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Indonesia: Acid Attack Against Rights Activist
(Sydney) – Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto should immediately issue a presidential decree setting up a fact-finding team independent of the military to fully investigate the acid attack against a prominent human rights activist who has criticized the military, Human Rights Watch said today. While the military police have arrested four soldiers in connection with the attack, the Indonesian armed forces’ long history of impunity for serious rights violations raises accountability concerns.
At about 11 p.m. on March 12, 2026, at an intersection in the Menteng area of Jakarta, two men on a motorcycle threw acid at Andrie Yunus, a 27-year-old deputy coordinator at KontraS, the nongovernmental Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence. Yunus had just finished recording a podcast interview at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and was traveling home by motorcycle. He has 24 percent burns to his face, chest, and hands, and has possibly lost his right eye.
“The brutal acid attack in downtown Jakarta against a prominent rights activist by alleged military intelligence members raises grave concerns for Indonesia’s entire human rights community,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “President Prabowo should set up an independent fact-finding team to investigate the attack against Andrie Yunus to ensure that all those responsible are brought to justice.”
On March 18, Indonesian military police arrested a military captain, two lieutenants, and a sergeant, all of whom work for the Indonesian Strategic Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Strategis, BAIS). The agency handles military intelligence under the command of the National Armed Forces.
The National Police earlier released CCTV videos of the acid attack, showing two men following Yunus on his motorcycle, making a U-turn, and throwing the acid. They also released more than 2,000 images from 86 CCTV cameras around Jakarta that captured Yunus up to a week before the attack. The images ranged from Jakarta’s National Monument Park, where Yunus attended a protest to Bogor, to where he was visiting his parents.
The National Police released the initials of two suspects apparently derived from the CCTV images. The military police provided the initials of the four military personnel arrested, but these differed from the police list, raising concerns that all involved in the attack were not accounted for.
Yunus has been an outspoken critic of the Indonesian military, particularly since Indonesia’s parliament passed an amendment to the Armed Forces Law that expands the military’s role in civilian sectors. He also participated in a report about possible involvement of BAIS officers in arson attacks during nationwide protests over the economy in August and September 2025. He had told close friends and his parents that unidentified people were threatening him and putting him under surveillance.
More than 420 organizations have issued statements condemning “invisible hands” for planning the attack on Yunus and calling for a full and independent investigation. KontraS denounced the attack as “brutal and evil.”
On March 19, President Prabowo told journalists and commentators: “This is a barbaric act, we must pursue it. We must investigate. Who ordered them, who paid.”
Under Indonesian law, civilian police cannot investigate military personnel, with only a few rarely invoked exceptions. The 1997 Law on Military Courts provides that the military will investigate crimes by soldiers and military tribunals have jurisdiction to prosecute all alleged crimes by soldiers. The military justice system in Indonesia lacks transparency, independence, and impartiality, and has failed to properly investigate and prosecute alleged serious human rights abuses by military personnel.
In one example, Papua police investigated an October 2024 attack in Jayapura in which two men on a motorcycle threw a gasoline bomb at the newsroom of Jubi news. The January 2025 police report, based on interviews with nine witnesses and CCTV recordings, implicated two Indonesian soldiers. But the military returned the report to the police, saying that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
KontraS has long been the target of attacks. In 2001, a bomb was sent to the home of the organization’s founding coordinator, Munir Thalib, when KontraS was investigating the role of a Special Forces team in abducting activists. On September 7, 2004, Munir was poisoned during a Garuda Indonesia flight from Singapore to Amsterdam, resulting in his death. Two civilians were convicted in the case, but a Jakarta court in 2008 acquitted a former deputy at the State Intelligence Agency who was initially charged with premeditated murder.
Since taking office in October 2024, the Prabowo administration has adopted laws and policies that undercut human rights, creating an atmosphere hostile to civil society, Human Rights Watch said. Amendments to the Armed Forces Law enacted in March 2025 permit military officers to hold more positions in government. Activists have expressed concern that a bill on Combatting Disinformation and Foreign Propaganda could be used to target government critics. Prabowo has repeatedly raised concerns over “foreign puppets,” raising fears of a crackdown on civil society groups that receive international assistance.
“It’s crucial for the Indonesian government to uncover and prosecute everyone responsible for the horrific acid attack on Andries Yunus,” Pearson said. “President Prabowo needs to demonstrate to the Indonesian people that such violence won’t be tolerated, no matter who commits it, and regardless of their rank and title.”
Belarus Rights Crisis Requires Sustained Scrutiny
Next week, the United Nations Human Rights Council will vote on a resolution to renew the mandates of the Group of Independent Experts on the Situation in Belarus and the special rapporteur on Belarus. As Belarusian authorities continue to commit grave rights violations in the country and persecute Belarusians in exile, these mandates are vital to addressing the unrelenting rights crisis in Belarus and help provide a prospect for future accountability.
Civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have long documented Belarus’ crackdown on independent voices, including the malicious prosecution and harassment of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians, protesters, and activists. At least 860 people remain behind bars for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms and many face torture and ill-treatment in detention. Former political prisoners, including some most recently released, are forced into exile. Human rights organizations are unable to operate legally in the country.
A report presented by the group of experts during the current council session provides a clear picture of the severity of the crisis. It identifies continuing patterns of violations including arbitrary detention of individuals for their actual or perceived opposition to the government, inhumane conditions, ill-treatment, torture and death in detention, and newly verified patterns of forced exiles, forced pardon requests, and transnational repression. According to the report, some of these violations amount to crimes against humanity.
The group of experts is instrumental in preserving and analyzing evidence of grave human rights violations and, where possible, identifying those responsible, with a view to future accountability. The recent decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed by Belarusian authorities at least in part in the territory of Lithuania, an ICC member, underlines the ongoing utility for the investigative-mechanism’s work. Meanwhile, the special rapporteur is a longstanding lifeline for Belarusian civil society, ensuring that violations of all fundamental rights remain in public scrutiny.
By maintaining both the accountability-focused mechanism and the expert monitor, the council ensures that the systematic nature and gravity of Belarus’ rights violations receive in-depth scrutiny. The council should heed the call of Belarusian and international civil society organizations to renew both mechanisms and send an unequivocal message that the UN remains vigilant and committed to supporting those seeking justice and respect for human rights in Belarus.
Iran: Deliberate Attacks on Civilian Ships Apparent War Crimes
(Beirut, March 24, 2026) – Iranian forces appear to have deliberately targeted at least two civilian commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz on March 11, 2026, which would amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks, and threat of attack, may also contribute to significant global cost increases in energy, food, and other critical sectors, to the detriment of people’s rights.
“Deliberately targeting civilian ships and their crew members is a war crime,” said Niku Jafarnia, Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “War crimes do not justify further war crimes, and Iran, the United States, and Israel should all immediately end unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian objects and should stop attempting to frame these objects as legitimate targets.”
Starting on March 1, Iranian forces reportedly began attacking commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz in response to US and Israeli attacks on Iran, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency. On March 11, Ebrahim Zofaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, said in a speech that if the United States and Israel continued to carry out attacks on Iran, Iranian forces would not allow “one liter of oil” through the strait.
Arsenio Dominquez, the IMO secretary-general, stated on March 6: “Around 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf, on board ships under heightened risk and considerable mental strain.”
Human Rights Watch documented the apparent deliberate targeting of two commercial ships, the Safesea Vishnu and the Mayuree Naree, on March 11 through statements made by Iranian authorities claiming these attacks; photographs and videos posted online of the direct aftermath of the attacks and, in the case of the Safesea Vishnu, the apparent moment of attack; and data gathered by the IMO.
Between March 1 and 17, the IMO confirmed 17 incidents of damage to commercial vessels from 16 apparent attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman. It also reported that seven seafarers and one shipyard worker had been killed, four seafarers were missing, and ten people were injured, five severely.
An IMO representative told Human Rights Watch that the organization receives data from authorities such as the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), and the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO). It said that the organization directly verifies information it receives with the vessels’ flag states to document attacks. It said the organization was unable to confirm who was responsible for the 16 attacks. However, the IMO Council adopted a decision on March 19 in which they “strongly condemned the threats and attacks against vessels and purported closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Human Rights Watch identified all the vessels included by the IMO in vessel tracking websites and was able to corroborate that they were civilian commercial vessels with civilian crews. In some cases, Human Rights Watch identified their location at the time of the attack. In addition to corroborating attacks on the Safesea Vishnu and Mayuree Naree, researchers corroborated attacks on two other vessels—Skylight and Safeen Prestige—through photographs and videos posted online as well as online statements made by government and military entities, along with a third vessel—the MKD Vyom—by statements alone. In these three cases, Human Rights Watch could not confirm who was responsible for the attacks.
One-quarter of the world’s “seaborne oil trade” travels through the Strait of Hormuz. Since the conflict began, the price of crude oil has risen by 40 percent, according to the New York Times. The International Energy Agency has stated: “The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”
On March 16, Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike on March 20, stated that Iranian forces had targeted all vessels owned by a US or Israeli entity, regardless of their flag country. He did not indicate whether he was referring to military or civilian vessels, or both. The Joint Maritime Information Center stated on March 11 that while some of the vessels that had been struck since March 1 had “potential Western commercial associations…multiple attacks have involved vessels with no confirmed affiliation to US or Israeli ownership.”
Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime data and intelligence company, reported that some vessels have continued to pass through the strait between March 1 and 18 and noted: “Shadow fleet vessels [ships engaging in illegal operations for the purposes of circumventing sanctions] carrying Iranian oil and gas account for most transits through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Human Rights Watch wrote to Iranian authorities on March 18 seeking clarification about the attacks but did not receive a response.
Iranian authorities, in statements they made pertaining to the two ships they claimed to have targeted—the Safesea Vishnu and Mayuree Naree—did not state that the vessels were military objects, nor did they present any evidence to demonstrate that anything on board the ships could have constituted military objects.
Under international humanitarian law, it is forbidden in any circumstance to carry out direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects, and warring parties are obligated to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians and civilian objects. Civilian vessels with commercial ties to the United States or Israel remain civilian objects. Warring parties must take all necessary action to verify that targets are military objectives. A person who commits serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.
The effects of global fossil fuel dependence, and its connections to concentrated corporate power and authoritarian governments, are increasingly evident, Human Rights watch said. A just transition to renewable energy is an environmental and geopolitical urgency now more than ever. This requires concomitant efforts to provide universal access to public services such as social security, education, and health care to guarantee everyone’s rights and accelerate the transition.
“Iranian forces’ attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz will result in harm to some of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged people across the globe,” Jafarnia said. “Iranian forces should immediately end these attacks, rescue the remaining three crew members aboard the Mayuree Naree, and release any seafarers they have detained.”
For details of the documented attacks on two vessels, further details about the others, and IRGC statements, please see below.
Click to expand Image Locations of reported and confirmed attacks against commercial ships as of March 18, 2026. Approximate locations based on International Maritime Organization reporting and vessel tracking data. Data © 2026 IMO, VesselFinder, MarineTraffic. Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch. March 11 Iranian Attacks on ShipsOn March 11, the Safesea Vishnu, an oil tanker, was “struck by an unknown projectile,” according to the UKMTO. The last signal sent from the ship was received by the vessel-tracking website Marine Traffic at 10:01 p.m. local time. On March 12, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran’s official state news agency, published a statement from the IRGC that confirmed that the Safesea Vishnu “had been hit in the northern Persian Gulf after failing to comply with and ignoring the warnings of the IRGC Navy.”
One of the crew members was killed in the attack, the IMO said. It also reported that another oil tanker, the Zefyros, caught fire in the same incident. The two vessels were next to each other within Iraqi territorial waters approximately 50 nautical miles southeast of Basra, according to measurements taken from vessel-tracking websites.
Human Rights Watch analyzed three videos posted to X by different accounts on March 12, with the earliest posted at 12:32 a.m. One of the videos, filmed from a nearby vessel, shows two large explosions on the Safesea Vishnu, seconds apart. Those filming from the nearby vessel claim to be the IRGC Navy and say that they have destroyed a US ship in the Persian Gulf. The Safesea Vishnu is engulfed in flames. This video supports accounts by Reuters from the US owner and operator of the vessel that two explosive-laden, unmanned boats rammed the vessel.
Another video shows firefighters spraying the Safesea Vishnu with water from a nearby boat. The BBC published a video filmed in daylight that shows the vessel tilting to one side considerably damaged.
The New York Times reported that, according to Iraq’s oil export authority, “[t]he two vessels were used by Iraq for its own oil transport.” The news outlet added that “[s]enior Iraqi officials said that one of the vessels, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, was owned by an American company.”
On the same day, three other vessels—One Majesty, a Japanese-flagged container vessel, and two bulk carriers, the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth and the Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree—were attacked in the strait, the IMO said.
The Royal Thai Navy spokesperson said in a statement that the navy had received an initial report that “two projectiles of unknown origin” had struck the Mayuree Naree as it sailed into the Strait of Hormuz after departing from the UAE. The statement said that the Omani navy had rescued 20 of the vessel’s 23 crew members, which the Omani Maritime Security Center confirmed. On March 18, the Royal Thai Navy reported that the ship had moved from Omani to Iranian territorial waters. Three crew members reportedly remain on board the seriously damaged vessel.
Photographs taken by rescued crew members circulating online show the superstructure emitting large columns of black smoke. One photograph shows damage to the hull of the boat near the propeller that is consistent with an explosion.
The day the three ships were reportedly attacked, Tasnim News, affiliated with the IRGC, posted a statement on its Telegram channel at 3:36 p.m. stating that the Mayuree Naree was “shelled by Iranian fighters hours ago after ignoring the warnings of the IRGC Navy and illegally insisting on passing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the IRGC naval forces, posted on X the same day at 3:50 p.m. local time that the crew of the Mayuree Naree had “ignored [Iranian authorities’] warnings and intended to pass through the strait but was caught.” He added that “[a]ny vessel intending to pass [the Strait of Hormuz] must obtain permission from #Iran.”
Both statements included claims that Iranian forces had also attacked another ship, the Express Rome, a ship not listed by the IMO as having been attacked. On March 19, Human Rights Watch received confirmation from Danaos Shipping, the owners of Express Rome, that the ship had not been hit or compromised in any way and that its crew is safe.
According to media reports from March 20, a Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs official stated that Iranian authorities had “taken one Nepali into custody from the Strait of Hormuz.”
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps StatementsHuman Rights Watch was unable to confirm who was responsible for the other 14 attacks the IMO documented. However, Iranian authorities have made several statements in which they have demonstrated a clear intention to attack ships, including civilian ships, that attempt to pass through the strait.
On March 4, Mohammad Akbarzadeh, an IRGC navy official, announced that the Strait of Hormuz was “under the complete control of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” On March 16, Naini repeated the statement.
“If the US claims that the Iranian Navy has been destroyed, then why is the Strait of Hormuz still closed and not even a tanker is allowed to pass,” Akbarzadeh said. “If the Iranian Aerospace Force [the IRGC’s missile, air, and space force, separate from the Air Force] has been destroyed, why do our missiles and drones hit the intended targets at specific intervals?”
On March 12, what appears to be the new X account of the newly appointed supreme leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, posted: “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely continue to be used.” Tangsiri reposted the statement, adding: “By maintaining the strategy of keeping the #Strait_of_Hormuz closed, we will deal the most severe blows to the aggressor enemy.”
Also on March 12, the IRGC Public Relations office said in the statement posted by IRNA on Telegram that ships “must act in accordance with the laws and regulations of passage in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz…in order to remain safe from being hit by stray projectiles.”
The United States has also targeted and destroyed Iranian military vessels. US Central Command reported that they had damaged or destroyed 43 Iranian ships within the first seven days of the war. While military vessels constitute legitimate military targets, the attacks may pose long-term environmental threats to the region. The US navy’s attack on an Iranian military vessel near Sri Lanka on March 4 caused an oil spill stretching 20 kilometers, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Wim Zwijnenberg, an analyst at PAX, a Dutch nongovernmental organization, told Human Rights Watch that, as of March 13, the attacks by all parties to the conflict had caused “a lot of [environmental] impacts on many different locations, [including] oil spills near Basra, Bandar Abbas and Sri Lanka, but often short-term and limited impact” as a result of authorities’ quick cleanups. However, on March 18, Zwijnenberg said that a separate US strike on an Iranian drone carrier near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran had “resulted in a large 25km long oil slick that is posing a threat [to] the coastal and marine environment of the Hara Biosphere and Khuran Strait Wetlands.”
The continuation of attacks on vessels carrying large quantities of oil and gas has the potential to cause long-term and significant environmental harm. Despite cleanup efforts, offshore oil spills have long-lasting detrimental impacts on marine life and ecosystems. Customary international humanitarian law provides that warring parties need to respect the protection and preservation of the natural environment. All feasible steps should be taken to minimize environmental harm. Using methods or means of warfare that are intended or can be expected to cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment is prohibited.
The attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the threat of attack, and the targeting of energy infrastructure within the context of conflicts also appear to be contributing to significant global cost increases in energy, which may lead to increases in the costs of food and other critical sectors, to the detriment of the rights of populations.
In the same speech on March 11, Zofaghari said: “Get ready for the oil barrel to be at [US]$200, because the oil price depends on the regional stability which you have destabilized.”
Increases in oil and gas prices will have ripple effects on sectors such as food, transportation, and energyprices around the globe, which are critical to the enjoyment of human rights. Moreover, news outlets and think tanks have described the potential impact on the global food supply as a result of the collapse in fertilizer exports through the strait. The Financial Times has reported that, according to several experts, the “Middle East war is close to triggering a global food shock worse than that unleashed by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine” given that significant percentages of the raw materials for widely used fertilizers are transported through the strait.
World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters on March 17 that if the ongoing regional conflict continues, “an additional 45 million people could be pushed into acute hunger by price rises.”
Iran: Deliberate Attacks on Civilian Ships Apparent War Crimes
(Beirut, March 24, 2026) – Iranian forces appear to have deliberately targeted at least two civilian commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz on March 11, 2026, which would amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks, and threat of attack, may also contribute to significant global cost increases in energy, food, and other critical sectors, to the detriment of people’s rights.
“Deliberately targeting civilian ships and their crew members is a war crime,” said Niku Jafarnia, Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “War crimes do not justify further war crimes, and Iran, the United States, and Israel should all immediately end unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian objects and should stop attempting to frame these objects as legitimate targets.”
Starting on March 1, Iranian forces reportedly began attacking commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz in response to US and Israeli attacks on Iran, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency. On March 11, Ebrahim Zofaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, said in a speech that if the United States and Israel continued to carry out attacks on Iran, Iranian forces would not allow “one liter of oil” through the strait.
Arsenio Dominquez, the IMO secretary-general, stated on March 6: “Around 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf, on board ships under heightened risk and considerable mental strain.”
Human Rights Watch documented the apparent deliberate targeting of two commercial ships, the Safesea Vishnu and the Mayuree Naree, on March 11 through statements made by Iranian authorities claiming these attacks; photographs and videos posted online of the direct aftermath of the attacks and, in the case of the Safesea Vishnu, the apparent moment of attack; and data gathered by the IMO.
Between March 1 and 17, the IMO confirmed 17 incidents of damage to commercial vessels from 16 apparent attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman. It also reported that seven seafarers and one shipyard worker had been killed, four seafarers were missing, and ten people were injured, five severely.
An IMO representative told Human Rights Watch that the organization receives data from authorities such as the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), and the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO). It said that the organization directly verifies information it receives with the vessels’ flag states to document attacks. It said the organization was unable to confirm who was responsible for the 16 attacks. However, the IMO Council adopted a decision on March 19 in which they “strongly condemned the threats and attacks against vessels and purported closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Human Rights Watch identified all the vessels included by the IMO in vessel tracking websites and was able to corroborate that they were civilian commercial vessels with civilian crews. In some cases, Human Rights Watch identified their location at the time of the attack. In addition to corroborating attacks on the Safesea Vishnu and Mayuree Naree, researchers corroborated attacks on two other vessels—Skylight and Safeen Prestige—through photographs and videos posted online as well as online statements made by government and military entities, along with a third vessel—the MKD Vyom—by statements alone. In these three cases, Human Rights Watch could not confirm who was responsible for the attacks.
One-quarter of the world’s “seaborne oil trade” travels through the Strait of Hormuz. Since the conflict began, the price of crude oil has risen by 40 percent, according to the New York Times. The International Energy Agency has stated: “The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”
On March 16, Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike on March 20, stated that Iranian forces had targeted all vessels owned by a US or Israeli entity, regardless of their flag country. He did not indicate whether he was referring to military or civilian vessels, or both. The Joint Maritime Information Center stated on March 11 that while some of the vessels that had been struck since March 1 had “potential Western commercial associations…multiple attacks have involved vessels with no confirmed affiliation to US or Israeli ownership.”
Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime data and intelligence company, reported that some vessels have continued to pass through the strait between March 1 and 18 and noted: “Shadow fleet vessels [ships engaging in illegal operations for the purposes of circumventing sanctions] carrying Iranian oil and gas account for most transits through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Human Rights Watch wrote to Iranian authorities on March 18 seeking clarification about the attacks but did not receive a response.
Iranian authorities, in statements they made pertaining to the two ships they claimed to have targeted—the Safesea Vishnu and Mayuree Naree—did not state that the vessels were military objects, nor did they present any evidence to demonstrate that anything on board the ships could have constituted military objects.
Under international humanitarian law, it is forbidden in any circumstance to carry out direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects, and warring parties are obligated to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians and civilian objects. Civilian vessels with commercial ties to the United States or Israel remain civilian objects. Warring parties must take all necessary action to verify that targets are military objectives. A person who commits serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.
The effects of global fossil fuel dependence, and its connections to concentrated corporate power and authoritarian governments, are increasingly evident, Human Rights watch said. A just transition to renewable energy is an environmental and geopolitical urgency now more than ever. This requires concomitant efforts to provide universal access to public services such as social security, education, and health care to guarantee everyone’s rights and accelerate the transition.
“Iranian forces’ attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz will result in harm to some of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged people across the globe,” Jafarnia said. “Iranian forces should immediately end these attacks, rescue the remaining three crew members aboard the Mayuree Naree, and release any seafarers they have detained.”
For details of the documented attacks on two vessels, further details about the others, and IRGC statements, please see below.
Click to expand Image Locations of reported and confirmed attacks against commercial ships as of March 18, 2026. Approximate locations based on International Maritime Organization reporting and vessel tracking data. Data © 2026 IMO, VesselFinder, MarineTraffic. Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch. March 11 Iranian Attacks on ShipsOn March 11, the Safesea Vishnu, an oil tanker, was “struck by an unknown projectile,” according to the UKMTO. The last signal sent from the ship was received by the vessel-tracking website Marine Traffic at 10:01 p.m. local time. On March 12, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran’s official state news agency, published a statement from the IRGC that confirmed that the Safesea Vishnu “had been hit in the northern Persian Gulf after failing to comply with and ignoring the warnings of the IRGC Navy.”
One of the crew members was killed in the attack, the IMO said. It also reported that another oil tanker, the Zefyros, caught fire in the same incident. The two vessels were next to each other within Iraqi territorial waters approximately 50 nautical miles southeast of Basra, according to measurements taken from vessel-tracking websites.
Human Rights Watch analyzed three videos posted to X by different accounts on March 12, with the earliest posted at 12:32 a.m. One of the videos, filmed from a nearby vessel, shows two large explosions on the Safesea Vishnu, seconds apart. Those filming from the nearby vessel claim to be the IRGC Navy and say that they have destroyed a US ship in the Persian Gulf. The Safesea Vishnu is engulfed in flames. This video supports accounts by Reuters from the US owner and operator of the vessel that two explosive-laden, unmanned boats rammed the vessel.
Another video shows firefighters spraying the Safesea Vishnu with water from a nearby boat. The BBC published a video filmed in daylight that shows the vessel tilting to one side considerably damaged.
The New York Times reported that, according to Iraq’s oil export authority, “[t]he two vessels were used by Iraq for its own oil transport.” The news outlet added that “[s]enior Iraqi officials said that one of the vessels, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, was owned by an American company.”
On the same day, three other vessels—One Majesty, a Japanese-flagged container vessel, and two bulk carriers, the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth and the Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree—were attacked in the strait, the IMO said.
The Royal Thai Navy spokesperson said in a statement that the navy had received an initial report that “two projectiles of unknown origin” had struck the Mayuree Naree as it sailed into the Strait of Hormuz after departing from the UAE. The statement said that the Omani navy had rescued 20 of the vessel’s 23 crew members, which the Omani Maritime Security Center confirmed. On March 18, the Royal Thai Navy reported that the ship had moved from Omani to Iranian territorial waters. Three crew members reportedly remain on board the seriously damaged vessel.
Photographs taken by rescued crew members circulating online show the superstructure emitting large columns of black smoke. One photograph shows damage to the hull of the boat near the propeller that is consistent with an explosion.
The day the three ships were reportedly attacked, Tasnim News, affiliated with the IRGC, posted a statement on its Telegram channel at 3:36 p.m. stating that the Mayuree Naree was “shelled by Iranian fighters hours ago after ignoring the warnings of the IRGC Navy and illegally insisting on passing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the IRGC naval forces, posted on X the same day at 3:50 p.m. local time that the crew of the Mayuree Naree had “ignored [Iranian authorities’] warnings and intended to pass through the strait but was caught.” He added that “[a]ny vessel intending to pass [the Strait of Hormuz] must obtain permission from #Iran.”
Both statements included claims that Iranian forces had also attacked another ship, the Express Rome, a ship not listed by the IMO as having been attacked. On March 19, Human Rights Watch received confirmation from Danaos Shipping, the owners of Express Rome, that the ship had not been hit or compromised in any way and that its crew is safe.
According to media reports from March 20, a Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs official stated that Iranian authorities had “taken one Nepali into custody from the Strait of Hormuz.”
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps StatementsHuman Rights Watch was unable to confirm who was responsible for the other 14 attacks the IMO documented. However, Iranian authorities have made several statements in which they have demonstrated a clear intention to attack ships, including civilian ships, that attempt to pass through the strait.
On March 4, Mohammad Akbarzadeh, an IRGC navy official, announced that the Strait of Hormuz was “under the complete control of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” On March 16, Naini repeated the statement.
“If the US claims that the Iranian Navy has been destroyed, then why is the Strait of Hormuz still closed and not even a tanker is allowed to pass,” Akbarzadeh said. “If the Iranian Aerospace Force [the IRGC’s missile, air, and space force, separate from the Air Force] has been destroyed, why do our missiles and drones hit the intended targets at specific intervals?”
On March 12, what appears to be the new X account of the newly appointed supreme leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, posted: “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely continue to be used.” Tangsiri reposted the statement, adding: “By maintaining the strategy of keeping the #Strait_of_Hormuz closed, we will deal the most severe blows to the aggressor enemy.”
Also on March 12, the IRGC Public Relations office said in the statement posted by IRNA on Telegram that ships “must act in accordance with the laws and regulations of passage in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz…in order to remain safe from being hit by stray projectiles.”
The United States has also targeted and destroyed Iranian military vessels. US Central Command reported that they had damaged or destroyed 43 Iranian ships within the first seven days of the war. While military vessels constitute legitimate military targets, the attacks may pose long-term environmental threats to the region. The US navy’s attack on an Iranian military vessel near Sri Lanka on March 4 caused an oil spill stretching 20 kilometers, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Wim Zwijnenberg, an analyst at PAX, a Dutch nongovernmental organization, told Human Rights Watch that, as of March 13, the attacks by all parties to the conflict had caused “a lot of [environmental] impacts on many different locations, [including] oil spills near Basra, Bandar Abbas and Sri Lanka, but often short-term and limited impact” as a result of authorities’ quick cleanups. However, on March 18, Zwijnenberg said that a separate US strike on an Iranian drone carrier near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran had “resulted in a large 25km long oil slick that is posing a threat [to] the coastal and marine environment of the Hara Biosphere and Khuran Strait Wetlands.”
The continuation of attacks on vessels carrying large quantities of oil and gas has the potential to cause long-term and significant environmental harm. Despite cleanup efforts, offshore oil spills have long-lasting detrimental impacts on marine life and ecosystems. Customary international humanitarian law provides that warring parties need to respect the protection and preservation of the natural environment. All feasible steps should be taken to minimize environmental harm. Using methods or means of warfare that are intended or can be expected to cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment is prohibited.
The attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the threat of attack, and the targeting of energy infrastructure within the context of conflicts also appear to be contributing to significant global cost increases in energy, which may lead to increases in the costs of food and other critical sectors, to the detriment of the rights of populations.
In the same speech on March 11, Zofaghari said: “Get ready for the oil barrel to be at [US]$200, because the oil price depends on the regional stability which you have destabilized.”
Increases in oil and gas prices will have ripple effects on sectors such as food, transportation, and energyprices around the globe, which are critical to the enjoyment of human rights. Moreover, news outlets and think tanks have described the potential impact on the global food supply as a result of the collapse in fertilizer exports through the strait. The Financial Times has reported that, according to several experts, the “Middle East war is close to triggering a global food shock worse than that unleashed by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine” given that significant percentages of the raw materials for widely used fertilizers are transported through the strait.
World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters on March 17 that if the ongoing regional conflict continues, “an additional 45 million people could be pushed into acute hunger by price rises.”
China: Prominent Rights Lawyer Sentenced to 5 Years
(New York) – A court in China sentenced the prominent human rights lawyer Xie Yang to five years in prison on March 23, 2026, on politically motivated charges of “inciting subversion of state power,” Human Rights Watch said today. The Chinese government should immediately quash the conviction, which followed serious procedural violations and years of persecution, and free Xie unconditionally.
The Changsha Intermediate People’s Court cited several of Xie’s WeChat posts as the basis for the verdict, Xie’s former wife, Chen Guiqiu, posted on social media. The court also ordered the confiscation of 100,000 yuan (US$14,500).
“The Chinese authorities’ prosecution of Xie Yang and the court’s harsh sentence reflects Beijing’s utter contempt for the rule of law,” said Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This case not only aimed to persecute a brave human rights lawyer like Xie, but to intimidate all lawyers seeking to protect Chinese people’s rights.”
The legal proceedings against Xie were marred by serious violations of due process protections, Chen said. The authorities extended his pretrial detention 13 times for a total of over four years and barred his lawyers from participating in his hearings. Xie’s October 2025 trial was held in secret, police only told his family afterward.
Xie’s trial violated the right to a fair trial by an independent and impartial court as provided under international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said. In addition, the proceedings violated China’s Criminal Procedural Law, which guarantees a right to a defense (articles 33-35), public trial hearings (article 188), and time limits for a criminal investigation. With time served, Xie’s sentence is expected to go to January 2027.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has recognized Xie’s detention as arbitrary and called for his immediate release.
Xie, 54, from Changsha, Hunan province, began practicing law in 2011. He has defended activists and victims of rights abuses in politically sensitive cases, including cases of religious persecution and land rights disputes.
Xie has faced repeated retaliation for his work. In July 2015, during the nationwide arrests of human rights lawyers known as the “709 crackdown,” Xie was tortured and subjected to enforced disappearance, convicted of “inciting subversion,” and imprisoned until 2017.
The authorities detained him again in January 2022 after he pressed for the release of a young teacher who had been forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility for criticizing censorship in education. Police raided Xie’s home, tortured him in custody, and held him on charges of “inciting subversion” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” said the US-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
“Foreign governments should continue to speak out for human rights lawyers like Xie Yang because this kind of support is most important when the circumstances are so dire,” Wang said. “Vocal international support could improve Xie’s treatment, and crucially, help give him and others in China the strength to persevere.”
Türkiye: European Court Hears New Case on Jailed Rights Defender
(London, March 24, 2026) – The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will hear pleadings on March 25, 2026, in a case brought by the human rights defender Osman Kavala, the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project (TLSP), Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists said today.
Joint Third Party Intervention in Kavala v Türkiye
Kavala has been continuously detained since 2017, despite binding judgments from the court that his detention should end. The three organizations have submitted a third-party intervention to the court, arguing, among other points, that the government’s undermining of judicial independence in Türkiye has contributed to the violations against Kavala.
“Osman Kavala’s unlawful and politically motivated detention has been allowed to persist for the best part of a decade in part because Türkiye’s judicial system lacks independence,” said Ayşe Bingöl Demir, director of TLSP. “We hope the court will scrutinize how Türkiye’s ruling political parties have systematically taken steps to capture judicial authority and what that means for human rights.”
Kavala was arrested in October 2017, and on April 25, 2022, was convicted of “attempting to overthrow the government” and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for his alleged role in the 2013 mass protests triggered by an urban transformation plan around Istanbul’s Gezi Park. In 2019 and 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his detention was arbitrary and motivated by ulterior political purposes. The second judgment was the result of highly exceptional infringement proceedings, initiated by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe when Türkiye failed to implement the earlier judgement.
In early 2024, Kavala submitted a new application to the court, alleging that there had been multiple additional violations of his rights since its 2019 ruling. As of November 2025, the case has been before the court’s Grand Chamber, which is now due to examine the case.
The organizations’ intervention describes the degradation of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary in Türkiye, leading to the capture of judicial authority by the ruling coalition political parties—Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)—as part of a broader assumption of effective political control over state institutions.
Attacks on judicial independence have included the removal of many legal safeguards designed to protect the independence of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors, the main self-governing body of the judiciary. Positions on the council were then able to be filled by judges and prosecutors close to the government. Some of those appointed have a track record of misusing anti-terrorism and national security laws as well as failing to implement Constitutional Court and European Court judgments.
“The council appears to have become an instrument to unduly influence the judiciary and its decision making, rather than serving as a safeguard for its independence,” said Temur Shakirov, director of the Europe and Central Asia program at the International Commission of Jurists. “Its powers are used to create a climate of fear and submission among judges and prosecutors, including through arbitrary measures affecting their careers and rights.”
Influence and control over the judiciary have also been secured in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt in Türkiye by arbitrarily dismissing thousands of judges and prosecutors and replacing them with individuals seemingly approved by or aligned with the ruling political parties. Their recruitment has been neither independent from the executive nor based on objective and transparent criteria.
Continued political pressure and interference with the judiciary in cases concerning perceived dissidents or others viewed as obstructing the interests of the ruling coalition have further contributed to the capture and instrumentalization of judicial authority in Türkiye.
Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to an effective remedy for violations of human rights protected by the convention. The third-party intervention argues that individual applications to Türkiye’s Constitutional Court can no longer be considered an effective remedy due to the lack of independence of its members from the executive and the resulting ineffectiveness in upholding the human rights of perceived dissidents. The Constitutional Court also lacks a transparent case prioritization policy, contributing to selectivity and facilitating interference with its independence.
The groups’ intervention notes that Türkiye consistently avoids discharging its convention obligations, particularly in politically sensitive cases, and that judicial and government authorities frequently circumvent national or European Court judgments and actively undermine their proper implementation.
“Turkish judicial authorities have subverted criminal proceedings, including by unreasonable interpretations of provisions of criminal law and disregard for core procedural rights,” said Aisling Reidy, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “This is also reflected in the persistent defiance of European Court of Human Rights judgments and the standards established in its case law.”
Japan Authorities Take Steps to Address Athlete Abuse
The Japan Sports Agency (JSA) recently released its Guidelines for Evaluating and Improving Safety Measures in Physical Activity and Sports (Trial Version). After documented suffering by Japanese athletes and insufficient mechanisms to report abuse, the government’s efforts to end mistreatment in sports are a positive step. However, effective implementation is crucial.
The guidelines, published on January 27, 2026, come in five versions targeting groups involved in sports. The ones for athletes, coaches, and sports organizers, such as teams and clubs, include a section on abuse and harassment, provide examples of abusive behavior, identify contributing factors, and offer prevention and response measures.
In 2020, Human Rights Watch documented systemic child abuse in Japanese sports. Five years later, the Basic Act on Sport was revised, requiring the national government to address abuse. Soon after, Human Rights Watch and advocacy partners wrote to the JSA commissioner, Junichi Kawai, recommending establishing a Safe Sport Act and a Safe Sport Center to ensure that athletes can report abuse and that their cases are addressed.
On January 28, safe sport advocacy groups and former athletes and scholars met with the JSA to back efforts to eliminate harassment in sports and to stress the need for a Safe Sport Act and a Safe Sport Center.
Carrying out the new guidelines is merely voluntary. The draft FY2026 budget states that JSA will promote the guidelines and create a program to register and publicize organizations that comply. However, the process to address abuses in organizations that have refused to carry out the suggested measures remains unclear. Japan needs a legal framework requiring sports organizations to act on abuse.
While the guidelines list hotlines to report athlete abuse, each sports organization would operate its own complaint mechanism. Experts have raised concerns about insufficient staffing, funding, and expertise if organizations operate the hotlines. To establish a system that athletes can use without fear of retaliation and can trust to take effective action, an independent complaint mechanism is necessary.
The Japanese government has embarked on a path to greater sports safety, but to succeed, effective implementation, including a Safe Sport Act and a Safe Sport Center, is needed so that athletes and children across Japan are protected.
Türkiye: Impeded Access to Mayor’s Trial
(Istanbul, March 23, 2026) – An Istanbul court has imposed arbitrary restrictions on lawyers, journalists, and members of the public seeking to follow the trial of the jailed Istanbul Mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, Human Rights Watch said today. Imamoğlu and 406 municipal officials and others have been on trial since March 9, 2026, facing politically motivated corruption charges.
The court should ensure that hearings are open to the public and that reporters are not relegated to the far back corner of the courtroom, where it can be difficult to follow interactions between the defendants and judges.
“The fundamental principle that justice must be seen to be done requires access for journalists, lawyers, and the public, especially when elected officials are on trial and the proceedings are of such public interest,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “There is a lot of empty space in the huge courtroom that could and should be used to ensure that journalists observing the case are able to effectively follow the proceedings.”
The decisions by the Istanbul 40th Assize Court to increase restrictions followed several tense hearings, which Human Rights Watch representatives observed, marked by disputes about seating arrangements between the court, lawyers, journalists, and politicians from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), from which İmamoğlu was elected.
Two co-defendants Resul Emrah Şahan and Mehmet Murat Çalık, CHP mayors of Istanbul districts Şişli and Beylikdüzü, are expected to present their defense during the week beginning March 23. The indictment accuses both district mayors as being members of an alleged criminal organization led by İmamoğlu, with Şahan referred to as a “special member.” If the court’s entry restrictions continue, the public will not be permitted to attend their hearings.
The hearings are taking place in the Marmara Prison campus courthouse in Istanbul’s most remote district, Silivri, 70 kilometers from the city center. Security arrangements outside the courthouse are strict, with a large presence of gendarmes, barricades, and identity checks at the entrances to the prison campus car park and to the building housing the courtrooms.
The courtroom itself is the size of a sports hall with the judges and prosecutor seated at one end, with 107 defendants held in pretrial detention in front of them surrounded by gendarmes, then seating for defendants who are at liberty, with seating for lawyers on raised rows of benches at the sides, and seating for onlookers and the media in a small enclosure at the very back.
On March 16, the chief judge postponed the hearing before the session began because three members of parliament from the CHP, who are lawyers and were observing, refused to comply with his order to move from the lawyers’ benches at the front, to the back of the court.
The court issued a written order later that day limiting presence in the courtroom to defendants, three lawyers per defendant, one relative per defendant, and media, excluding everyone else from the room. Lawyers not acting for defendants, but wishing to observe the proceedings, were also excluded.
The hearings on March 17 and 18 took place with increased security and reduced public presence, with all defendants’ relatives seated at the back and many rows of benches at the sides reserved for lawyers left empty. After a negotiation with the court, several CHP members of parliament were admitted to the back of the court. On March 18, further negotiation resulted in more relatives and opposition party supporters and officials being allowed in, although the wider public and lawyers not acting for defendants were not granted access.
On March 12, the chief judge ended a hearing early when journalists did not comply with his order to move from benches reserved for lawyers to the back corner. Following an incident in which a journalist had asked İmamoğlu a question as he was leaving the courtroom, journalists are now only permitted to follow proceedings from the back corner of the courtroom. Journalists have submitted written petitions requesting to be moved back to the empty side benches, citing the difficulty of seeing and hearing the full proceedings from what they described as a “blind spot.”
Being seated in the back corner limits what journalists can hear beyond the testimony of individuals in the dock whose words are audible via speakers and who are visible via two large video screens. Off-microphone discussions between defendants and the judges are not audible at the back of the court.
Over the past year the Turkish authorities have targeted journalists for their critical reporting on the investigations and court cases against İmamoğlu, other CHP mayors, and lawsuits aimed at removing the leadership of the party.
The journalists should be able to do their work without unnecessary restrictions on their ability to inform the public of all developments in the court, Human Rights Watch said.
Under the Turkish Constitution, and in line with the right under international law to a public hearing as part of a fair trial, court hearings are open to the public. A decision to hold part or all of a hearing in private may only be made in cases in which it is strictly required by considerations of public morality or public security. In 2023, the Constitutional Court ruled that public trials are a constitutional requirement, and restrictions on hearings cannot be imposed unless the conditions specified in the constitution are met.
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Türkiye is party, guarantees the right to a fair trial including “a fair and public hearing.” The European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that public access is an important factor in ensuring the right to a fair trial, and while some limitations are permitted, they must be strictly necessary for specific purposes in the interest of justice. Arbitrary restrictions are not permissible.
“Imposing arbitrary restrictions on access to this case undermines confidence in the proceedings and violates the requirement under Turkish and international law to conduct justice in public,” Ward said. “Instead of limiting the public’s right to information about the case, the authorities should allow journalists to report fully on proceedings and ensure public access to the trial.”
Israeli Officials Signal Stepped-Up Atrocities in Lebanon
(Beirut, March 23, 2026) – Israeli forces have expanded ground operations in southern Lebanon after indicating an intent to forcibly displace residents, destroy civilian homes and conduct strikes that could target civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. Forcible displacement, wanton destruction and attacks deliberately targeting civilians are war crimes. Countries that continue to provide Israel with arms and military aid risk complicity in the Israeli government’s serious violations in Lebanon.
On March 22, Israel’s defense Minister, Israel Katz, issued a statement announcing that he and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “ordered the acceleration of the demolition of Lebanese houses in the border villages in order to thwart threats to Israeli communities - in accordance with the Beit Hanoun and Rafah models in Gaza.” On March 16, 2026, Katz said that “hundreds of thousands of Shiite residents of southern Lebanon […] will not return to their homes south of the Litani area until the safety of Israel’s northern residents is guaranteed.” Displacement orders issued by the Israeli military to residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut between March 11 and 15 further stated that the Israeli military “will not hesitate to target anyone who is present near Hezbollah members, facilities, or means of combat.”
“For over two years, Israel’s allies and European states that purport to support and uphold human rights have buried their heads in the sand as atrocities continue in Lebanon, as in Gaza,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Atrocities flourish when there is impunity, and other countries should no longer stand by as they continue.”
Since the recent escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,029 people in Lebanon, including 118 children and 40 medical workers, as of March 18 according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. In recent days, Hezbollah has fired an average of about 150 rockets per day, according to the Israeli military. Hezbollah attacks have injured at least 15 people in Israel, according to Israeli mediareports.
On March 4 and 5, the Israeli military issued displacement orders for the entire population of Lebanon south of the Litani River and all residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, which include hundreds of thousands of people. Since March 12, the Israeli military has expanded the areas subject to displacement orders, ordering residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate north of the Zahrani River, 15 kilometers north of the Litani River, and 40 kilometers north of Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. Over a million people have been displaced in Lebanon thus far.
The Israeli defense minister’s statement, indicating that Shiite residents of southern Lebanon will be prevented from returning to their homes until an undetermined safety standard for Israel’s northern residents is guaranteed, signals that Israel will prevent residents from returning to their homes for an indefinite period. The sweeping nature of the displacement orders, and the statements that do not address the protection of the displaced civilians, raises concerns of the war crime of forced displacement, Human Rights Watch said.
Singling out Shiite residents further indicates that Israel is imposing such measures based on their religion, a human rights violation, and further indicates that the residents’ security is not the aim of the displacement.
Ordering the Israeli military to accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes raises serious risk of the war crime of wanton destruction and violations of the prohibition under international law against deliberately destroying civilian property except when necessary for lawful military reasons. The mere possibility of future military use by armed groups of some civilian structures cannot under the laws of war justify the wide-scale destruction of whole homes across Lebanon’s border.
Between March 11 and 15, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson issued at least five nearly identical displacement orders for residents of seven neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, after first issuing a sweeping displacement order for entire southern suburbs of Beirut on March 5. The statement ordered residents to “evacuate the area immediately” and called on them to “not return to those neighborhoods until further notice.”
The orders further stated that the Israeli military “will not hesitate to target anyone who is present near Hezbollah members, facilities, or means of combat.” This differs from previous orders issued to residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, which stated, for example, that “Anyone who is near Hezbollah members, facilities or means of combat is putting their lives at risk.”
On March 5, minister in the defense ministry, Bezalel Smotrich, who sits on the security cabinet and also serves as Israel’s finance minister, recorded a video statement standing at the Israel-Lebanon border, stating that “very soon, Dahieh [Beirut’s southern suburb] will look like Khan Younis,” in Gaza. Human Rights Watch has previously documented war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide by the Israeli military in Gaza.
These statements, combined with Israeli forces’ previous conduct of war in Lebanon, raise serious concern that the Israeli military may target civilians, based solely on their presence in or proximity to areas where Hezbollah is present.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have committed numerous violations of the laws of war and apparent war crimes in Lebanon with total impunity, including apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on journalists, civilians, medics, financial institutions, reconstruction-related facilities, and peacekeepers. They have also unlawfully used white phosphorus in populated areas, among other violations. Human Rights Watch has documented several unlawful attacks in Lebanon using US-made weapons.
Civilians who chose to stay in areas subject to displacement orders in southern Lebanon are particularly at risk of being cut-off from food and medicine supplies and other aid, Human Rights Watch said.
In a statement published on March 18, the Israeli Military Arabic spokesperson said that bridges crossing over the Litani River into southern Lebanon would be struck “to prevent the movement of reinforcements and means of combat” into southern Lebanon. Between March 13 and 22, the Israeli military said that it struck at least four Litani River bridges.
Hezbollah should take all feasible precautions to protect civilians in its operations in Lebanon and Israel.
Civilians who do not evacuate following orders are still fully protected by international humanitarian law. Forced displacement is prohibited under the laws of war, except in cases in which civilian security is involved or for imperative military reasons.
A person who commits serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.
Lebanon’s judicial authorities should initiate domestic investigations of serious international crimes, and the government should accede to the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute and submit a declaration accepting the court’s jurisdiction prior to the date of accession, including since at least October 7, 2023.
Israel’s key allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel and impose targeted sanctions on officials credibly responsible for ongoing serious abuses. They should levy further pressure on Israel to ensure that displaced residents can return to their homes once hostilities end or once the reasons for their displacement cease to exist.
“The Israeli military does not get to decide when civilians lose protections afforded by international law nor should it be allowed to prevent displaced residents from returning to their homes based on some undefined ‘safety’ standard,” Kaiss said. “Deliberately targeting civilians, civilian objects, and others protected under international law would be a war crime, and countries supplying Israel with weapons need to realize they are risking complicity in war crimes too.”
A Step Toward Justice for Abuses in Ukraine
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, sustained international efforts are critical to ensure accountability for grave abuses. New findings by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine underscore why its mandate should be renewed.
The commission’s new report includes findings on Russian authorities’ deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The commission verified the deportation or transfer of at least 1,205 children, 80 percent of whom have not been returned.
It also found that Russian authorities have systematically withheld information about the children’s whereabouts from their parents or legal guardians and obstructed efforts to secure their return. Russian authorities instead have sought to place the children with families or in institutions in Russia. The commission concluded that these systematic acts, including deportation, forcible transfer, and enforced disappearances, amount to crimes against humanity.
The commission also documented serious violations of fair trial rights for Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war before courts in the Russian Federation and in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine. It found that these courts accept fabricated evidence or testimony obtained under torture, in proceedings marked by a lack of independence and an apparent presumption of guilt.
As the UN Human Rights Council negotiates a resolution during its current session to renew the commission’s mandate, ongoing abuses in Ukraine underscore the importance of continued international scrutiny.
The commission’s findings echo Human Rights Watch findings of the systematic torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch has also documented repeated indiscriminate and unlawful attacks on civilian infrastructure, and deliberate drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians, amounting to war crimes.
In occupied territories, Russian authorities continue to impose Russian laws, unlawfully seize civilian property, and coerce residents to acquire Russian citizenship and serve in the Russian military. They have also imposed Russian language and curriculum in schools as part of a systematic campaign to suppress Ukrainian identity, language, and culture.
The Commission of Inquiry remains a cornerstone of accountability, helping preserve evidence, identify patterns of abuse, and support future prosecutions. Human Rights Council member states should support its renewal and ensure that it has the resources needed to continue independent investigations into grave abuses in Ukraine.
As EU and Australia Sign Trade Deal, Will They Defend Rules-Based Order?
This week, European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic will visit Canberra in anticipation of signing a free trade agreement with Australia. The deal will be the third concluded by the EU this year, following others with the Mercosur and India, and with more likely to follow. Australia meanwhile has concluded an agreement with the UAE and is seeking to boost economic ties with India.
Yet, as the EU and Australia intensify efforts to conclude trade treaties, their defense of the international rules-based order on which treaties depend has been less robust.
Von der Leyen recently came under fire following a speech in which she claimed Europe “can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order,” arguing the EU should pursue “a more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy.” Facing criticism, she later reaffirmed commitment to international law, as both the EU and Australia often do in statements. Their actions, however, do not always match their rhetoric.
Abusive migration policies, foreign policy double standards, and lukewarm defense of international law from both the EU and Australia have contributed to the weakening of the rules-based order they claim to support.
A course change is needed.
Amid global uncertainties largely induced by US President Donald Trump, the EU and Australia should reject the “low rights” economic model pushed by China and act to ensure it no longer gets rewarded.
The Australian government should heed recommendations to use trade to advance rights and environmental protection, and the EU should live up to its treaty obligations to do that, for instance by focusing on labor reforms in negotiations with Thailand and Gulf countries, instead of overlooking repression as it has done in deals with India and Vietnam.
Von der Leyen should reverse deregulation efforts that have undone years of EU progress to address corporate abuses, while Australia should adopt human rights due diligence legislation.
Furthermore, both the EU and Australia should uphold international law and ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements, and end their one-sided approach to denouncing rights abuses and laws of war violations in the Middle East.
They should invest in the United Nations human rights pillar and consistently implement policies inspired by it. Ultimately their actions, not their words, will show how deep their “shared commitment” to the international rules-based order really is, at a time when it’s most needed.
US Ramps Up Deportation of Pregnant People
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 363 pregnant, postpartum, or nursing women between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in response to a request from US senators. These figures reveal part of the mounting human toll of the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The response said that “(a)s of” February 16, 2026, there were 86 detainees that were identified as pregnant in ICE detention” including 9 in the final trimester, and that 16 miscarriages in detention had been recorded last year by late September 2025. Detaining pregnant or postpartum people means adding significant risk to their health. DHS claims that pregnant women have access to adequate medical care but media stories and reports, including a new one from Physicians for Human Rights and the Women’s Refugee Commission, indicating that pregnant women lack access to medical care continue to pile up.
DHS acknowledges that ICE is not collecting full information about numbers of lactating women in detention. Separating young children or babies from parents, including breastfeeding ones, is heartbreakingly disruptive.
The response said that 498 “pregnant, postpartum and nursing aliens” were marked as “booked out” of ICE custody between January 2025 and February 2026, but that they did not know whether they were deported, released, or perhaps taken to a medical appointment.
DHS said of its own policy that “(g)enerally ICE does not detain, arrest, or take into custody aliens known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing for an administrative violation of immigration laws unless release is prohibited by law or for exceptional circumstances.” Rights respecting alternatives allow people to stay home while their immigration case is decided.
Many questions remain and much more information and investigation is needed. The lack of clarity only emphasizes the path to a better solution: ensure that immigration officials fully follow US immigration, constitutional, and international human rights law. Without this, immigrant infants, children, nursing mothers, pregnant people, and family unity are all under threat in the United States.
DHS said of its own policy that “(g)enerally ICE does not detain, arrest, or take into custody aliens known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing for an administrative violation of immigration laws unless release is prohibited by law or for exceptional circumstances.”
Rights respecting alternatives allow people to stay home while their immigration case is decided.
Many questions remain and much more information and investigation is needed. The lack of clarity only emphasizes the path to a better solution: ensure that immigration officials fully follow US immigration, constitutional, and international human rights law. Without this, immigrant infants, children, nursing mothers, pregnant people, and family unity are all under threat in the United States.
Hungary: Arrest Netanyahu if He Visits
(Brussels) – Hungarian authorities should arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters Hungarian territory, Human Rights Watch said today. Netanyahu is expected to travel to Hungary on March 21, 2026, to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference Hungary, an official source reported. The visit comes shortly before Hungary’s national elections, scheduled for April 12.
On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, alongside then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip from at least October 8, 2023. Both Netanyahu and Gallant remain fugitives from justice before the ICC. ICC members countries are required to arrest them if they enter their territory.
“Despite its move to leave the ICC, Hungary is still a member country and is still obligated to arrest and surrender individuals wanted by the court,” said Alice Autin, international justice researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By flouting this obligation, for the second time in less than a year, Hungary would further entrench impunity for serious crimes in Palestine and once again betray victims who have been denied justice for far too long.”
Netanyahu’s planned visit to Hungary is set to take place as Israel and the United States carry out thousands of airstrikes on Iran, and Iran responds with hundreds of strikes on Israel and the Gulf states. In early March, the Israeli military escalated its attacks in Lebanon and ordered the immediate evacuation of large areas of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, raising a real likelihood of the commission of the war crime of forced displacement. The escalating hostilities and mounting risks of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law underscore the urgent need to respect the rule of law and support credible avenues for justice, such as the ICC, Human Rights Watch said.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. The continued restriction on aid entering Gaza has caused critical shortages of medicines, reconstruction equipment, food, and water.
In April 2025, Netanyahu visited Hungary, but the Hungarian authorities did not arrest him. In July, ICC judges found that Hungary failed to comply with its obligation to cooperate with the court and referred the finding to its oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties. During its annual session in December, the Assembly noted the judicial finding but failed to take more decisive action. ICC member countries should strengthen their responses to noncooperation.
During the April 2025 visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his government’s intention to withdraw from the ICC treaty, the Rome Statute. On June 2, Hungarian authorities formally notified the United Nations secretary-general of Hungary’s withdrawal, which will take effect on June 2, 2026, one year later. Hungarian international lawyers and civil society organizations criticized the decision to withdraw from the ICC.
Since 2010, Orbán has used his supermajority in parliament to undermine the independence of the judiciary, crack down on independent media and civil society organizations, demonize migrants and asylum seekers, discriminate against LGBT people, and undercut women’s and girls’ rights. By declaring various states of danger or emergency, Orbán’s government has effectively ruled by decree, sidestepping parliament altogether.
The European Union has a clear legal framework that governs its relationship with and support for the ICC. EU members and institutions have nonetheless failed to take sufficient measures to prevent Hungary’s undermining of the ICC and Orbán’s broader attack on the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said.
In 2018, the European Parliament initiated a procedure under article 7 of the EU treaty to assess the risk that Hungary’s erosion of the rule of law breaches fundamental EU values, but EU member states in the European Council have, so far, failed to take any concrete action.
The European Commission indicated in May 2025 that it was “in the process of analyzing Hungary’s announced withdrawal from the ICC in the light of the EU’s acquis,” that is, the body of EU law which includes respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. But there is no indication that the Commission’s assessment has progressed.
EU leadership and member states, along with other ICC member countries, should press Hungary to reverse its withdrawal from the court, publicly remind Hungary of its ongoing obligations as an ICC member, and urge Hungarian authorities to cooperate with the court by arresting Netanyahu. If the visit takes place, they should strongly condemn Hungary’s continued failure to cooperate with the court and unambiguously reaffirm their own commitment to execute all pending ICC warrants, regardless of whom they target, Human Rights Watch said.
The European Commission and EU member states should also consider Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC as a further risk of serious breach of fundamental EU values, and consider including the withdrawal in the scope of the current procedure under article 7. They should also assess what other measures and action should be taken. This could include initiating a procedure that could lead to a finding that Hungary has infringed EU law.
“Orbán’s government is about to roll out the red carpet again for Netanyahu, when it is obligated to arrest him,” Autin said. “Silence and persistent inaction from the EU risks sending a dangerous message of acquiescence as the Israeli government continues to be responsible for atrocities.”
Norway: Halt Extradition of Activist to Greece
(Athens) – The arrest of a human rights activist, Tommy Olsen, by Norwegian authorities on March 16, 2026, is based on a groundless extradition request by Greece, Human Rights Watch said today.
Olsen, a Norwegian national and the founder of the nongovernmental organization Aegean Boat Report, was arrested at his home in Tromsø under a European Arrest Warrant from Greece. He is being prosecuted by Greek authorities alongside a Greek human rights defender, Panayote Dimitras, of Greek Helsinki Monitor on unfounded charges linked to their peaceful migrant rights activism.
“Tommy Olsen’s arrest is the result of Greek authorities misusing the European Arrest Warrant to expand their crackdown on migrant rights defenders to Norway,” said Eva Cossé, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Norwegian authorities should refuse to be a part of targeting rights defenders, release Olsen immediately, and refuse to extradite him on human rights grounds.”
Charges against Olsen include forming a criminal organization and facilitating illegal entry. Olsen’s humanitarian work involves documenting human rights violations against migrants and asylum seekers, including illegal pushbacks.
The case against Olsen and Dimitras is part of a wider pattern of misuse of the criminal law to harass activists defending the rights of migrants. In January, a Greek court in Lesbos acquitted 24 humanitarian workers of the final charges against them after a seven-year ordeal, during which time some had spent periods in detention for their peaceful activism. The European Parliament described it as the “largest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe.”
Greek authorities recently passed legislation that makes it easier to criminalize civil society organizations involved in aiding migrants and asylum seekers.
While extraditions under the European Arrest Warrant from one European Union state to another are largely automatic, the EU Court of Justice has ruled that they can be delayed or halted on human rights grounds if there is a fair trial concern or a risk of abusive detention. In a March 4 report, the Council of Europe Anti-Torture Committee said that detention conditions in male prisons in Greece “continue to fall short of acceptable and legal minimum standards” and that they could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.
The United Nations special rapporteur on human right defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed deep concern on March 19 about Olsen’s arrest, stating that these charges appear to be “in direct retaliation” for Olsen’s work and form part of a “long-standing and well-documented repression” of rights defenders in Greece.
“Greece should be celebrating the life-saving work of Tommy Olsen and others like him not trying to jail him,” Cossé said. “Norwegian authorities should not allow themselves to become a party to this injustice.”
North Korea’s Rights Crisis, Not Just Missiles, Needs Global Attention
While breaking news stories capture our attention—North Korea’s recent launching of 10 ballistic missiles grabbed headlines—there’s a tendency to ignore long running but dire issues such as North Korea’s ongoing human rights crisis.
On March 13, the United Nations special rapporteur on North Korea, Elizabeth Salmón, reminded us of the latter’s importance. She told the UN Human Rights Council that North Korea's human rights situation “had showed no improvement and, in many instances, had degraded” over the past decade.
Her annual report to the Human Rights Council proposed measurable indicators to track North Korea's implementation of the recommendations from other countries during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN process reviewing each country’s human rights record.
On freedom of movement, the special rapporteur documented expanded border fences, new guard posts, and intensified enforcement of domestic travel permit requirements in North Korea since Covid-19. Border guards remain under shoot-on-sight orders for anyone attempting to leave the country without authorization. Only 223 North Koreans reached South Korea in 2025. Those caught attempting to flee face torture, imprisonment, and forced labor. A North Korean woman detained in China and at risk of forced return is facing these abuses for trying to reunite her family.
On the right to work, Pyongyang rejected every UPR recommendation on forced labor. The 2025 Labour Management Act assigns people to workplaces, effectively codifying state-directed forced labor.
These abuses may appear unrelated to the missiles dominating news feeds, but the UN high commissioner on human rights and numerous UN findings have long stressed that North Korea’s security and human rights are interlinked. The country’s nuclear weapons programs have relied on arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, forced labor, and severe limits on information and movement.
It’s critical that countries seeking to counter North Korea’s weapons programs also confront the human rights violations underpinning them. As the special rapporteur emphasized, human rights should be “an opening for engagement” and at the center of any future dialogue with North Korea.
The Human Rights Council should renew the special rapporteur's mandate. Governments should increase financial support for nongovernmental organizations conducting crucial monitoring and getting information from North Korea, particularly those affected by recent US funding cuts, and advance accountability. The high commissioner has urged states to pursue accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court and prosecutions in other countries using the UN’s repository of evidence in fair and independent proceedings.
Bahrain: Sweeping Arrests Amid Conflict
(Beirut) – Bahraini authorities have arrested dozens of people for exercising their right to peaceful expression, seeking the death penalty in some cases, amid the conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, Human Rights Watch said today.
“At this critical moment, Bahrain authorities should be expanding their efforts to protect people, not arresting them for peacefully demonstrating or posting on social media,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Bahraini authorities should stop detaining people, unconditionally release all those arbitrarily detained, and temporarily release others on humanitarian grounds.”
Human Rights Watch spoke to nine people, including detainees’ family members and members of Bahraini civil society and reviewed and verified information shared online, including statements, social media posts, and videos.
Since February 28, 2026, Israel and the United States have carried out thousands of attacks across Iran. Iranian forces responded with waves of drone and missile attacks, including on Bahrain, many unlawfully targeting civilian objects. In Bahrain, the attacks have killed at least two people and injured 46 according to Bahrain News Agency, the official news source.
Amid the attacks, several countries have cracked down on their own populations for exercising their right to free speech. In Bahrain, authorities have arrested dozens of people for participating in peaceful demonstrations mourning the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s former Supreme Leader, for protesting US and Israeli attacks in Iran, or for posting footage of the attacks on social media, said the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and an activist compiling the cases.
On March 6, the Interior Ministry’s Civil Defense Council said it was banning protests “to uphold public safety responsibilities in light of the blatant Iranian aggression against the Kingdom of Bahrain."
Over a series of posts, the Interior Ministry has said that it had detained at least 40 people for publishing content online for reasons ranging from “abused the use of social media” to “expressing sympathy for Iranian aggression, which constitutes treason.”
On March 1, authorities detained two men, Hussein Naji and Ali Mahdi, who were marching toward the US embassy in a peaceful protest. Four people interviewed, including a family member, said the march to protest US attacks on Iran was entirely non-violent. The family member said that authorities had said they were bringing charges against the men for “inciting hatred against the [Bahraini] government; causing public disorder during war; and supporting and endorsing a state hostile to Bahrain.”
In another case, Bahraini authorities, some in civilian clothes, detained Muneer Mirza Ahmed Mushaima at his home on March 4. Fatima Mansor, his wife, said that about 30 men arrived at about 3:30 a.m. in several cars, some with “Ministry of Interior” written on their sides, stormed the house and detained her husband. Human Rights Watch reviewed a video she provided showing five patrol vehicles pulled up to their house, with at least seven people emerging from the cars, some in black uniforms and white helmets, and others in civilian clothes.
She said the people introduced themselves as members of the “Order Preservation Force” of the Interior Ministry but did not show any proof, or present search or arrest warrants, even when she asked.
She said they accused her husband of “running a social media account [with unlawful content],” but he told her that the phone they used as evidence was not his. She said her husband has been detained several times since 2017.
In another case, Youssef Ahmed said that at 3:30 am on March 8, several men, apparently plain clothes police officers, came to his house and questioned him and his 16-year-old son. “There were two unmarked cars with no police insignia,” he said. “Even when they asked for my ID, I asked them who they were, and they said they were the police, but they didn’t give me any papers.”
After checking his son’s phone, the men left, he said, but arrested him the next afternoon. “My son didn’t participate in any demonstrations,” he said. “I don’t know why they arrested him, and they haven’t given us any information. There was no arrest warrant.”
An activist interview said that others who have been detained were unable to make phone calls to their families or to lawyers for several days. One was Badoor Abdulhameed, who was detained for her posts on social media. The activist said that she was not allowed to make a phone call until five days after her arrest, and authorities did not inform her family where she was, possibly amounting to the crime of enforced disappearance.
Enforced disappearances, in which the authorities detain a person and then refuse to acknowledge their whereabouts or situation when asked, are serious crimes under international law and are prohibited at all times under both international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
Several of those arrested have been migrant workers, who comprise over 53 percent of the population, and are governed by an abusive visa sponsorship system.
“We have already been told that if police arrest us for posting on social media, the company will not be responsible,” said one migrant worker who has been in Bahrain for seven years. “We must look after ourselves. Messages have already come telling us not to do anything risky. I have seen some people post on TikTok. I do not know what happened to them… Even when life is at risk, if they do not allow videos to be posted, it feels a bit suffocating.”
On March 9, Bahrain’s Public Prosecution said in a public statement that they had “requested the court to issue death sentences for some of the defendants due to their involvement in espionage.”
On the same day, the Interior Ministry’s Police Media Center announced the arrest of five Pakistani men and one Bangladeshi man because they allegedly “filmed, published, and reposted videos related to the effects of the treacherous Iranian aggression, expressing sympathy with and glorifying those hostile acts in a manner that harms security and public order.”
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bahrain is a party, protects the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The Human Rights Committee has clarified that these rights apply to online expression and assembly.
International human rights standards, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Bahrain, obligate countries that use the death penalty to restrict its enforcement to exceptional circumstances for the “most serious crimes.”
Bahrain’s government has increasingly turned to repressive laws, including the penal code, the counterterrorism law, the press and publication law, and cybercrime legislation to further restrict civic space.
This is in addition to the Bahraini government’s broader history of repressing freedom of speech, and continued arbitrary detention of political leaders and human rights defenders including Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, Hassan Mushaima, Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace, Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, and Sheikh Ali Salman. Many have been consistently denied adequate medical care despite their urgent medical needs, some as a result of torture and long-term imprisonment.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and its determination is often plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error, Human Rights Watch said.
“Bahraini authorities are using the cover of war to justify further violations against the population of Bahrain, including migrant workers,” Jafarnia said.
Tanzania: Bystanders Shot in Post-Election Crackdown
(Nairobi) – Tanzanian security forces cracking down on protests during and after the country’s disputed 2025 general elections killed and injured people who were not participating in those demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch documented the killing of 31 people not participating in protests and received credible information of another 19 such deaths. Based on initial research into the number of people killed countrywide, Human Rights Watch believes that at least hundreds were killed. The government commission established to investigate the election-related violence should investigate these and other abuses, and ensure accountability.
“The Tanzanian authorities’ brazen crackdown on dissent during the elections devastated many people’s lives,” said Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, “The commission of inquiry should deliver justice for the victims and accountability and ensure that such violations do not happen again.”
Following weeks of calls for protests against intensifying political repression, protesters took to the streets in Dar es Salaam and other cities on election day for the president and parliament, October 29, 2025. Police officers used beatings, lethal force and tear gas to disperse protesters and enforce a five-day nationwide lockdown, killing and injuring many, including people who were not protesting. In some cases, witnesses said, military and police officers set up roadblocks and prevented wounded people from reaching hospitals. Some of them died.
Between October 2025 and February 2026, Human Rights Watch interviewed 48 people, including 34 witnesses, 7 journalists, and 5 civil society members and activists, in 6 of Tanzania’s administrative regions – Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Geita, Mwanza, Ruvuma, and Mjini Magharibi in Zanzibar, and reviewed court documents and media reports. Researchers analyzed 15 photographs and videos sent to researchers by witnesses or posted to social media corroborating witness accounts.
Police officers enforcing the lockdown beat and shot at people, including vendors, at a market in Buhongwa, a Mwanza neighborhood, on the morning of October 30, killing at least 7 and injuring about 50 others, according to witnesses. “The police were shooting directly at any group of people,” one witness said.
On October 30, a 31-year-old man said, police officers responding to protests in Songea, in southwestern Tanzania, shot him at around 4 p.m. as he returned from work: “Because the shots were being fired indiscriminately, you would just hear the sound of gunshots sometimes above or passing below. So, I didn't hear the gunshot, I was just startled to find my leg numb.”
The authorities arrested over 2,000 people, including children, accusing many of destroying government property and of treason, which is punishable by death. International law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention.
A 39-year-old man who works as a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) driver said police in Dar es Salaam arrested him on October 30, as he transported a customer. He said they falsely accused him of participating in the protests, severely beat him, and charged him with treason.
He was finally released along with hundreds of others on December 24,after President Samia Suluhu Hassan told the public prosecutions director to review the cases of those arrested. The driver said that he is unable to work due to leg injuries from the beatings.
Following international pressure, on November 18, the Office of the President formed an “independent commission” of former officials and retired civil servants to “investigate events that led to the breach of peace during and after the general elections.” It is unclear whether the mandate covers people killed and injured while not protesting and arbitrary arrests. The commission is set to conclude its work on April 3, 2026.
On March 6, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Tanzania Police Force and to the Commission of Inquiry to share the findings and to ask for information, but has not received a response.
Domestic, regional, and international human rights standards, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, to which Tanzania is a party, prohibit the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials and provide the right to a remedy for gross human rights violations.
Under the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, security forces should use force only when non-violent means are ineffective and only in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved. Law enforcement officers should use firearms only to defend themselves or others from an imminent threat of death or serious injury, or, in some circumstances, where necessary in response to a serious crime involving a grave threat to life. The intentional lethal use of firearms is permitted only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.
Concerned governments and Tanzania’s developmental partners should publicly call on the government to thoroughly investigate these abuses, prosecute those responsible, and ensure reparations, Human Rights Watch said. They should also support civil society’s role in documenting human rights violations.
“The Tanzanian authorities should recognize that impunity for rights abuses encourages further political violence,” Nyeko said, “They should end the continuing political repression and the detention of government critics, civil society and media.”
For further details on the findings, please see below.
Tanzania’s government intensified repression of the political opposition, government critics, and the media before the October 2025 elections.
On April 9, police arrested Tundu Lissu, chairman of the main opposition party, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), charging him with treason and publishing “false information” online, following his critical remarks at a rally. Lissu’s party had called for an electoral boycott after the government’s failure to implement electoral reforms.
Days after his arrest, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) barred Chadema from participating in the elections, ostensibly because the party had not signed a government-mandated code of conduct.
In the run-up to the polls, the authorities arrested protesters and restricted media outlets that covered these issues. The authorities were implicated in the abduction and extrajudicial killing of at least 10 government critics.
Following weeks of calls by activists to protest about these issues, on the morning of election day protests started in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, and in other cities, notably Mwanza and Arusha.
At around 1 p.m., the government imposed nationwide internet restrictions, and at 5 p.m., police Inspector General Camillus Wambura, announced a lockdown in Dar es Salaam starting at 6 p.m. He told residents to remain home indefinitely, with only police and other security agencies allowed on the streets.
Despite the restrictions, protesters returned to the streets the next day in Dar es Salaam and other places, including Namanga on the Kenya border. Internet access was briefly restored and then suspended again.
Protests largely subsided after October 30, and on November 1, the Election Commission announced that Hassan had won the presidency. She was sworn in for a second term on November 3 , and the government spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, announced a “gradual resumption of normal activities” with the internet gradually restored and residents allowed to leave their homes the next day.
Dar es Salaam, October 29-30
At around 10 a.m. on election day, demonstrators in Dar es Salaam blocked Mandela, Bagamoyo and Morogoro roads, leading to the city center, with burning tires and debris, media reported.
A 20-year-old woman told Human Rights Watch that she and her mother were sitting outside their home in Dar es Salaam’s Ubungo district when they were shot in the legs, around 2 p.m., as they tried to move inside:
I didn't see where the police were, but those who saw them say they were on the road, firing [bullets] even here into the neighborhood. I don't know if they were actually on the road, or if they moved closer to the area, I didn't know because I saw people coming, running, and I went inside, that's when it found me.
Both she and her mother said that they could not work after the shooting because of their injuries.
A 39-year-old man said that at around 4 p.m., police officers in a white van shot and injured him at his basket weaving business in Ubungo. The unrest prevented him from getting hospital treatment, he said, and instead he asked a pharmacy worker for help. During his three-week recovery, he was unable to work, putting his family under financial strain.
The Tanganyika Law Society reported that at around 6:30 p.m., police officers shot and killed a lawyer, Peter Elibariki Makundi, on Shekilango Road, as he returned home from shopping.
The next day, media reported, military and police officials mounted checkpoints for motorists and pedestrians. Media reported that, despite these restrictions, protesters returned to the streets where police had dispersed crowds the previous day with gunshots and teargas.
In Dar es Salaam’s Temeke district, at around 4 p.m. on October 30, 49-year-old Master Tindwa Mtopa was shot outside his home. A resident of the area said that though their neighborhood was calm, patrolling police told people to return home, and opened fire.
Family members said that security forces at a checkpoint stopped them from taking Mtopa to the hospital. Two hours later, they managed to do so, when a relative in the army accompanied them. Mtopa died at the hospital.
A 57-year-old Temeke resident said that she was shot in the back on a motorcycle near a police station in Buza, a Dar es Salaam neighborhood, soon after she passed a military roadblock. She said she had surgery for her injuries.
A 27-year-old man said that two police officers arrested him in Buza on October 30, after he passed a roadblock with a passenger on his motorcycle taxi. He said the officers took him to a nearby police station, accused him of burning tires on the road, and repeatedly slapped and beat him with a metal stool, badly injuring his legs. He was detained there overnight and transferred twice in the next week, he said.
He said that officers made him sign a paper he did not understand, photographed him, and took him to the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court. He and others were charged with treason and remanded to Segerea Prison before a court hearing on November 19.
On December 24, he was taken to court where charges were dropped and he was released. He said that although he received medical treatment in prison, he was unable to work due to his injuries.
Mwanza, October 30-31
Five witnesses in Mwanza said that police opened fire on people in a market in Buhongwa, south of Mwanza city center, on October 30.
A resident said that people had left their homes to work or shop, unaware of the lockdown or believing it applied only to Dar es Salaam. The initial police announcement mentioned Dar es Salaam and was later expanded nationwide.
The witnesses said that around 8 a.m., about 20 police officers arrived at the market in police vehicles and told people, mainly vendors, to leave. When they delayed, the officers beat them with sticks.
“People delayed leaving because they had to organize their things,” said a man who was here. “They [the police] started beating people who were carrying their things. After about 40 minutes they started shooting live bullets. They were firing straight to the people. It wasn’t like shooting to the sky.”
Multiple witnesses described the killing of five workers at the market: a motorcycle taxi driver named Hassan; Masanja Kabo, a shoe salesman, reportedly shot in the chest while closing his business; a man called Chacha, about age 24, also a market vendor; a Maasai man who sold herbs, shot seated near the market; and James Ijide, a tailor, who witnesses said was shot from behind, as he and others ran for safety.
A witness said the officers shot Kabo from about 10 meters away: “When they started to fire, Masanja started to collect his things,” the witness said, “When he was shot he was running toward the Buhongwa dispensary. He was shot when he was near the entrance. They shot him from behind in the head.”
Witnesses said that Hassan’s shooting precipitated a riot until soldiers in a military vehicle arrived and calmed the situation. Once they left, the violence continued. Another witness said:
This time the police were shooting directly at any group of people. This is when [James Ijide] the tailor was shot. The police officer who shot him was hiding himself in school buildings in Buhongwa. The police officer saw the people running in the grounds near the [nearby] school. That police officer aimed and shot that tailor in his leg. No one went to help him because everyone was running. After this incident, people became angry and started destroying and burning properties.
A witness said that Ijide died at home, unable to get to the hospital because of road closures.
Human Rights Watch received four photographs showing Ijide, as identified by witnesses. One shows him between two people on a motorbike geolocated approximately 375 meters north of the market, near the school. In another photograph, he is lying on the ground with blood on his legs and torso. A man has applied a makeshift tourniquet and is applying pressure to Ijide’s upper thigh.
A community leader said seven people were killed and about 50 people injured. The bodies of those killed remained there until police told people to collect them at 6 p.m.
Community members retaliated by burning a nearby police station, a petrol station, a motorcycle and other vehicles, said a journalist who was at the scene: “What triggered them to do that was the incident in Buhongwa where people were killed without any reason.”
Another witness said:
Some people went hiding [out of fear] because if they can shoot people who are not demonstrating, anything is possible. Also, there were reports of other places reported of people coming to their houses and picking people. People thought that being inside your home was not safe.
Witnesses said that at about 8:30 p.m. on October 31 about seven uniformed police officers arrived at Mjimwema center, 16 kilometers north of Buhongwa, where people were watching football in a small restaurant. Reuters reported that earlier that evening, police patrolling the area had ordered people on the streets to return home.
The officers began shooting at people sitting outside, a witness said, killing two. Others fled, running in different directions, including inside the restaurant. The officers ordered those in the building to come out and lie face down. The witness, in hiding after the initial shootings, said: One of [the men who was lying down] stood up while raising his hands. He asked the police not to kill them. They did not listen to him and he was the first person to be killed. After shooting him, they shot all of them who were lying on the ground.
A few moments later, the officers fired a tear gas canister and left. The witnesses said 14 people were killed and at least two survived.
Six days later, three videos shared online showed the scene. In one, 13 bodies are lying mostly face down in pools of blood – one inside the bar, 2 in the doorway, and 10 in the street just outside. These videos also match a photograph shared directly with Human Rights Watch by a witness which, he said, was taken five minutes after the attack.
Deutsche Welle reported on January 14 that it had obtained and analyzed bullets from this incident that matched ammunition used by small arms and light weapons consistent with Kalashnikov-style assault rifles used by Tanzanian police. Human Rights Watch has not reviewed the bullets.
A resident of Ilemela in Mwanza said that as he approached his home, he saw two police officers, as they were chasing protesters, fire towards his home. When he reached the house, he found his 16-year-old relative, who had been inside the house with three other relatives with a gunshot wound to the thigh:
I was watching that bullet hit the door. The bullet hit her in her thigh, it went through her and hit the refrigerator. So, after that shooting I saw those police officers leaving. They went toward where they left their car. So, I went straight to my house and pushed the door. When I arrived there, I found her lying down while bleeding a lot.
He said that he carried her outside and asked the police to take her to the hospital, but they refused and threatened to beat him. The officers eventually agreed, but left him behind, as he attempted to get in the vehicle. He and another relative spent seven hours searching for her until a hospital staff member told them she had died. They eventually located her body in the mortuary.
Arusha, October 29-30
In Arusha city, protests erupted on the morning of election day in the Mianzini and Sakina neighborhoods. A resident of Sakina, who said he was not participating in the protests, said he saw about 20 uniformed police officers, and some without uniforms whom he believed were also police, open fire in the direction of a large crowd protesting the cost of living and the country’s leadership.
“Everyone was searching for a place to run,” he said. “I ran also to where I live. After running, I still kept hearing the gunshots.
In Mianzini, a man who joined the protests said he personally saw nine people killed as the police responded:
The first person was shot in the face, another was shot in the chest and died instantly. Three were killed on a motorcycle that was ran over by a police car. A pregnant woman was shot in the back.
The same witness said he saw many injured by gunshot wounds or from officers beating them with batons. “It did not matter if you were part of the protests or not,” he said.
Family members and witnesses described the killing of their relatives in Arusha that day.
At around 4 p.m., the police shot and injured a man in his early 40s, as he left a mosque in the city’s Ngarenaro ward, his brother said.
Another Arusha resident said she learned from a relative that police dispersing crowds in Arusha’s Uswahilini area shot her husband, 47, as he returned home from voting in the evening. The family later found his body with two gunshot wounds to the head at Mount Meru hospital.
A 32-year-old woman was shot in the back on October 29 as she returned from a market in Mianzini. A relative who was with her said she was pregnant:
During that chaos, I saw someone else shot on the other side. As I rushed to lift that person, on the other side, I saw her fallen on the ground. I was the one who carried her and took her to the hospital, but actually, when I lifted her, she had already died. The situation was really bad. People had their legs broken there, people died there in Mianzini. I have a friend, and we work together making bricks on the road there. He was also shot in the thigh, and he still has a wound.
The family struggled to recover her body from the mortuary because of the large number of bodies there, the relative said.
We succeeded with [getting] the body, although we had a lot of trouble. It took us about four days of struggling just to get the body, because when you went to the hospital, there were so many bodies that you couldn't know who your person was. There were many bodies at the hospital, laid out all the way to the entrance. You weren't allowed to bring a phone in. So, I found her right in the corner, underneath other bodies.
A 41-year-old man was shot in the head in Mianzini, that day, while running errands. His wife described when they found him:
He was in a bad state, he was still breathing. When we got there, we found him covered with a cloth, I uncovered the cloth, he had been shot in the back of the head. There was no transport, they carried him to a health center, and when we arrived, we found his brother there too [who had also been shot twice].
The family took him both to Mount Meru hospital, where staff told them to leave. They were informed later that he had died. His brother recovered after surgery.
Elsewhere, on the city’s outskirts, people also said their relatives were shot and killed.
The family of a 27-year-old woman was told by a neighbor that police shot and killed her niece at the gate of her house in Ngulelo, northeast of Arusha city, at around 3 p.m. Her relative said that when family members collected her body from the hospital, police officers told them not indicate on the form that she had been shot.
The brother of a 27-year-old man learned from a colleague that his brother had been found fatally shot in the head in Kilala, at a bus stand on the Arusha-Moshi highway, at around 3 p.m. on the city’s outskirts.
The mother of a 37-year-old victim said she was told by a witness that her son, a motorcycle mechanic and Kilala resident, was shot in Kilala on his way home from work, as police confronted protesters there. She said he later died in the hospital.
Protests north of Arusha city spread to Namanga on the Tanzania-Kenya border, the morning after the October 30 elections. Witnesses said that police officers shot live bullets and tear gas from a police station on the Tanzania side toward stone-throwing protesters, mainly on the Kenya side, about 20 meters away. The police killed at least two of the protesters.
Relatives of a 32-year-old man, who lives in Arusha region, said that the police shot and badly injured him in the mouth as he was eating at a restaurant on the Kenyan side.
Researchers received five photographs, taken by a journalist, that show him injured and sitting on the back of a motorcycle. Human Rights Watch geolocated these to the Kenya border town of Namanga, approximately 75 meters from the Tanzania border. Researchers also received two videos of him at a medical center. In the photographs and videos, he is bleeding from a deep wound on his chin.
The Kenyan authorities took him and two other men who were shot in an ambulance to a Nairobi hospital for treatment. His family said they were afraid to take him to hospital in Tanzania because they had heard injured people would be arrested.
North Korea’s Rights Crisis, Not Just Missiles, Needs Global Attention
While breaking news stories capture our attention—North Korea’s recent launching of 10 ballistic missiles grabbed headlines—there’s a tendency to ignore long running but dire issues such as North Korea’s ongoing human rights crisis.
On March 13, the United Nations special rapporteur on North Korea, Elizabeth Salmón, reminded us of the latter’s importance. She told the UN Human Rights Council that North Korea's human rights situation “had showed no improvement and, in many instances, had degraded” over the past decade.
Her annual report to the Human Rights Council proposed measurable indicators to track North Korea's implementation of the recommendations from other countries during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN process reviewing each country’s human rights record.
On freedom of movement, the special rapporteur documented expanded border fences, new guard posts, and intensified enforcement of domestic travel permit requirements in North Korea since Covid-19. Border guards remain under shoot-on-sight orders for anyone attempting to leave the country without authorization. Only 223 North Koreans reached South Korea in 2025. Those caught attempting to flee face torture, imprisonment, and forced labor. A North Korean woman detained in China and at risk of forced return is facing these abuses for trying to reunite her family.
On the right to work, Pyongyang rejected every UPR recommendation on forced labor. The 2025 Labour Management Act assigns people to workplaces, effectively codifying state-directed forced labor.
These abuses may appear unrelated to the missiles dominating news feeds, but the UN high commissioner on human rights and numerous UN findings have long stressed that North Korea’s security and human rights are interlinked. The country’s nuclear weapons programs have relied on arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, forced labor, and severe limits on information and movement.
It’s critical that countries seeking to counter North Korea’s weapons programs also confront the human rights violations underpinning them. As the special rapporteur emphasized, human rights should be “an opening for engagement” and at the center of any future dialogue with North Korea.
The Human Rights Council should renew the special rapporteur's mandate. Governments should increase financial support for nongovernmental organizations conducting crucial monitoring and getting information from North Korea, particularly those affected by recent US funding cuts, and advance accountability. The high commissioner has urged states to pursue accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court and prosecutions in other countries using the UN’s repository of evidence in fair and independent proceedings.
Hungary Bans Trans Rights Demonstration
The decision by the Budapest police to ban a demonstration to commemorate the International Day of Trans Visibility, is not about a single protest, but is the latest step in a broader campaign in Hungary to restrict peaceful assembly and silence dissenting voices.
The decision relies on 2025 legislation that allows restrictions on events, including protests, associated with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Over the past year, Hungarian authorities have systematically restricted freedom of assembly following Parliament’s adoption of these measures, which ban LGBT-related events over vaguely defined concerns over “child protection.” This has enabled officials not only to prohibit marches but also to stigmatize those who organize or participate in them, including bringing criminal charges and issuing fines.
Hungary’s attempt to suppress visibility has been met with resistance. In June 2025, a record crowd defied a ban and marched for Budapest Pride, turning the event into a broader demonstration for democratic values. That moment underscored that restrictions on LGBT people’s rights are inseparable from wider attacks on the rule of law and fundamental freedoms.
In retaliation, the authorities have brought criminal charges for supporting LGBT rights against the Budapest mayor and a Pride organizer in Pécs. Those cases are currently suspended while Hungary’s Constitutional Court reviews the 2025 legislation, underscoring both the seriousness of the charges and the constitutional stakes.
Organizers of the trans rights demonstration are challenging the police ban. Whatever the outcome, it demonstrates that the selective denial of assembly rights based on the identity, message, or politics of participants is part of a broader chilling strategy.
Hungary’s authorities insist these measures are about protecting children. Yet they have not produced credible evidence of any negative impacts. Moreover, international human rights standards are clear: peaceful assembly cannot be restricted simply because a government disagrees with the content of a protest. When bans become routine and enforcement becomes punitive, the line between “regulation” and repression disappears.
The police should reverse the ban. What is at stake is not only the right of trans people and their allies to gather, but the broader principle that in a democracy, dissent has a right to be visible and protected.
How Human Rights Watch Mitigates Harm when Publishing Open-Source Analysis
Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist at BBC Verify, warned on March 9 that great care was needed in publishing analysis of videos from Iran to avoid putting people at risk of identification and detention. He highlighted the risk that publishing the coordinates of videos could reveal the home addresses of the people who had filmed them.
He illustrated this risk by highlighting two videos that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Organization had recently published. Both showed the arrest of several Iranians, allegedly for filming and sharing videos of US-Israeli strikes that they had taken from the windows of their homes. The videos included coerced “confessions” of detainees with intelligence officials threatening them with long prison terms.
This is a warning that Human Rights Watch takes seriously. Since January, Human Rights Watch has documented massacres of protesters and bystanders and their arbitrary arrests and forced disappearances in Iran. With no physical access to the country and a government that has imposed severe communications restrictions, open-source information is essential to the analysis. Researchers painstakingly geolocated one key video filmed during that period to a major road in a small town. In line with the organization’s efforts to be transparent, researchers discussed including the name of the town. However, the video was clearly taken from an apartment building.
Iran researcher Bahar Saba documented how security forces were going to people’s homes, searching through their phones and threatening and arresting people they suspected were uploading videos online.
In light of this risk, researchers decided to omit the name of the town in the video and keep the location vague. This is in line with Human Rights Watch’s policy of not hyperlinking to sensitive footage, including coordinates or detailed descriptions of footage taken from someone’s house or other sensitive locations that we take as a precaution.
During wars and crises, publicly available information is essential for the documentation of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch is aware that although this information is public, sharing it still runs a risk of putting people in harm’s way. Researchers at the organization mitigate this by excluding detailed information that might put people at risk, while working closely with people who have the contextual knowledge needed to help make these decisions.