights and needs.Ensure access to information. Provide clear, up-to-date, advanced and regular information about climate change impacts and plans at all stages of the relocation process in accessible formats (in the local language Surigaonon, Braille, sign language, easy-to-read, digital) and by using diverse communication methods. Access to information is essential to ensure that consent is informed and genuine, and to prevent forced evictions.Support rights-respecting durable solutions. Offer displaced families genuine options. Support those who want to relocate out of harm’s way to another site where their rights to adequate housing, education, health, water, accessibility, and culture are fully met. Ensure these options guarantee secure, legally recognized land tenure for relocated households and all individuals within them, including people with disabilities and women.Design new sites that reflect the rights and needs of persons with disabilities. Ensure that planned relocation sites incorporate universal design principles and that new housing, infrastructure, and services are accessible. New sites should be selected based on robust assessments, and located near services (including water, health, and education) and enable access to livelihoods to ensure an adequate standard of living. Ensure that policies and practice respect the rights of people with disabilities in every stage of planning and implementation.Develop and implement disability-inclusive policy. Ensure that the needs and rights of people with disabilities during planned relocation are included in all related national planning and policy efforts, including on resettlement and relocation, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and internal displacement.International agencies and donors should build capacity of local governments undertaking planned relocations by providing financial and technical support, including on consultation practices and interview-based and future-oriented site assessment methodologies, to ensure that relocation sites minimize ongoing hazard risks and enable continued accessibility, an adequate standard of living and other human rights, and addresses the needs of at-risk groups, including people with disabilities.