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Saudi Arabia: Hosting UN Internet Conference Amid Crackdown
(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia is hosting a major United Nations conference on internet governance while dozens of people remain imprisoned for peaceful online speech, Human Rights Watch said today. Many are charged under the country’s abusive counterterrorism law, and the authorities conduct invasive surveillance of civil society members at home and abroad.
The 19th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held from December 15 to 19 in Riyadh, under the theme of “Building our Multistakeholder Digital Future.” The annual forum features multistakeholder policy dialogue on internet-related public policy issues.
“Saudi authorities have engaged in a sustained assault on online freedom of expression, yet are now playing hosts to a global internet conference,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “If the Saudi government is indeed serious about digital rights, the authorities should immediately release the scores of activists imprisoned for online freedom of expression.”
For the past several years, Saudi authorities have sentenced dozens of people to egregiously long prison terms using the country’s counterterrorism law on the basis of social posts, reposts, and mere “likes” of other posts. Saudi authorities have arrested at least 40 people related to their peaceful online expression since 2021, based on reporting by Human Rights Watch, as well as Saudi rights groups such as ALQST and SANAD. This estimate most likely falls far below the true number of cases, given family members’ fear of reprisals and the severe risks involved in communicating with rights groups.
In 2022 a Saudi appeals court sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student studying at the University of Leeds, to 34 years in prison based solely on her X activity. The sentence was reduced to 27 years, followed by a 27-year travel ban, in January 2023. Court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that al-Shehab was sentenced under Saudi’s counterterrorism law. Human Rights Watch reviewed al-Shehab’s X account and found that most tweets prior to her arrest related to her family and women’s rights issues in Saudi Arabia.
On July 10, 2023, the Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism tribunal, convicted Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, a retired Saudi teacher, of several criminal offenses related solely to his peaceful expression online. The court sentenced him to death, using his tweets, retweets, and YouTube activity as the evidence against him. In September 2024, his sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later confirmed that al-Ghamdi had indeed been sentenced to death for his social media posts. In an interview with Fox News in September 2023, he said, “Shamefully, it's true,” and blamed the sentence on “bad laws.” However, the oppressive counterterrorism law that led to al-Ghamdi’s death sentence was reissued in 2017, after Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power.
In May 2024, the same counterterrorism tribunal convicted Asaad al-Ghamdi, 47, Mohammed’s brother, of several criminal offenses related solely to his peaceful expression online. Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a third brother, is a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic living in exile in the United Kingdom. Saudi authorities often retaliate against the family members of critics and dissidents abroad in an effort to coerce them to return to the country.
In 2017, Saudi authorities arrested an economist and writer, Essam al-Zamel, who had criticized on social media some Saudi government claims about a plan at the time to carry out an initial public offering for the state-owned fossil fuel company, Aramco.
These sentences for peaceful social media posts have had a severe chilling effect on freedom of expression inside of Saudi Arabia and on dissidents living abroad, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch has long documented the Saudi government’s flagrant abuse of the vague provisions in its counterterrorism law and anti-cybercrime law to silence dissent. The broad definition of terrorism allows for targeting peaceful criticism. The counterterrorism law undermines due process and fair trial rights because it grants the Public Prosecution agency and the Presidency of State Security the authority to arrest and detain people, monitor their communications and financial data, search their property, and seize assets without judicial oversight.
Saudi authorities have also repeatedly spied on their own citizens through targeted digital attacks. In October, the UK High Court issued an order granting permission to a prominent Saudi human rights defender, Yahya Assiri, to bring a case against the Saudi government for using spyware against him between 2018 and 2020.
Citizen Lab, a Canadian academic research center, concluded with “high confidence” that in 2018, the mobile phone of a prominent Saudi activist based in Canada was infected with spyware, which allowed full access to the victim’s personal files, such as chats, emails, and photos, as well as the ability to surreptitiously use the phone’s microphones and cameras to view and eavesdrop. In July 2021, the Pegasus Project also found that Saudi Arabia was a potential client of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The NSO group has categorically denied that its technology was used to spy on Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident who was killed in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Saudi Arabia’s new data protection law and executive regulations grant sweeping powers to government agencies to access personal data. The entities that control data are permitted to disclose data to state agencies based on vague and overbroad “security reasons,” which are not defined in the law. The law does not appear to provide for any independent oversight of these government powers.
Many digital rights organizations and members of civil society have chosen not to participate in person at this year’s internet forum due to serious concerns about their own safety in a host country that has jailed people based on their social media posts. The Saudi government at a minimum should guarantee the safety, including from arrest, of all participants, especially civil society, attending the meeting. The UN should ensure that future internet forums are held in environments in which civil society can participate safely without fear of retribution.
“Mohammed bin Salman should announce the release of Salma al-Shehab, Mohammed al-Ghamdi, and Assad al-Ghamdi, among many others, on day one of the IGF,” Shea said. “What is sadly much more likely given Saudi Arabia’s current rights trajectory, is the news of even more outrageous, decades-long sentences for social media posts.”
US Landmine Transfers Contravene Long-Standing Policy
(Washington, DC, December 11, 2024) – The Biden administration’s decision to transfer internationally banned antipersonnel landmines to Ukraine risks civilian lives and contravenes longstanding United States policy, Human Rights Watch said today in issuing a question-and-answer document about the transfers decision.
“President Biden’s decision to transfer antipersonnel landmines contravenes US policy and represents a major setback for international efforts to eradicate these indiscriminate weapons,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “The US should reverse this reprehensible decision and join the majority of countries that have rejected antipersonnel mines due to their indiscriminate nature and the long-term human suffering they cause.”
On November 20, 2024, the US Department of State announced the Biden administration had authorized providing antipersonnel mines to Ukraine. A second transfer of antipersonnel mines was announced on December 2. The question-and-answer document looks at how the transfers contravene Biden’s 2022 policy on antipersonnel mines and break years of incremental steps by the US government to align its policy and practice with the 1997 treaty banning antipersonnel mines.
Human Rights Watch is a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, together with its coordinator, Jody Williams, for its efforts to bring about the Mine Ban Treaty and for its contributions to a new international diplomacy based on humanitarian imperatives.
Türkiye: No Transparency on Earthquake Deaths Inquiry
(Istanbul) - The Turkish Interior Ministry and local authorities should promptly disclose the number of public officials and elected municipal authorities being investigated in the collapse of buildings in Türkiye’s devastating 2023 earthquakes, Human Rights Watch, the Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice, and the Citizens’ Assembly said today. This follows the decision by an Ankara administrative court on September 26, 2024, rejecting an Interior Ministry request to suppress the information.
Under Turkish law, public prosecutors are required to get permission from the government before they can investigate public officials and elected municipal authorities. Many private contractors are under investigation for misconduct in connection with the earthquakes, which killed over 53,000 people, but very few public officials face investigations.
“People in Türkiye have a right to know how many public officials are under investigation and on trial for the failure to enforce building standards that led to the collapse of buildings and the death of thousands of people,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Withholding information about the extent of efforts to hold municipalities and politicians accountable is tantamount to admitting that they have impunity for their crimes.”
The three groups have written to the Interior Minister to request prompt information disclosure, and the Citizens’ Assembly has filed a right to information request asking officials to disclose the numbers.
In January 2024, Citizens Assembly, a Turkish nongovernmental organization, collaborated with Human Rights Watch on research about the accountability of public officials in earthquake-related cases and filed information requests with the Interior Ministry, governorates of the 11 provinces in southeastern Türkiye devastated by the earthquakes, and 46 district governorates in those provinces.
The groups sought details on the number of public officials and politicians in municipalities and other local authorities for whom permission to investigate had been granted to prosecutors in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation into collapsed buildings. However, only six agencies replied, and the others rejected the request or did not respond.
The General Directorate of the Provincial Division at the Interior Ministry declined to disclose the number of investigation permits, citing the confidentiality of the investigation.
The Right to Information Council under the Justice Ministry overruled the directorate’s decision following a Citizens’ Assembly appeal on March 27. But the Interior Ministry applied to an Ankara Court to overturn the Council’s decision.
On September 26, the Ankara 8th Administrative Court dismissed the Ministry’s request for a stay of execution and removed any obstacle to disclosing the requested information about possible criminal responsibility of elected officials, such as mayors, municipal assembly members, and other related decision makers for the collapse of buildings during the earthquake.
On November 28, the Interior Ministry appealed the court decision. The result is pending.
The Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice has been able to identify from its own research that permission has been granted to investigate 39 public officials but has not been able to discover the full number. The investigations concern seven collapsed buildings in Osmaniye, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Adıyaman, and Adana, where a total of 395 people died.
Ensuring that those responsible are held to account in these cases is only possible through effective and comprehensive investigations capable of leading to prosecutions of all individuals and institutions responsible for buildings that did not meet constructive standards, the groups said. That includes elected municipal authorities and public officials with planning, inspection, and decision-making authority.
In Türkiye, a country susceptible to earthquakes, preventing future harm and deaths requires the government to ensure that the widespread impunity that followed the earthquake in the western Marmara region of Türkiye comes to an end.
The European Court of Human Rights found in one case concerning the 1999 earthquake in which 195 people died under the rubble of two buildings that Türkiye had violated the right to life by failing to conduct effective investigations and timely prosecutions capable of leading to the conviction of those responsible.
“Nothing will bring back our families lost in the February 6 earthquakes, but we demand transparent, independent, and impartial judicial and administrative investigation, and prosecution of public officials and the responsible authorities along with private actors,” said Zübeyir Boztemir, a member of the Platform for Families in Pursuit of Justice. “The Interior Ministry needs to reveal how many public officials are under investigation and how many in total are on trial as a long overdue first step.”
Venezuela: Reveal Whereabouts of Disappeared Woman
(Washington, DC) – The Venezuelan government should urgently clarify whether Sofia Maria Sahagún Ortíz, a Venezuelan-Spanish citizen, has been arrested, and disclose her whereabouts, the grounds for her detention, and ensure respect for her rights, Human Rights Watch said today.
Sahagún Ortíz’s family last heard from her on October 23, 2024, when she was about to board a direct flight to Madrid at the airport in Caracas. Sahagún Ortíz’s family says she texted her husband saying she had passed passport control. Her relatives learned the next day that she had not been allowed to board the plane but have not been told what happened to her next. Her family has repeatedly asked Venezuelan authorities to look for her and disclose whether she has been detained.
“Sahagún Ortíz appears to be the victim of an enforced disappearance, a serious crime under international law, and sadly a common one these days in Venezuela,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The Venezuelan government should urgently clarify her whereabouts and Spanish authorities should press President Maduro to ensure her rights.”
International law defines an enforced disappearance as the detention of anyone by state forces or their agents who refuse to acknowledge the arrest or whereabouts of the person.
Since October 23, the last day Sahagún Ortíz’s family heard from her, police officers have repeatedly appeared at their home and harassed relatives and acquaintances asking questions about the family, Sahagún Ortíz’s husband told Human Rights Watch. Her husband and children moved out of their house and, days later, fled Venezuela.
On October 30, the family’s lawyer went to the Attorney General’s Office and the Ombudsperson’s Office asking officials to investigate Sahagún Ortíz’s case. Prosecutors refused to open their own investigation, the family’s lawyer told Human Rights Watch. According to judicial documents that Human Rights Watch has reviewed, prosecutors transferred the case to the Scientific, Penal, and Criminalistic Investigative Service Corps, a branch of the police charged with carrying out forensic investigations.
The authorities have not provided any information to Sahagún Ortíz’s family on her whereabouts, nor have they indicated if and by whom her disappearance is being investigated.
The Venezuelan government is responsible for widespread and systematic human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and torture, Human Rights Watch said.
Repression escalated after the July 28, 2024, presidential elections, where Venezuela’s electoral authority announced that Nicolás Maduro had been re-elected president without presenting evidence of such a result. Foro Penal, a pro bono organization, reports over 1,900 “political prisoners”, including 23 whose whereabouts remain unknown.
In addition to those forcibly disappeared, many of those arbitrarily detained are held incommunicado, denied access to private legal counsel, and charged with vaguely defined crimes carrying long prison sentences including “terrorism” and “incitement to hatred.”
“It is essential for the international community to maintain a spotlight on political prisoners in Venezuela and call for them to be immediately and unconditionally released,” Goebertus said. “Special attention needs to be given to those forcibly disappeared, whose whereabouts are still unknown, and whose families are suffering.”
El Salvador: New Laws Threaten Free Expression, Privacy
(Washington, DC) – El Salvador’s recently approved cybersecurity and data protection laws contain sweeping provisions that threaten media freedom and privacy rights, Human Rights Watch said today.
El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly, dominated by President Nayib Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas), approved both laws on November 12, 2024. The cybersecurity law establishes a State Cybersecurity Agency (Agencia de Ciberseguridad del Estado), led by a presidential appointee, to oversee both cybersecurity and data protection. The data protection law creates a “right to be forgotten,” which as drafted gives the agency overly broad powers to order the deletion of information about individuals online.
“These new laws could be used to delete online publications that are critical of the government under the guise of data protection,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “This is a recipe for censorship and opacity.”
Under the cybersecurity law, the new government agency develops national policy, manages cyber threats, conducts oversight, and imposes sanctions. It also supervises data protection compliance, issues guidelines, and resolves disputes. The agency’s general director, appointed by the president for a renewable three-year term, serves as its highest authority.
Based on the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age, governments should establish national independent authorities to protect private data. These authorities should have the capacity to monitor data privacy practices, investigate violations and abuses, receive communications from individuals and organizations, and provide effective remedies for violations.
The data protection law’s “right to be forgotten” allows individuals to request the removal of their data from the internet, including search engines and even media outlets, when such information is “inadequate, inaccurate, irrelevant, outdated or excessive.” While the law excludes deletion of personal data that is “necessary for the exercise of the right to free expression, information and the press,” this exception requires published personal information to be “precise” – that is, data may not be published if it is “inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date.” Media outlets and search engines found to violate data protection requirements could face fines of up to 40 minimum monthly salaries.
This requirement could allow the government to pressure media outlets to delete information of public interest about officials or their allies by claiming the information is inaccurate or incomplete, Human Rights Watch said.
The Organization of American States’ special rapporteur for freedom of expression has warned that the “right to be forgotten” laws can threaten freedom of expression. While personal data protection is a legitimate aim, it should not be used to restrict the publication of information about public officials or of public interest. The special rapporteur has emphasized that removing online content interferes with both individual expression and society’s right to access information, and should only be ordered by courts following due process.
The Global Principles on Protection of Freedom of Expression and Privacy, developed by ARTICLE 19, an independent human rights organization promoting and protecting the right to freedom of expression globally, say that any “right to be forgotten” should be strictly limited to de-listing from search results rather than content removal, should include strong procedural safeguards including appeal rights, and should never override the right to information about government officials or matters of public interest.
The data protection law also excludes from its scope any data or activity focused on furthering “public security, state defense, national security, and crime prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution.” While the provision also requires respect for “due process and human rights,” this broad exception allows government agencies to publish personal data for undefined security and crime prevention purposes without restriction, putting individuals’ privacy at risk.
“In El Salvador’s existing context of opacity and harassment of independent journalists and civil society organizations, there is a serious risk these laws could be weaponized to threaten, silence, or hinder freedom of expression and information,” said Goebertus.
Worldwide, Policies Leave Health Care Inaccessible for Too Many
Twelve years ago, on December 12, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed a resolution calling on all countries to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), while also establishing a day to reflect on our collective progress towards this goal. But this year’s International Health Coverage Day comes amid global failures to dedicate adequate public resources to health care, undermining the right to health for people around the world.
UHC, a framework developed by the UN where everyone has access to affordable, good quality health care, can further the realization of the human right to health. Governments have made public commitments towards this goal, reflecting their human rights obligations to prevent and treat infectious and noncommunicable diseases, and to ensure the availability and accessibility of quality healthcare facilities and services, including maternal and postpartum care.
Human Rights Watch’s analysis of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Health Expenditure Database earlier this year found that, when governments spent more on health care through public means, people had greater access to these essential healthcare goods and services.
But we also found that most governments were falling short of key public healthcare spending benchmarks, and that many were scaling back public support for health care. Shockingly, we found that in 47 countries, individuals and their households collectively paid more out of pocket for health care than their governments spent on it in 2021. These out-of-pocket expenses generally increase inequalities and create discriminatory barriers to health care based on income, widening gaps in quality of life and life expectancy. The cost of these user fees can also put other rights at risk, including public participation, housing, water, and education.
Countries around the world ought to take this year’s International Universal Health Coverage Day to heed the calls of billions around the world who lack full health care access, and ensure officials dedicate proper resources for the realization of the right to health through UHC.
This means spending the equivalent of at least 5 percent of GDP or 15 percent of government expenditures on health care and reversing reductions in funding. And to increase public resources for health care, government need to look at eliminating tax abuses and focus on progressive taxes. It is also an opportunity for creditor governments and institutions to assess what they need to do to ensure the governments they financially support can fund their healthcare systems.
Syria: Post-Assad Transition Should Center Human Rights
(Beirut) – The ousting of Bashar al-Assad’s government by armed opposition groups has created a momentous opportunity for Syria to break with decades of repression and turn the page on human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. A better future for Syria requires addressing decades of abuse by the former government and other warring parties during the country’s 13-year conflict, ensuring accountability, and protecting Syrians regardless of their ethnic or sectarian backgrounds or political affiliations.
“The Syrian people have endured more than a decade of brutal repression and conflict,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This is a critical moment to reject the horror show of the past, rebuild trust, and lay the groundwork for a society where everyone is treated with dignity.”
Stretching over more than 50 years, Baath Party rule in Syria accumulated an appalling record of human rights violations. The Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad committed countless atrocities, crimes against humanity, and other abuses during his 24-year presidency. These included widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, deaths in detention, use of chemical weapons, starvation as a weapon of war, and indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians and civilian objects.
Non-state armed groups operating in Syria, including Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA) who initiated the offensive on November 27, are also responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes.
Syria’s new leadership has an unprecedented opportunity to lead by example on human rights, including by protecting basic rights in a new constitution. The new authorities should ratify and put into practice a host of international legal and human rights instruments and treaties that the Assad government did not, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch recommends urgent steps to all the authorities in control of areas of Syria:
Justice and Accountability for Past AbusesSecure and preserve evidence of atrocities. There is an urgent need to collect and safeguard evidence, including from mass grave sites and government records and archives, that could be vital evidence in future domestic and international accountability processes.Immediately invite to Syria, fully cooperate with, and ensure unhindered access to independent monitors including the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM) and the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria.Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and give it retroactive jurisdiction back to 2002 by filing a declaration with the court. The new authorities should also work to fully align Syria’s national legislation with the Rome Statute and international law.Protection of Civilians, Minorities, and Cultural Heritage Protect civilians from violence and ensure their right to live in safety. Deploy security units when necessary to protect religious and ethnic minority groups that are perceived or suspected supporters of the former government.Take immediate steps to secure and guard weapons storage facilities in the areas under control of the interim authorities.Prioritize the clearance and destruction of landmines and explosive remnants of war, including facilitating the work of humanitarian agencies, training and equipping specialists, and ensuring that risk awareness and victim assistance efforts are adequately funded.Safeguard cultural and heritage sites, ensuring they are not looted or destroyed.Address the humanitarian and protection needs of displaced populations, including establishing processes and options for safe returns that meet international standards and protect the rights and dignity of all Syrians.Address the protection and safety needs of women, children, people with disabilities, older people, and other gropus most at risk of human rights abuses.Addressing Detention and the DisappearedAs thousands of prisoners, some of whom have languished in horrifying detention conditions for decades, are released from prisons and detention facilities across the country, authorities should take urgent steps to provide them with health care, psychosocial support, and rehabilitation; safeguard their dignity; and facilitate their swift reunions with their families.Establish a system to track and manage prisoner releases. Ensure fair, impartial justice for those suspected of crimes.Immediately ensure that anyone who is detained is only detained according to law and is brought before an independent judge or judicial panel at regular intervals to consider the legality and necessity of their detention with the power to order their release. Release all detainees who are not lawfully detained.Treat all detainees, including captured fighters and former members of the Assad government and security forces, humanely and in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law standards.Cooperate with the UN Independent Institution on Missing Persons (IIMP) to clarify what happened to the disappeared and give it full and unhindered access to Syria’s detention facilities.Governance ReformEstablish mechanisms to prevent looting of civilian properties, protect key infrastructure, and ensure the delivery of essential services such as water, electricity, and health care. Ensure essential services are accessible to people with disabilities. A transparent process to document and safeguard abandoned properties is critical to prevent further disputes and ensure their eventual reparation.Build a governance structure that represents all Syrians and ensure that decision-making processes are accessible, inclusive, and participatory. This means actively involving all sectors of Syrian society in shaping the country’s future, including women, people with disabilities, minority groups, civil society organizations, displaced communities, and political actors from diverse backgrounds.Establish systems for transparent consultations and equal representation to ensure that no group is excluded from contributing to Syria’s recovery and rebuilding.Allow prompt and unhindered access to humanitarian organizations and UN agencies to deliver impartial assistance to civilians in need, particularly in rural and remote areas.Improve cooperation with humanitarian organizations and the UN to ensure assistance is inclusive and fully accessible to people with disabilities.Preventing Further Abuses by Armed Groups Publicly commit to upholding fundamental rights and freedoms for all, free from discrimination, including by guaranteeing freedom of movement, assembly, and expression.Refrain from arbitrary arrests or any other form of repression, including harassment and intimidation.Provide immediate access for the International Committee of the Red Cross to all detainees in the custody of HTS and the SNA and allow all detainees legal representation.Cooperate with local and international human rights organizations to document violations and ensure justice.Urgently review and amend penal and criminal procedure codes, as well as laws restricting association, expression, and political parties, bringing them into line with international human rights standardsUrgently reform the judicial system and security services and ensure training for all staff on human rights standards.
Syria’s new leadership should consider asking UN mechanisms and institutions to play a role in post-Assad Syria. The UN could deploy civilian police officers from various countries to Syria to help monitor and train local police and send human rights monitors to parts of the country that were considered loyal to Assad or where serious tensions may arise.
The international community, including the UN, the European Union and its member states, the United States, Russia, China, and the League of Arab States, should ensure that aid to the present or future government, including election assistance, contributes to respecting human rights and creating conditions for free and fair elections.
Other countries, UN institutions, and Syria’s emerging interim government should work with local authorities in northeast Syria to secure entry of critical humanitarian assistance to displaced people and to secure facilities there housing former Islamic State (ISIS) suspects and family members.
The US, UK, EU, and others should urgently consider lifting general or sectoral sanctions—such as on the purchase, sale, or export of goods and materials relating to or contributing to specific industries—as well as sanctions on Syrian financial institutions. Human Rights Watch has documented the negative impact of these sanctions on humanitarian operations. HTS and others considered terrorist groups are subject to sanctions that prohibit making funds, assets, and economic resources available directly or indirectly to them.
Neighboring countries and others that host sizable numbers of Syrian refugees should not rush to deport or otherwise expel Syrians from their territories and should maintain their temporary protection or refugee status. With Syria’s economic crisis persisting, infrastructure in shambles, and unstable security conditions, forcibly expelling refugees or pressuring to them to return at this juncture would risk compounding the humanitarian crisis and violating the international prohibition on nonrefoulement; that is, returning people to places where they would experience torture or other serious abuses. The priority should be creating conditions inside Syria that guarantee voluntary, safe, and dignified returns in line with international standards.
“Years of failed or bloody transitions of power in the Middle East leave communities understandably fearful and skeptical of Syria’s new reality,” Fakih said. “Nevertheless, this moment presents an opportunity to prove that a different path is possible, one that prioritizes justice, accountability, and human rights. Syria’s new leadership can show the region and the world that a rights-respecting transition that secures the rights of all is possible.”
Ukraine Parliament Adopts Bill on Legal Status of CRSV Survivors
Ukraine’s parliament has taken a critically important step towards providing survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) with interim reparations, by adopting a law to codify the definition of CRSV in national legislation.
The new law addresses acts of sexual violence—such as rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual exploitation—committed after February 20, 2014. It recognizes the status of CRSV survivors, as well as their immediate family members in the case of a victim’s death. It includes parents of minor victims, spouses, children, and dependents, and provides pathways to receiving essential legal, social, and medical support.
Since February 2022, Ukrainian authorities have documented 331 cases of CRSV perpetrated by Russian forces in occupied areas of Ukraine and in Russian detention facilities. Urgent assistance, including interim reparations, is crucial to address CRSV survivors’ immediate needs, with specialized support essential for their long-term recovery.
Daria Rosokhata, a legal analyst with JurFem, a Ukrainian organization providing legal assistance to CRSV survivors, said embedding social and economic support for survivors into national legislation is key to ensuring a sustainable state approach. “Under the new mechanism individuals will receive comprehensive support … this differs from the current system, where survivors must seek assistance from various organizations and state bodies,” she said.
There will be lessons to learn about what the state reparations mechanism could look like from the Global Survivors Fund’s year-long project; which offers one-time compensation for up to 500 Ukrainian CRSV survivors, to a maximum amount of US$3,000. As of November, the project received 535 applications and approved financial support for 308 individuals: 157 men, one boy, and 150 women. Recipients have used these funds for various necessities including medical expenses, paying off debts, and repairing damaged homes.
Ukrainian groups approve of the law but highlight ongoing challenges faced by CRSV survivors within the justice system. These include multiple retraumatizing interviews, limited access to legal services, and the need for a more trauma-informed approach from law enforcement. To address these issues, they are advocating for the adoption of legislation authorizing the police to investigate CRSV crimes and ensure confidentiality of survivors’ data at all stages of the legal process.
10 Good News Stories for Kids in 2024
At the end of each year, Human Rights Watch likes to take stock of human rights progress for children around the globe. From strengthening children’s access to education to better protecting kids during wartime, here are some of our favorite examples from 2024.
Tajikistan and Laos banned all corporal punishment of children, joining 65 other countries with such bans. Five countries—Burundi, the Czech Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, and Uganda—pledged to enact legislation prohibiting all corporal punishment.Australia approved the establishment of a Children’s Online Privacy Code, the country’s first data protection law for children. Brazil banned the company Meta from using its child users’ personal data to train the company’s artificial intelligence (AI), citing risks of exploitation and harm to children.Mauritius began to provide three years of free preprimary education, and expanded its universal child benefit, crucial for reducing child poverty and increasing school enrollment.A new law took effect in Japan designed to move thousands of children from childcare institutions to family-based care.Gambia’s parliament rejected a move to overturn the country’s 2015 ban on female genital mutilation.Sierra Leone adopted a new law banning child marriage. In the United States, the states of New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington prohibited all child marriage.The Syrian National Army, a non-state armed group, signed an action plan with the United Nations to end the killing and maiming and recruitment and use of children.Rwanda endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, bringing the number of endorsing countries to 120. North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo endorsed the EWIPA Political Declaration to protect civilians from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, the leading cause of child casualties in armed conflict.The UN Human Rights Council decided to consider a new international treaty to explicitly recognize every child’s right to early childhood education, and guarantee free public preprimary and secondary education for every child. Governments also agreed on a historic provision: For the first time, children will participate in the development of this new international law.The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of 57 children and their families in a case against Peru, finding that the government violated their right to a healthy environment by allowing toxic pollutants. The court ordered the government to provide free health care for victims, pay compensation for serious health harms, and clean up contaminated areas.Children’s rights are still under threat around the world, but these successes show that genuine progress can be made.
Mali: Atrocities by the Army and Wagner Group
(Nairobi) – Mali’s armed forces, supported by the Russia-backed Wagner Group, and Islamist armed groups have committed serious abuses against civilians since the withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, from the country a year ago, Human Rights Watch said today. The Malian government should work with the National Human Rights Commission and the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali to establish a reliable means of monitoring and reporting on armed groups’ and security forces’ abuses.
Since May 2024, Malian armed forces and the Wagner Group have deliberately killed at least 32 civilians, including 7 in a drone strike, forcibly disappeared 4 others, and burned at least 100 homes in military operations in towns and villages in central and northern Mali. Two Islamist armed groups, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM) and of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), have summarily executed at least 47 civilians and displaced thousands of people since June. The JNIM has also burned over 1,000 homes and looted thousands of livestock. Human Rights Watch received credible reports of hundreds more civilians killed, but due to the difficulties of conducting research in central and northern Mali, the numbers in this report are conservative.
“The Malian army with the Wagner Group and Islamist armed groups have been targeting civilians and their property in violation of the laws of war,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Since MINUSMA left Mali a year ago, it has been extremely difficult to get comprehensive information on abuses, and we are deeply concerned that the situation is even worse than reported.”
The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) completed its withdrawal from the country on December 31, 2023, at the request of Malian authorities, heightening concerns about the protection of civilians and the monitoring and reporting of abuses by all sides.
Between July and October 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 47 witnesses and 11 other informed sources about abuses by the Malian army, Wagner Group, and Islamist armed groups. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery showing burned homes in several villages and verified and geolocated photos and videos posted on social media or sent directly to Human Rights Watch. On October 15, Human Rights Watch wrote to Mali’s justice and defense ministers, providing its findings and related questions, but has not received replies.
Human Rights Watch documented Malian armed forces’ violations during nine counterinsurgency operations against the JNIM since May. Witnesses said soldiers carried out abuses against communities they accused of collaborating with the JNIM. A dozen witnesses described the involvement of fighters from the Wagner Group, which has supported the Malian government since December 2021. The military security company was rebranded “Africa Corps” following the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2023, when it came under direct control of the Russian Defense Ministry
“Our area is dominated by the JNIM, and you must deal with them,” said a 30-year-old man from Ndorgollé, in the central region of Ségou. “They give you permission to graze cattle and to fish. It’s a matter of survival not collaboration. But when you deal with them, you become a [government] target, even if you are not a jihadist.”
Human Rights Watch documented a Malian military drone strike in the town of Tinzaouaten, Kidal region, in August, that killed seven civilians, including five children. “My son was wounded in the head, one eye was torn apart, and he lost a lot of blood,” said the father of a 14-year-old boy. “Next to him were other dead and injured kids. I put my son on my shoulders and begged a motorcyclist to take me to the hospital, but he died on the way.” Human Rights Watch previously documented two indiscriminate drone strikes by the Malian army in central Mali in February that killed at least 14 civilians as well as other serious abuses by the Malian security forces and allied Wagner forces and by the Islamist armed groups.
The JNIM has burned homes and looted livestock in Bandiagara region since June. JNIM fighters attacked several villages in the Doucombo and Pignari Bana district areas, setting over 1,000 homes on fire, stealing at least 3,500 animals, and forcing thousands of residents to flee, according to witnesses. Residents said the attacks were in apparent retaliation against communities that the JNIM accused of collaborating with the Dan Na Ambassagou militia, an umbrella organization of self-defense groups created in 2016 “to protect the Dogon country.” The militia provided security in many villages of the area.
“The JNIM said women must cover themselves from head to toe,” said a 50-year-old man from Danibombo 1 village. “We said ‘No,’ and the JNIM started beating our women. So many joined or supported Dan Na Ambassagou. This has made our villages [the JNIM’s] target.”
Human Rights Watch also documented an ISGS attack in August against a displaced peoples’ camp in Ménaka city, Ménaka region, that killed seven civilians. “They started shooting at us,” said a 42-year-old man. “I hid inside a tent. I could feel the bullets flying over my head.”
On April 4, the UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali for one year. While this is an important step to maintain an international human rights monitoring presence in the country, the Independent Expert does not have the resources to gather in-depth reports, which are critical for accountability.
The Malian government has primary responsibility under international law for ensuring justice for serious crimes, but successive governments have made scant progress investigating, much less prosecuting, those responsible for the grave offenses since the armed conflict began in 2012.
All parties to Mali’s armed conflict – the national armed forces, the Wagner Group and other allied militias, and Islamist armed groups – are bound by international humanitarian law, notably Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and customary laws of war. Individuals who commit 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. Mali is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Mali since 2012.
“Malian authorities’ failure to hold members of the security forces, the Wagner Group, and other armed groups to account for grave abuses has eased the way for further atrocities,” Allegrozzi said. “The government should work closely with the UN Independent Expert to promptly investigate and appropriately prosecute all those responsible for grave abuses.”
For witness accounts and other details, please see below. The names of those interviewed have been withheld for their protection.
Mali’s Armed Conflict and MINUSMA’s Departure
Since 2012, successive Malian governments have fought the JNIM and the ISGS. The hostilities have resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians and forcibly displaced over 350,000 more.
The departure of MINUSMA in 2023 accelerated the end of the 2015 peace agreement, which MINUSMA was mandated to implement, between the Malian government and a coalition of mainly ethnic Tuareg armed groups from northern Mali. Since the current Malian authorities – who took power in a May 2021 coup – declared the deal void in January 2023, security in northern Mali has deteriorated. Hostilities resumed between an alliance of Tuareg armed groups, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (Coalition des Mouvements de l’Azawad, CMA), and the Malian army alongside Wagner Group fighters.
Since MINUSMA withdrew, the Malian army and allied Wagner fighters have increasingly killed civilians during counterinsurgency operations. According to the nonprofit organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), which compiles media and nongovernmental group reports on conflict, Malian military and allied forces carried out 255 operations resulting in the killing of approximately 1,063 civilians between January 1 and October 31, compared with 216 operations, resulting in 912 civilians killed, in the same period in 2023.
ACLED compiled reports of 129 air and drone strikes between January 1 and October 31, 2024, compared with 84 in the same period in 2023. Also, according to ACLED, between January 1 and October 31, 2023, Islamist armed groups carried out 326 attacks resulting in 478 civilians killed, compared with 279 attacks and 344 civilians killed in the same period in 2024.
ACLED also supported Human Rights Watch in the verification of some incidents and the analysis of their database of events.
Abuses by Army, Wagner Group
Ségou Region
N’Dola, May 2
On May 2, Malian forces carried out an operation in N’Dola, a village controlled by the JNIM. Residents said that the soldiers killed six civilian men, ages 40 to 61, and arrested eight others. Villagers compiled a list with the names of the victims and those arrested.
“The soldiers stormed the village at 3 a.m., shooting,” a woman said. “My husband tried to escape but was shot in front of the house. I watched helplessly as they put his body in a bag and left.”
A traditional authority in N’Dola corroborated that the six men were civilians. He also said that the eight men arrested that day were transferred to a military camp in Modolo, 20 kilometers away, before taking them to a gendarmerie camp in Ségou. They were then taken to the central prison in Bamako on terrorism-related charges.
The traditional authority said that on May 9, soldiers returned to N’Dola and burned down parts of the village. Satellite imagery captured on May 25 shows dozens of burned houses in the southern half of the village.
Barikoro, May 8
On May 8, Malian forces and the Wagner Group killed two men and a boy in Barikoro, a village in a JNIM-controlled area. Witnesses said that they came from the Sokolo military base – about 30 kilometers west – and arrived in the village on motorbikes and about 10 military vehicles, including armored cars, looking for ethnic Fulani men, whom they accused of collaborating with JNIM.
A mechanic said that he advised a 34-year-old Fulani man to leave his garage when he heard that “Malian and white soldiers” were searching for ethnic Fulani men. After the man left, the mechanic heard several gunshots.
“I found my cousin’s body on the west side of the village with eight gunshots: in the forehead, the head, the back, and the legs,” a relative of the victim said. “Meters away we found the bodies of two Fulani men also riddled by bullets, so we dug three holes and covered them with sand.”
In a May 9 statement, the Malian army chief of staff said that on May 8, Malian forces conducted operations in Massabougou, Barikoro, Bassimoto, Maraba-Were, and Dagabory, in Ségou region, neutralizing “several terrorists” and seizing weapons and ammunition. But residents and relatives told Human Rights Watch that those killed in Barikoro were all civilians.
Relatives and witnesses compiled a list with the victims’ names and ages: 34, 25, and 16.
Ala, August 9, and Dounkala, August 16
Malian forces and the Wagner Group went to Ala village on August 9 and Dounkala village, five kilometers away, on August 16, in an area where the JNIM regularly attacks security forces.
In Ala, the forces apprehended and forcibly disappeared two men, one of whom had been wounded. In Dounkala, they killed one man and forcibly disappeared two others.
Witnesses said that soldiers and Wagner fighters, both wearing Malian army uniforms and carrying Kalashnikov-type assault rifles, came from a military base in Diabaly, respectively 6 and 12 kilometers from Dounkala and Ala. They said the uniformed men went door to door and rounded up all the men outside the mosque to interrogate them. Witnesses said the soldiers targeted the villages because they suspected residents of collaborating with the JNIM.
“They asked me if the jihadists collect the zakat [a religious tax],” said a man, 42, from Ala. “I said yes. They asked me if we like it, and I said no, but we have no choice; we are afraid because they are armed.”
“The Wagner [fighters] asked me questions about the jihadists: who they are, where they stay, if they come to the village,” said a man, 42, from Dounkala. “They interrogated all the men and took pictures of us.”
Enforced Disappearances in Ala
A 50-year-old resident said that two men had arrived in the village during the military operation and then attempted to flee, “so a Wagner [fighter] first shot in the air to stop them, before shooting one of the two in the foot … and catching both.”
Human Rights Watch obtained the men’s names. Witnesses said that their relatives have searched for them in vain at various military bases and police stations in Ségou region. The authorities have not disclosed their whereabouts.
Killing, Enforced Disappearances in Dounkala
Witnesses in Dounkala said that dozens of Wagner fighters accompanied by at least three Malian soldiers entered the village on foot and killed a 19-year-old man.
A resident said that during the interrogations outside the mosque, he “heard a gunshot,” and then later found out that a man had been killed in his home. “His mother told me that when Wagner [fighters] ordered him to go to the mosque, he refused and called them ‘kuffar’ [non-believers],” he said. “So, a Wagner [fighter] shot him. I saw the body with a bullet wound in the chest.”
The Wagner fighters and the Malian soldiers also arrested two men whose whereabouts remain unknown. “The soldiers blindfolded them and left with them towards Diabaly,” said a witness. “We don’t know where they are. Their families are afraid of asking questions; they think they can also be targeted.”
Toulé, August 15
On August 15, Malian forces and the Wagner Group carried out a military operation in Toulé village, killing seven men and burning dozens of homes. Witnesses said that the uniformed men, coming from Nampala with dozens of military vehicles, including armored cars, surrounded the village at about 3 p.m. and went door to door searching for men.
“One Malian soldier and two Wagner [fighters] came to my home and took me to a place where they had rounded up all the women and children,” a 50-year-old woman said. “They set fire to all the homes. Two hours later, they told us to leave and go to Nampala, 15 kilometers away.”
A farmer said that he hid in an irrigation canal in his rice field and heard “people shouting and flames coming out from the village. … [T]he following day, I returned to Toulé and found the bodies of seven villagers, their hands tied up behind their backs, blindfolded, and with their throats slit. The village had been burned.”
Human Rights Watch received a list compiled by witnesses with the names of the seven victims, all were men, ages 18 to 60.
Kolima, August 21
On August 21, Malian forces and the Wagner Group carried out an operation in Kolima village, killing four men. Witnesses said that uniformed men went door to door and rounded up all the men outside the village mosque. “When we were all sitting at the mosque, we heard several gunshots,” said a 45-year-old man. “Soldiers said they shot at people who attempted to flee because they are suspects, and that nothing will happen to us if we remain calm, but if we try to escape, they will kill us.”
A 55-year-old man said that when the soldiers left, they found the bodies of four villagers, including the village chief, his brother, his nephew, and another man. “The bodies were riddled with bullets,” he said. “The village chief had been shot three times in the shoulders, the others in the heads and legs.”
Human Rights Watch received a list compiled by witnesses with the names of the four victims, ages 28 to 65.
Ndorgollé, October 8
Dozens of Malian soldiers and about 10 Wagner fighters carried out an operation in Ndorgollé village on October 8. Witnesses said the army was retaliating against the community for allegedly collaborating with JNIM.
Witnesses said that the uniformed soldiers arrived in Ndorgollé from Nampala military base, 20 kilometers away, at about 8 a.m. in 23 military vehicles, including at least two armored cars, and surrounded the village. The soldiers killed two men and arrested three others.
“They asked an older man where his son was,” said a 28-year-old herder. “He replied he didn’t know. So, one soldier shot him in the chest point-blank. After that, his son came out and was shot in the head.”
The herder said that the soldiers then stormed the village’s central market and arrested three men. “They took them in the direction of Nampala,” said a man, 40, who was at the market.
Human Rights Watch received two lists compiled by residents of Ndorgollé and relatives of the victims with the names of the two men killed and the three arrested. Human Rights Watch also spoke to a traditional authority in Nampala who said that on October 8 and 9, Malian forces and the Wagner Group searched the Nampala area, “killing at least two men in Ndorgollé and arbitrarily arresting at least 22 others,” including in the villages of Ndorgollé, Sekere Tamba, Siguere Fangui, Toulé, Bertouma, and Sikere Seyna.
International media also reported that military operations were taking place in several villages of the Nampala district, including Ndorgollé, on October 8 and 9, resulting in the killing of several civilians.
Mopti Region
Diyane, July 12
On July 12, Malian forces and the Wagner Group killed two men in Diyane, a village controlled by the JNIM. Witnesses said that scores of Malian soldiers and Wagner fighters came from the military base in Niafunké, about 15 kilometers from Diyane, in about 30 military vehicles, including armored cars.
A woman from Diyane said that two Wagner fighters and a Malian soldier came to her home and arrested her 45-year-old husband, because “he was not able to prove that he did not own a walkie-talkie,” evidence of a JNIM affiliation. She said that the soldiers blindfolded him then drove off with him. Later, she said, “villagers informed me that he had been killed alongside another man.” This victim’s 47-year-old brother said that when the soldiers left, he found his brother’s body and another body “with their throats slit, in a pool of blood.”
Kidal Region
Tinzaouaten, August 25
On August 25, the Malian armed forces reported that their military drones targeted armed group fighters, vehicles, and equipment in the town of Tinzaouaten. The same day, ethnic Tuareg separatist rebels from the armed group formerly known as the Permanent Strategic Framework (Cadre stratégique permanent, CSP) and renamed Azawad Liberation Front (Front de libération de l’Azawad, FLA) in November said that strikes killed 21 civilians, including 11 children.
Witnesses said the first drone strike, at about 11 a.m., struck vehicles parked in front of a pharmacy, while the second, about 10 minutes later, in the same place, killed seven civilians, including five children, ages 14 to 16.
A 52-year-old man lost three sons in the strikes, two of whom were children under 16. He said:
I heard the two strikes, and the fear of a third one prevented me from rushing to the scene. … So, the bodies of my children remained there until the early evening when I finally saw them, all hit by shrapnel. … We buried them in a single hole without taking off their clothes, just 900 meters from the place of the strike.
Human Rights Watch reviewed a list compiled by relatives with the names and ages of the victims, and geolocated four photographs, two sent by relatives to Human Rights Watch, and two posted online showing bodies, including of children, at the strike site.
Abuses by Islamist Armed Groups
Ménaka Region
Ménaka, July 19
On July 19, the ISGS attacked a camp hosting about 200 ethnic Dawsahak displaced people on the outskirts of Ménaka city, killing at least seven men, including four older men, and injuring two women.
Witnesses said that the attack was in apparent retaliation against Dawsahak people, a Tuareg ethnic group whom the ISGS accuses of collaborating with the JNIM. The Dawsahak militia, known as the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (Mouvement pour le salut de l’Azawad, MSA-D), once allied with the Malian government following a 2015 peace agreement that the Malian authorities declared void in January. The militia carried out attacks against the ISGS in Mali’s northeast, at times reportedly siding with the JNIM.
A 50-year-old mother of nine said:
The assailants came into my tent where I was sitting with my husband. … One shot him at point-blank, on the right ear, and the bullet went through his head leaving a big hole. And then he fired another bullet at my husband’s chest. He fell on his back and died instantly before my eyes.
An 18-year-old woman said:
I hid in a shed. … The terrorists saw me and shot. … I felt that something went into my back, I touched it, and my hands were covered with blood. I understood that it was a bullet, it came out of the right side of my breast. I remained there until an ambulance came to pick me up with two other wounded people to take us to the Ménaka health center.
Witnesses said that the Malian army and the Dawsahak militia intervened to repel ISGS fighters, evacuate the injured, and bury the dead. “The assailants shot for about 20 minutes, then the army and the militia came in response,” said the 42-year-old man. “If they didn’t come, it would have been a carnage.”
Human Rights Watch received a list with the names of the seven people killed, all men ages 34 to 86, compiled by relatives and survivors.
Bandiagara Region
Arson and Killings in Doucombo and Pignari Bana Districts, June-November
Between June and November, the JNIM attacked at least ten villages in the Doucombo district area and at least one in the Pignari Bana district area, burning over 1,000 homes and looting over 3,500 livestock, witnesses said.
On the basis of witness accounts, on June 25, JNIM fighters attacked Tégourou village, burning at least 10 homes; on July 1, they attacked Djiguibombo, burning several homes and the local health center; on August 24, they attacked Tilé village and burned over 500 homes; on September 29, they attacked and burned at least 450 homes, including at least 150 in Pel Kanda and 100 in Songo, Ndiombo, and Antaba villages; on October 13 and 14, they attacked the villages of Danibombo 2 and Danibombo 1 respectively, burning at least 140 homes in both localities; on November 8, they attacked Allaye-Kokolo village, burning at least 75 homes and 20 shops.
JNIM fighters also killed two men in Tégourou, at least ten people in Djiguibombo, a man in Pel Kanda, four men and a woman in Songo, five men in Danibombo 2, and injured six men in Danibombo 1. They also killed nine men in Allaye-Kokolo on November 8 and seven other men and a boy in the same village on November 19.
Witnesses said the attacks were in apparent retaliation against communities whom the JNIM accused of collaborating with the Dan Na Ambassagou militia.
In a video circulated on social media on September 30, JNIM fighters claimed responsibility for the September 29 attacks in Pel Kanda, Songo, Ndiombo, and Antaba.
Witnesses described similar modus operandi for the ten attacks, with scores of JNIM fighters, wearing headscarves and armed with Kalashnikov-style assault rifles, riding motorbikes and attacking the villages, setting homes on fire, and killing residents who had not fled.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 residents from these ten villages who either witnessed the JNIM’s arson attacks or assessed the burning when they returned to their homes.
A man, 45, from Tilé said:
When the attack started at about 5 p.m., I hid in the bush. I returned the day after to assess the losses. I lost 50 sheep, 60 goats, and 2 donkeys. My house was completely burned. The attackers burned down over 500 homes and looted 431 sheep, 678 goats, and 364 cows. They also burned 12 bicycles and 6 motorcycles.
A man, 39, from Songo said:
I saw the terrorists coming with a lot of motorcycles. They were shooting and shouting “Allah Akbar.” We all fled. I went to Bandiagara. I alerted the Malian army and the next day, with a military escort, and five other men, we returned to Songo. It was totally burned, more than 100 houses and granaries gone up in smoke. A thousand cows were taken … 530 people from Songo were displaced in Bamako and more than 5,400 in Bandiagara.
A comparison of satellite imagery captured on June 23 and June 27 shows new burn marks on the village of Tégourou. Over the villages of Pel Kanda, Songo, Ndiombo, and Antaba, new burn marks are visible on imagery captured on October 4 that were not visible on September 22.
A man from Allaye-Kokolo said:
The JNIM had threatened the village via a WhatsApp [text] message about one week before the attack. The message said that if we didn’t stop collaborating with the Dan Na Ambassagou militia, JNIM fighters would come for us. … On the day of the attack, I saw the assailants coming and immediately fled into the bush. … When I returned to the village, I saw dozens of homes and shops burned to the ground, along with everything inside.
Human Rights Watch analyzed and georeferenced a video posted on social media on November 9 to the village of Allaye-Kokolo, located on National Road 15 between Mopti and Bandiagara. The video shows armed men, some on motorbikes, on the road, while buildings are burning around. A man can be heard speaking in Fulfulde, saying “God is great, Allaye-Kokolo is burning.” Satellite images show burn marks appearing over the village sometime between November 7 and November 9. High-resolution infrared satellite imagery from November 19 shows the burned buildings visible in the video. The market also appears completely burned, and houses inside the village appear possibly burned as well.
Click to expand Image High-resolution infrared satellite imagery from November 19, 2024, of the village of Allaye-Kokolo, Mali, shows the market completely burned. Buildings along the road and possibly more houses in the village have also been burned. On infrared images, the vegetation appears in red and the burned areas more clearly in dark. Image © 2024 Planet Labs PBC.Witnesses said that scores of JNIM fighters attacked Tégourou on June 25 and killed two men, ages 25 and 26. One witness said the victims were his friends: “I saw their bodies; they had both been shot in the head.”
Witnesses in Djiguibombo said that JNIM fighters rode on motorcycles into the village on July 1 as residents celebrated a wedding and opened fire on villagers. “They yelled ‘Allah Akbhar’ and shot at us,” a 50-year-old farmer said. “I saw at least 10 bodies on the ground.”
Human Rights Watch received a list compiled by witnesses and residents with the names of 10 people killed, all men ages 25 to 67. In a July 3 statement, the governor of the Bandiagara region said that on July 1, armed groups attacked Djiguibombo and Sokorokanda villages, killing 21 people and looting and burning the health center in Djiguibombo only.
International media and a Malian civil society organization that reported the attack also provided a death toll of at least 21 civilians killed. However, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm this information.
Witnesses in Pel Kanda said that JNIM fighters killed a 50-year-old farmer during the attack. “We found his body in the fields, lying on his back,” a man from Pel Kanda said. “He had been shot in the head.”
An older couple in Songo village was found burned to death in their home. Their 45-year-old son said he returned to Songo the day after the attack and found the bodies of his parents charred, “leaving only skeletons.” Another man from Songo said he found the bodies of three men with psychological disabilities in the middle of the village, “their hands tied behind their back” and with bullet wounds in the heads.
Witnesses in Danibombo 2 said that JNIM fighters killed five men, ages 18 to 60. They said that four had their throats slit and one was shot.
A 37-year-old man from Danibombo 2, who lost one brother and two uncles, said:
My relatives were slaughtered. We found their bodies and those of two other people in the village and its vicinity. The bodies were in an advanced state of putrefaction so we couldn’t move them, and we buried them where we found them.
Witnesses in Danibombo 1 said that six men, ages 34 to 65, were injured by gunshots as they fled the village during the attack. “We evacuated them to the Bandiagara hospital,” said a resident. “One got a bullet in the left hand, one had a fracture in his foot, and the others were injured in the legs and feet.”
Witnesses said that the JNIM attacked the village of Allaye-Kokolo twice, on November 8, killing nine men, and on November 19, killing seven men and one boy.
A 35-year-old man who witnessed the first attack said:
When they came [the first time], I was in my shop at the market with a friend. I saw them approaching with motorbikes, and I thought they were soldiers, because they were wearing military uniforms. But then, they came closer and started shooting screaming “Allah Akbar.” They opened fire on me and my friend who fell on the spot.… I ran, and they chased me until I jumped into a ditch. They continued firing and chasing other people.
The man returned to the village the following day, escorted by Malian soldiers. He said that he and other villagers found the bodies of nine men scattered around the village:
My friend’s body was still in front of the shop, he had a bullet wound in the head. … We then picked up three bodies in the middle of village, three more at the northern exit of the village, and two bodies in the houses.… [A]ll of them were shot in the head, in the back and shoulders.… We buried them the same day in a mass grave.
Another man who witnessed the second attack said:
On the morning of November 19, with a group of about 12 people, we decided to go back to the village to collect some of our belongings, but we were caught by the JNIM. As soon as they [the fighters] spotted us, they started shooting. Some of us managed to escape, but others were shot and killed. I hid in the bush and when we were sure that the assailants had left, at around 3 p.m., we went back to take the bodies, which we buried in the nearby village of Kako.
Human Rights Watch received two lists, compiled by residents and relatives, with the names of the 17 victims, 16 men, ages 20 to 70, and a 14-year-old boy.
Northeast Syria: Displacement Worsens Aid Crisis
(Beirut) – Tens of thousands of civilians seeking safety in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria are facing dire conditions due to the lack of adequate shelter, water, food, and health care, Human Rights Watch said today. All parties to the conflict in Syria are obligated to ensure the unimpeded flow of aid, safe passage to fleeing civilians, and protection for those who stay.
On November 27, a coalition of armed groups including Hay’et Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA) opened military operations against the former government of Bashar al-Assad. Seeking safety from SNA factions seizing territory throughout Aleppo governorate, more than 100,000 people fled to areas governed by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The situation is exacerbating an acute and longstanding crisis, with overcrowded camps and severely damaged infrastructure and a lack of water, power, healthcare, food, and weather-appropriate shelter.
“Amid the extraordinary events taking place in Syria, intense fighting and fear of retaliation and violence by armed groups is displacing thousands of civilians to areas unprepared for such an influx,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Given the scale of the crisis, only a concerted international effort to provide support to local authorities and humanitarian agencies operating in the region can stave off humanitarian catastrophe.”
The HTS-led armed groups are establishing a transitional government that controls the majority of Syrian territory, including the capital, Damascus, with all state institutions, as well as the coastal region. Hostilities are ongoing in Deir Ezzor, Manbij (Aleppo governorate), and Kobane, driving displacement of mostly Kurds, but also Arabs and other communities, as factions of the Türkiye-backed SNA are fighting the United States-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the armed wing of the autonomous administration. The Turkish Air Force has conducted strikes against SDF positions.
Human Rights Watch spoke to five people who fled or whose relatives were forced to flee their homes and seek shelter in the cities of Tabqa, Raqqah, and al-Hasakah and two journalists based in al-Hasakah and Aleppo. Two people interviewed, a Kurd and an Arab Shia, said they feared SNA attacks and abuses, and three said they were insulted at checkpoints. They said they knew of people who had been assaulted or had their phones confiscated en route. Two expressed fear of advancing HTS and SNA groups.
The Türkiye-backed SNA has a poor human rights record. Human Rights Watch has found that SNA factions and other groups, including members of the Turkish armed forces and intelligence agencies, have abducted, unlawfully arrested, and unlawfully detained people including children; committed sexual violence and torture with little accountability; and engaged in looting, theft of land and housing, and extortion.
A Yazidi woman said that she left Sardam Camp in the al-Shahba area in Aleppo with her family and that the scale of displacement in northeastern Syria was overwhelming local authorities. “We arrived in Tabqa at midnight” on December 1, she said, after “spending two nights in the cold. Children were crying from hunger and cold. I witnessed two pregnant women give birth without any medical care. It was heartbreaking to see so much suffering.”
She said she left Tabqa and headed to al-Hasakah three days later because there was no available shelter. “We urgently need shelter, medicine, and food,” she said. “With winter here, we also require proper winterization support to cope with the cold.” She also said they experienced verbal abuse and harassment by SNA fighters at checkpoints “regardless of whether we were Yazidi or not, simply because we were Kurdish.”
Another Kurdish man who fled with family members from Tel Rifaat, north of Aleppo, to Tabqa city on December 2, said armed groups at SNA checkpoints verbally abused them and that they witnessed apparent atrocities including unidentified charred bodies on the road. “We arrived in Tabqa on Tuesday evening [December 3] and sought refuge in a school,” he said. “NGOs and authorities provided us with food, kerosene, and mattresses, but many families remained without proper shelter, resorting to the streets for accommodation.”
The Northeast Syria NGO Forum reported on December 7 that overwhelming numbers of people were arriving in northeastern Syria, including in Tabqa, prompting the opening of a new reception site on December 4 and the use of an additional 35 buildings to host internally displaced people. In Raqqa, the situation remained critical even though the authorities opened more than 70 buildings as temporary collective shelters. In Tabqa and Raqqa the reception sites have reached full capacity. The authorities also established reception sites in Kobane, al-Hasakah, and Qamishli.
Local authorities are using 186 schools in Raqqa, Tabqa, al-Hasakah, and Qamishli as shelters, disrupting the education of nearly 185,000 students, according to the United Nations. Health care services and water and sanitation services are also severely affected.
Humanitarian conditions in the area were dire before the new hostilities. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that conflict in northeast Syria has “damaged civilian infrastructure and humanitarian assets, and disrupted services.” After Türkiye’s 2019 invasion of northeast Syria and the ensuing mass exodus of mostly Kurds from the now Turkish-occupied areas, the population in al-Hasakah governorate went from of under half a million to two million. During the recent violence in Lebanon, 23,000 displaced people entered northeast Syria.
Tens of thousands of internally displaced people living in overstretched camps and shelters in northeast Syria have lacked sustained or adequate aid over the years, while an acute water crisis affecting al-Hasakah region put further strain on local authorities and nongovernmental groups supporting the displaced communities.
Earlier hostilities in the region, between October 23 and 26, severely damaged critical infrastructure, including “electricity transfer stations, gas and fuel plants, medical facilities, agricultural lands, silos, and major access routes,” according to the UN. This has affected access to water, electricity, heating, health care, and food.
Parties to the conflict should refrain from attacks that target civilians and civilian objects as well as indiscriminate attacks, take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties, and ensure that civilians can flee the fighting safely. They should also ensure that fighters do not harass, arbitrarily arrest, or mistreat residents who choose to remain in newly captured areas and hold anyone responsible for violations accountable.
The UN says that the humanitarian crisis in Syria continues to be one of the world’s most severe, with 16.7 million people needing aid as of September, before the entry of more than half a million people from Lebanon due to the conflict with Israel there.
Parties to the conflict should urgently remove any impediment to aid delivery to areas not under their control in northeast Syria, and the autonomous administration should scale up support where possible. International donors should increase their funding.
“The dire situation of displaced people in northeastern Syria won’t solve itself,” Coogle said. “Donors, humanitarian agencies, and the United Nations should center their response around a rights-based approach to alleviate people’s needs.”
Azerbaijan’s Post-COP29 Crackdown
The curtains had barely closed on the global United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP29, in Baku when Azerbaijani authorities resumed their crackdown on government critics. On December 6, they detained seven independent journalists on bogus charges, in keep with a well-documented pattern of arrests aimed at silencing critics.
This time, the prime target was Meydan TV, Azerbaijan’s largest exile-based independent media outlet. Among those arrested were Meydan TV’s editor-in-chief, Aynur Ganbarova (Elgunesh), and five reporters, Aytaj Ahmadova (Tapdig), Khayala Agayeva, Natig Javadli, Aysel Umudova, and Ramin Jabrayilzade (Deko). The same day, police arrested Ulvi Tahirov, a journalist and deputy director of the Baku Journalism School, as well as Kamran Mammadli, an animal rights activist.
Like the reporters with Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13 arrested in 2023 and who remain in pretrial custody, those targeted in the latest waves of arrests all face bogus currency smuggling charges. Having created a network of laws and regulations in Azerbaijan designed to make it virtually impossible for journalists and activists carrying out legitimate work in full compliance, the government then invokes such bogus charges as politically convenient to silence critics.
Also on December 6, police arrested Ahmad Mukhtar, a freelance photojournalist, and a court sentenced him to a 20-days detention for alleged hooliganism and resisting police.
On December 3, the authorities arrested Rufat Safarov, a well-known human rights lawyer, on spurious fraud and hooliganism charges. The next day a court ordered Safarov to be held in remand prison for four months.
On December 8, a Baku court sent all six Meydan TV journalists, and Tahirov to four months in pretrial detention.
As the international limelight moves away, Azerbaijani authorities feel emboldened to go after the remaining vestiges of the country’s media and civil society. Azerbaijan’s international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown, including releasing all those arbitrarily detailed, and dropping all politically motivated prosecutions.
Afghanistan: Women Artists Help Drive Resistance to Taliban
Afghan women artists are playing a vital role in the women’s movement resisting Taliban abuses, and their contributions—and art—should be recognized, Human Rights Watch said today in a new web feature.
The feature, published at the end of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, is titled “A human being is more delicate than a flower and tougher than a rock,” after the Afghan proverb. The feature honors two Afghan women artists in exile who protest through their work and who voice their beliefs through the art they create with patience, creativity, and passion. Their art depicts and challenges the oppression women and girls face under Taliban rule.
“A resistance movement is shaped, empowered, and maintained by those who support it in different capacities,” said Sahar Fetrat, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Women artists, much like the women protesters who marched with the slogan ‘bread, work, freedom,’ demand dignity and equality for all, and play a vital role in shaping this grassroots movement.”
Since taking over Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the Taliban have systematically violated the rights of women and girls and imposed rules that not only violate their right to education, but also to employment, freedom of movement and speech, to bodily integrity, to participate in public life, to access health care, and even to speak, read, and recite out loud.
The project features Rada Akbar, a conceptual artist, and Fatima Wojohat, who creates art both with chalk and digitally. Both artists’ work touches on themes of women’s resistance to oppression, and both artists contribute to Afghan women’s resistance movement, even though they have been uprooted from their homeland. They share their artwork and messages of solidarity and hope, and they want to reach girls and women inside Afghanistan whose access to the creative world and art have been cut off due to the Taliban’s oppressive bans and restrictions.
Akbar said she feels a profound responsibility to dedicate her work to honoring the courage and resistance of Afghan women.
Wojohat said her work reflects her deep concern for the erasure of freedoms and opportunities for Afghan women and girls: “Through my art, I strive to amplify their voices and stories, presenting their dreams and struggles to the world.”
Afghan women have bravely resisted Taliban abuses by taking to the streets, organizing indoor protests, singing, and making art, and they have continued to find creative ways to oppose the Taliban’s oppressive policies.
“While Afghanistan remains the world’s gravest women’s rights crisis, it is crucial to acknowledge the Afghan women’s grassroots movement and those who nourish it with their wisdom, bravery, and art,” Fetrat said. “Rada Akbar and Fatima Wojohat, among many others, empower the women’s resistance movement by creating art, meaning, and symbols that leave a powerful legacy.”
Vietnam: Repeal Harmful Internet Laws
(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese government should repeal a draconian new decree tightening control of internet use and the 2018 Law on Cybersecurity, Human Rights Watch said today. The regulation, which undermines access to information and freedom of expression in Vietnam, goes into effect on December 25, 2024.
In November, the Vietnamese government issued Decree 147 to regulate the use and provision of internet services and online information. It expands government control over access to information on the internet for vaguely defined reasons of “national security” and “social order,” and to prevent transgressions of Vietnam’s “morals, beautiful customs, and traditions.” The authorities have extensively misused such objectives to repress political dissent. The decree requires social media platforms providing services to users in Vietnam to store user data, provide it to the authorities on demand, and take down anything the authorities consider “illegal content” within 24 hours.
“Vietnam’s new Decree 147 and its other cybersecurity laws neither protect the public from any genuine security concerns nor respect fundamental human rights,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Because the Vietnamese police treat any criticism of the Communist Party of Vietnam as a national security matter, this decree will provide them with yet another tool to suppress dissent.”
Decree 147 requires “foreign organizations, enterprises and individuals” to verify users’ accounts via their phone numbers or their personal identification number, thus exposing dissidents, who have tended to post anonymously, to a risk of arrest.
Article 23 of the decree requires “foreign organizations, enterprises and individuals” that provide cross-border information use data storage services in Vietnam, or have 100,000 visits from users in Vietnam to:
Store Vietnam users’ personal data, including their names, birth dates, and phone numbers, if they register their accounts, and provide it on demand to the Ministries of Information and Communications, and of Public Security, and other authorities.Monitor, inspect, block, and remove information, services, or apps that violate article 8 of the Law on Cybersecurity, which broadly prohibits any online criticism or opposition to the government, or other laws, within 24 hours upon receiving requests from these ministries or other authorities and within 48 hours upon receiving complaints from users in Vietnam.Ensure that only accounts verified through their phone number or identification number can publish (post, comment, or livestream) and share information.Provide search and content scanning tools upon request from the Ministries of Information and Communications and of Public Security.Temporarily suspend individual accounts, community pages, groups, or channels that frequently publish violating content. After three suspensions, they will be shut down permanently.If foreign organizations, enterprises, and individuals do not adequately comply with these regulations, Vietnamese authorities have threatened to carry out “technical measures,” such as completely blocking content, services, or apps and carrying out “administrative punishments” to enforce the laws.
Decree 147 includes other problematic provisions. Article 6 requires owners of public internet access points, such as at hotels, restaurants, airports, and other public spaces, to prevent internet users from carrying out “propaganda against the state.” The decree does not stipulate what these owners must do to prevent such acts, nor what punishment would apply to them if such acts occur.
As a prerequisite for registering all .vn domain names, article 9 of the decree requires the “exclusion of any phrases that violate national interests” and “phrases that can be easily mistaken for a press agency or press product if the registered users is not a press agency” and that they be “in accordance with social morality.”
Article 36 requires “all account users, content channel owners, and community group administrators on social media not to name the account, the page, the channel, the group the same names or similar names with a press agency, nor to name them with terms (in Vietnamese or in foreign languages) that may be mistaken for a press agency or carry out the work of a press agency, including words such as: newspaper, radio, magazine, news, information, broadcast, television, communication, media, news agency, etc.” It also requires administrators of community pages or groups or channels “to remove contents that violate law” within 24 hours upon receiving requests from the Ministries of Information and Communications, and of Public Security, and other authorities.
Decree 147 fails to meet international human rights standards in many respects, Human Rights Watch said. International standards require that any restrictions on the right to free expression must be necessary to pursue a legitimate aim and be formulated with sufficient precision to allow individuals to regulate their conduct accordingly.
International human rights standards provide that access to user data be authorized by an independent authority, which considers on a case-specific basis whether the request is necessary and proportionate and subject to challenge and redress. Decree 147’s enhanced enforcement measures for Vietnam’s Law on Cybersecurity, including sweeping rapid removal orders, are of particular concern as the underlying law already fails to meet international human rights standards.
Decree 147 is the latest in a series of laws and decrees to restrict internet use and access in Vietnam. In 2018, Vietnam passed the highly problematic Law on Cybersecurity, which prompted nationwide protests, to which police responded with excessive force. In 2024, Freedom House listed Vietnam as a country with no freedom on the internet.
In 2024, government-controlled Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 36 critics to long prison terms because of posts or livestreams they had made on internet platforms criticizing government actions or policies. All were charged with “conducting propaganda against the state” under article 117 or “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state” under article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code.
Vietnam has volunteered to host the signing ceremony in 2025 for the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime. This deeply problematic convention is poised to become an unprecedented tool for surveillance and cross-border cooperation on a range of crimes, without adequate human rights safeguards. Vietnam’s track record of cracking down on online dissent makes it a fitting host for the cybercrime convention’s signing ceremony, Human Rights Watch said.
“Vietnam should repeal the rights-violating Decree 147 and Law on Cybersecurity, and release everyone imprisoned for exercising their free speech rights on the internet,” Gossman said. “Vietnam’s leaders should treat freedom of expression as a basic human right to be upheld, not throttled.”
Vietnam: Repeal Harmful Internet Laws
(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese government should repeal a draconian new decree tightening control of internet use and the 2018 Law on Cybersecurity, Human Rights Watch said today. The regulation, which undermines access to information and freedom of expression in Vietnam, goes into effect on December 25, 2024.
In November, the Vietnamese government issued Decree 147 to regulate the use and provision of internet services and online information. It expands government control over access to information on the internet for vaguely defined reasons of “national security” and “social order,” and to prevent transgressions of Vietnam’s “morals, beautiful customs, and traditions.” The authorities have extensively misused such objectives to repress political dissent. The decree requires social media platforms providing services to users in Vietnam to store user data, provide it to the authorities on demand, and take down anything the authorities consider “illegal content” within 24 hours.
“Vietnam’s new Decree 147 and its other cybersecurity laws neither protect the public from any genuine security concerns nor respect fundamental human rights,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Because the Vietnamese police treat any criticism of the Communist Party of Vietnam as a national security matter, this decree will provide them with yet another tool to suppress dissent.”
Decree 147 requires “foreign organizations, enterprises and individuals” to verify users’ accounts via their phone numbers or their personal identification number, thus exposing dissidents, who have tended to post anonymously, to a risk of arrest.
Article 23 of the decree requires “foreign organizations, enterprises and individuals” that provide cross-border information use data storage services in Vietnam, or have 100,000 visits from users in Vietnam to:
Store Vietnam users’ personal data, including their names, birth dates, and phone numbers, if they register their accounts, and provide it on demand to the Ministries of Information and Communications, and of Public Security, and other authorities.Monitor, inspect, block, and remove information, services, or apps that violate article 8 of the Law on Cybersecurity, which broadly prohibits any online criticism or opposition to the government, or other laws, within 24 hours upon receiving requests from these ministries or other authorities and within 48 hours upon receiving complaints from users in Vietnam.Ensure that only accounts verified through their phone number or identification number can publish (post, comment, or livestream) and share information.Provide search and content scanning tools upon request from the Ministries of Information and Communications and of Public Security.Temporarily suspend individual accounts, community pages, groups, or channels that frequently publish violating content. After three suspensions, they will be shut down permanently.If foreign organizations, enterprises, and individuals do not adequately comply with these regulations, Vietnamese authorities have threatened to carry out “technical measures,” such as completely blocking content, services, or apps and carrying out “administrative punishments” to enforce the laws.
Decree 147 includes other problematic provisions. Article 6 requires owners of public internet access points, such as at hotels, restaurants, airports, and other public spaces, to prevent internet users from carrying out “propaganda against the state.” The decree does not stipulate what these owners must do to prevent such acts, nor what punishment would apply to them if such acts occur.
As a prerequisite for registering all .vn domain names, article 9 of the decree requires the “exclusion of any phrases that violate national interests” and “phrases that can be easily mistaken for a press agency or press product if the registered users is not a press agency” and that they be “in accordance with social morality.”
Article 36 requires “all account users, content channel owners, and community group administrators on social media not to name the account, the page, the channel, the group the same names or similar names with a press agency, nor to name them with terms (in Vietnamese or in foreign languages) that may be mistaken for a press agency or carry out the work of a press agency, including words such as: newspaper, radio, magazine, news, information, broadcast, television, communication, media, news agency, etc.” It also requires administrators of community pages or groups or channels “to remove contents that violate law” within 24 hours upon receiving requests from the Ministries of Information and Communications, and of Public Security, and other authorities.
Decree 147 fails to meet international human rights standards in many respects, Human Rights Watch said. International standards require that any restrictions on the right to free expression must be necessary to pursue a legitimate aim and be formulated with sufficient precision to allow individuals to regulate their conduct accordingly.
International human rights standards provide that access to user data be authorized by an independent authority, which considers on a case-specific basis whether the request is necessary and proportionate and subject to challenge and redress. Decree 147’s enhanced enforcement measures for Vietnam’s Law on Cybersecurity, including sweeping rapid removal orders, are of particular concern as the underlying law already fails to meet international human rights standards.
Decree 147 is the latest in a series of laws and decrees to restrict internet use and access in Vietnam. In 2018, Vietnam passed the highly problematic Law on Cybersecurity, which prompted nationwide protests, to which police responded with excessive force. In 2024, Freedom House listed Vietnam as a country with no freedom on the internet.
In 2024, government-controlled Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 36 critics to long prison terms because of posts or livestreams they had made on internet platforms criticizing government actions or policies. All were charged with “conducting propaganda against the state” under article 117 or “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state” under article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code.
Vietnam has volunteered to host the signing ceremony in 2025 for the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime. This deeply problematic convention is poised to become an unprecedented tool for surveillance and cross-border cooperation on a range of crimes, without adequate human rights safeguards. Vietnam’s track record of cracking down on online dissent makes it a fitting host for the cybercrime convention’s signing ceremony, Human Rights Watch said.
“Vietnam should repeal the rights-violating Decree 147 and Law on Cybersecurity, and release everyone imprisoned for exercising their free speech rights on the internet,” Gossman said. “Vietnam’s leaders should treat freedom of expression as a basic human right to be upheld, not throttled.”
Georgia’s Human Rights Crisis Deepens Amid Mass Protests
European Union foreign affairs ministers gathering on December 16 to discuss Georgia should call for an independent investigation into the country’s clampdown on peaceful anti-government protests, now in their second week. EU ministers should also sanction officials responsible for violent abuses against protesters.
The heavy-handed government response to protests, amid the country’s political and constitutional crisis, risks plunging Georgia further into a human rights crisis.
Nationwide, tens of thousands are protesting the government’s decision to abandon Georgia’s EU accession. This decision violates Georgia’s constitution, which enshrines full EU integration as a goal for the Georgian state. It also transgresses the will of some 80 percent of Georgia’s population.
The pivot by the government comes one month after disputed October 26 parliamentary elections that kept the country’s ruling party in power, but which local observers and Georgia’s president claimed were marred by massive vote-rigging. It also follows the adoption of repressive legislation targeting civil society and independent media.
The government responded to the protests with teargas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. Police beat, chased down, and detained largely peaceful protesters. Riot police, as well as violent mobs presumably associated with authorities, have beaten opposition media and independent journalists and interfered with media coverage. Several hundred protesters have been arrested on various misdemeanor and criminal charges. Many reported beatings and ill-treatment in detention; dozens required hospitalization.
Despite domestic and international pressure, the government is intensifying the crackdown.
The EU has deplored authorities’ repressive actions, but it's time for decisive steps. The EU should seek independent investigations into the post-election violence by experts from the Council of Europe and the United Nations, calling on them to examine the unlawful use of force, arbitrary detention, and the mounting evidence of ill-treatment and torture.
Additionally, EU member states should muster the consensus to use the EU’s Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime to sanction officials responsible for authorizing and carrying out beatings and violence against Georgia’s protesters. The EU should also consider imposing Schengen visa requirements for Georgian government officials and diplomats. Sanctioning authorities should happen in parallel with stepped-up, flexible democracy support for civil society and media.
As the Georgian people look to the EU in their aspirations, EU leaders should show them more than moral support. Concrete and decisive steps are needed to prevent Georgia’s human rights crisis from further escalating.
As Many Syrian Refugees Return Home, Others Cannot
Despite joyous images of Syrian refugees going home, no government should be sending or planning to send people back involuntarily. Every citizen has the right to return to their home country, safe or not. But because one refugee chooses to repatriate is no justification to forcibly return another who remains fearful, as many Syrian refugees do, especially given the country’s unstable and possibly dangerous conditions.
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria over the weekend, some European governments have begun announcing the suspension of individual status determinations for Syrians. But this approach carries real risks, especially given how keen some European states are to declare Syria safe and begin returns.
The 1951 Refugee Convention includes a “cessation clause” that says a person no longer needs international protection when the circumstances that caused them to become a refugee “have ceased to exist,” a phrase that indicates a high degree of certainty about the permanence and extent of change. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) states that the changed circumstances must be both fundamental and durable.
Even with what now looks like a fundamental change in Syria’s governance, the question of durability remains. The rapidity of the change in Syria is inherently volatile. The situation on the ground is fragile and unpredictable, and the possibility of new waves of refugees fleeing persecution can’t be dismissed. Meanwhile, the situation in parts of the country is far from safe. Fierce fighting is ongoing in the north and northeast, and an estimated 125,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been displaced since late November.
As UNHCR has noted, it is vital that Syrians in Europe retain access to asylum. No future returns of Syrians should take place until their claims are individually examined in full and fair procedures with due regard for past trauma and future fears.
Likewise, notwithstanding a reluctance to keep hosting large numbers of refugees, Syria’s neighbors Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan have provided temporary protection to the largest numbers of Syrians for many years. While these countries may wish to fast forward given the events in Syria, they should maintain such temporary protection until it’s clear that the changed circumstances in Syria are more than fleeting and will offer some stability.
Donor countries should not falter in their support to these frontline states, even as they begin the pivot to aiding in the reconstruction of war-torn Syria to help make changes there both fundamental and durable.
Kyrgyzstan is Relentless in its Crackdown on Civil and Political Rights
As the world marks International Human Rights Day, there is little to celebrate in Kyrgyzstan. President Sadyr Japarov’s administration has been systematically cracking down on dissenting voices, including detaining leading members of the Social Democrats party, one of the last remaining opposition parties, ahead of last month’s municipal elections.
The detained party leader, 26-year-old Temirlan Sultanbekov, chief campaigner, Irina Karamushkina, and party member, Roza Tyurksever, were arrested on vote-buying allegations, with an audiotape of unknown origin serving as the primary evidence. Sultanbekov explained the money being discussed in the recording were salaries of party campaigners, the amounts tallying with job advertisements for the roles.
The Bishkek Territorial Election Commission subsequently disqualified all of the party's municipal candidates.
On November 15, a Bishkek district court ordered that the party officials be held in pretrial detention until January 13, 2025. That same day, party leader Sultanbekov began a hunger strike in protest. According to his lawyer, weeks into the strike the physical effects are showing and Sultanbekov has visibly lost weight, a lower body temperature, worsened eyesight, and has developed blue spots on his hands and feet.
This is not the first time Japarov’s administration has sought to neutralize opposition parties. In 2022 the Ata-Meken party was pacified by appointing its leader, Omurbek Tekebayev as an ambassador, while in March this year Adakhan Madumarov, leader of Butun Kyrgyzstan party, lost his seat in parliament on a decade-old treason charge. More than twenty government critics were charged with fomenting mass unrest and attempting to seize power by force after peacefully campaigning against part of a border demarcation deal with Uzbekistan in October 2022. Although all were acquitted in June 2024, nearly half spent 20 months in pretrial detention.
This year has also witnessed unprecedented attacks on media and civil society. In August, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court upheld the liquidation of Kloop Media and in October, four journalists from Temirov Live, an investigative platform, were criminally prosecuted. A Russian-style law on “foreign representatives” also came into force this year.
As Kyrgyzstan marks International Human Rights Day, the government should use the occasion to change course and uphold fundamental rights and freedoms. That would be something genuinely worth celebrating.
Poland: Brutal Pushbacks at Belarus Border
(Budapest, December 10, 2024) – Polish law enforcement is unlawfully, and sometimes violently, forcing people trying to enter the country back to Belarus without considering their protection needs, Human Rights Watch said today. Those pushed back risk serious abuse at the hands of Belarus officials or being trapped in harsh conditions in the open air that can lead to death or serious injury.
“Poland’s inhumane and illegal pushbacks of people seeking safety fly in the face of its duties under national and EU law and basic humanity,” said Lydia Gall, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “As the next holder of the EU presidency, Poland should be setting an example by safeguarding the right to seek asylum at its borders and ensuring that people are treated humanely and their rights protected.”
In November 2024, Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with 22 asylum seekers currently in Poland. Seventeen of them – men, women, and one 17-year-old girl – had experienced at least one pushback by Polish border officials in 2024 before successfully entering Poland and being allowed to apply for asylum. Human Rights Watch also interviewed humanitarian, medical, and legal service providers for asylum seekers stranded in the Białowieża forest on the border between Poland and Belarus.
Asylum seekers interviewed described a consistent pattern of abuse by Polish border and law enforcement officials, including unlawful pushbacks, beatings with batons, use of pepper spray, and destruction or confiscation of their phones. Some said Polish border officials apprehended them kilometers inside Polish territory, away from the border, and summarily forced them back to Belarus without due process, even though in many cases they had explicitly asked to seek asylum.
Others said they were pushed back after being taken to a border post and coerced to sign papers they knew or found out later stated they did not want to seek asylum. Once on the Belarusian side of the border, people are often stranded and face harsh conditions in the open air, or abuse by Belarusian officials, who often force them to cross the border to Poland again. Human Rights Watch documented similar abuses by Polish and Belarusian authorities in November 2021 and June 2022.
According to We Are Monitoring, a civil society group, 87 people died near the border on both sides between September 2021 and October 2024, with 14 deaths recorded in 2024 alone. The circumstances of the deaths are not documented. A Yemeni man told Human Rights Watch that a 24-year-old Yemeni travelling companion was pushed back by Polish authorities in early October and found dead in a swamp on the Belarusian side in late October by a group on their way to the border. Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify the information.
Humanitarian organizations assisting stranded migrants and asylum seekers in Poland said that they call the border guards when people express a desire to seek asylum. While this usually means that people are not summarily returned to Belarus, Human Rights Watch documented cases in which border officials nevertheless forcibly pushed people back.
A 28-year-old Somali woman said that after calling an association for assistance, she and 11 others were taken to a border station where they asked for asylum, but were required to sign papers they did not understand and were subsequently taken to the border and pushed through the fence.
People interviewed said that Belarusian border guards had subjected them to violence, inhuman and degrading treatment, and other forms of coercion. They said that guards had beaten them, stolen or destroyed their belongings, burned their food and supplies, and forced them to areas on the border far from where they were apprehended. One Ethiopian woman said Belarusian guards forced her to strip naked and threatened to rape her.
Eight people interviewed said that Belarusian border officials had gathered them in “camps” or collection points in the border area, along with dozens of other people, and in some cases directed them in small groups to various points along the border with Poland. Four said that Belarusian border officials transported them to the border with Lithuania, and in at least one case guards told a Yemeni man to leave the border area.
Abusive actions by Belarusian officials, including forcing people over the border into Poland, do not relieve Poland of its obligations to protect the rights of people who enter its territory and the prohibition on forcibly returning anyone to a real risk of abuse, Human Rights Watch said.
The current Polish government, in power since December 2023, reinstated an “exclusion zone” along 60 kilometers of the border with Belarus in June and increased the military presence alongside border guard forces. The no-go area, which in some areas extends two kilometers into Polish territory, prevents independent monitors and humanitarian volunteers from assisting people stranded in the dense, swampy forest. In February, the Polish government said it had pushed back over 6,000 people between early July 2023, when it started recording these actions, and the middle of January 2024.
The government also adopted legislation in July giving uniformed staff at the border broad protection from prosecution in the event of use of firearms, creating a risk of impunity for excessive use of deadly force. In October, the government announced a migration strategy, yet to enter into force, that would include the “temporary suspension of the right to asylum” due to national security reasons, claiming migration has been instrumentalized by Belarus.
Poland’s pushbacks without due process –collective expulsions – violate EU law, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Summary pushbacks constitute prohibited ill-treatment as does the violence people experience during these pushbacks, as affirmed by domestic and European Court of Human Rights judgments.
The EU’s new asylum and migration pact confirms the fundamental right to seek asylum. Poland should invest in screening and border procedures that ensure that the pact will be carried out in a humane and rights-respecting way.
Polish authorities should ensure access to the asylum procedure and allow aid workers and independent observers access to the currently restricted border area, Human Rights Watch said. Poland and Belarus should immediately halt pushbacks, investigate allegations of abuse by their officials, and hold those responsible to account.
The European Commission should immediately initiate infringement proceedings against Poland for violating EU asylum laws and publicly condemn and reject any efforts by Poland to suspend the right to asylum under the Migration Pact or otherwise and take further legal action against Warsaw if necessary.
“The Commission should stop ignoring Poland’s abuses at its border with Belarus and ensure that the protection of human beings and their rights is at the core of Poland’s response,” Gall said. “Allowing member states to openly flout the right to asylum undermines EU law, the rule of law, and of course the moral standing of the European Union.”
For detailed accounts, please see below.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 22 asylum seekers in Poland in November 2024: 12 men, 9 women, and one 17-year-old girl. They were from Cameroon, the Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yemen. Pseudonyms have been used to protect their identities. Human Rights Watch also spoke with five Polish activists and a medic working in the border area.
Polish authorities refused a Human Rights Watch request to visit two border posts and speak to border commanders. They gave permission to enter the exclusion zone to see the border fence and to visit the reception center in Biała Podlaska but denied access to detention centers in Białystok and Biała Podlaska.
Polish authorities did not respond to a summary of findings and questions from Human Rights Watch. Belarusian authorities did respond but failed to answer questions about their policies and whether they had investigated alleged abuse by border officials. However, the Belarusian authorities said they had recorded 70 deaths at borders with EU countries since 2021 (23 in 2024), which they attributed to pushbacks without providing evidence to support the claims.
Among the 22 people interviewed, 17 said they had been pushed back, sometimes violently, by Polish border guards to Belarus in 2024, before successfully entering the country and applying for asylum. Thirteen said they experienced multiple pushbacks. Some identified the numbered border marker where they were pushed into Belarus.
The humanitarian crisis in the inhospitable border area between Poland and Belarus began in 2021, when Belarus began facilitating visas for third-country nationals and encouraging, even forcing, their onward travel to Poland. Human Rights Watch interviews in November indicate that the dynamics may have shifted and third-country nationals now mostly travel first to Moscow on a Russian tourist or student visa.
The previous Polish government in 2021 declared a state of emergency, erected fences topped with razor-wire along parts of its border with Belarus, and enacted legal measures to authorize summary pushbacks.
Summary Returns
For years, however, applying for asylum at Terespol, now the only official border crossing along the Poland-Belarus border, has been extremely difficult, with summary returns a longstanding problem. The Rule of Law Institute, an organization providing legal assistance to asylum seekers, told Human Rights Watch that chances of lodging claims, without access to the assistance of Polish lawyers, are low. A pregnant woman from Comoros said that she was able to apply for asylum at Terespol only after a Polish nongovernmental organization assisted her with the necessary paperwork.
Humanitarian actors at the border face intimidation and obstruction, Human Rights Watch said. Volunteers with Grupa Granica, a network of associations defending the rights of people on the move, said Polish border guards often delay them at random and at ever-changing checkpoints. A medic said it was “very common” for border guards to obstruct their work through lengthy, repeated identity and car checks.
Eli, a 25-year-old man from Somalia, said he was summarily pushed back by Polish security forces five times between April and June. Border officials destroyed his phones, pepper-sprayed him, beat his friends, and ignored his requests for asylum. He said:
The first time … we got across the border and walked one kilometer into Poland when border guards caught us. They put us in plastic zip…[ties]. They took our phones and smashed them with their batons.... They took us by military car to the borderline and opened a gate in the metal fence and told us to go back to Belarus.… [The second time] five of us were caught and they [pepper] sprayed us straight into our faces. They put us in plastic handcuffs and put us in a car and drove us to the border. They opened a gate in the fence and told us to go back to Minsk. I kept telling them in English that I wanted protection and asylum in Poland, but they just said go back to Minsk. I was still handcuffed when pushed back.
Tariq, a 24-year-old Yemeni, said he was pushed back three times between August and October 2024. He said the first two times he was caught by border guards shortly after crossing the fence. The first time, he said, they used pepper spray: “It was like smoke in my eyes, I was in pain for days.” The second time, he was beaten:
A border guard hit me with a baton in places so I couldn’t walk, on my legs mainly.… They beat me and a friend for about an hour.… I didn’t ask for asylum because even if I ask they won’t help. I just said, “I want Poland.” The border guards said, “You want Germany or France.” I said, “No, I want Poland.” Then they just put us in a car and drove us to the border and pushed us across. They took us straight to the border, no station. They had zip-tied me when they caught us so when they pushed me through the fence, I still had them on.
The third time he said someone he believed was a police officer found him, stripped him down to his underwear, and beat him:
Then another officer came and the beating stopped. They took me to the border. There were others in the car, Africans, Syrians, and we were all pushed back. There were three women in the group and one could barely stand. The female officer was kind to the injured woman. We were taken to border and pushed back through the gate. I was handcuffed with plastic this time too.
Abshir, a 25-year-old from Somalia, said he was pushed back four times in September 2024. The fourth time, on September 23, border officials forced him and two women across the border into Belarus in a swampy area:
We heard the sound of a motorbike.… They [people in uniform] put me in zip ties. They took us to a little car at border marker 437 and threw us at border marker 415. That was a swamp. They dropped me there with the girls. We had to go through the swamp. They shot at us with rubber bullets through the fence to make us walk. We walked to border marker 418 through swamp water. We begged border guards to allow us to walk on the concrete ledge by the fence but they didn’t allow us.
Anzal, a 23-year-old Somali, said that she broke her leg on her first attempt in mid-April. Border officials caught her and another woman:
I was on the Polish side in the forest. I was shouting “I broke my leg” and the Polish army came. They used an electric taser on me. I spoke to a border guard and told him I wanted a better life. They took me to border and threw me back.… They broke the charger port in my phone and my power bank. The other woman didn’t shout so she was not tasered. Polish army said “stand up” but I couldn’t. They kept telling me I didn’t break my leg and … they pulled us up and I fell back down. They put zip ties on us. After that, they put us in a car and took us eight kilometers from the place we jumped. They pushed us through a door in the fence.
A Human Rights Watch researcher saw hospital records and a scar on Anzal’s lower leg consistent with her account.
Shada, 17, from Somalia, said she was pushed back twice in April, and described getting stuck while trying to use a ladder to climb up and jump down from a razor wire fence:
I was in the forest for 40 days. I tried to cross three times and was caught twice by the Polish. The first time I had no phone. They said insulting things, they pepper-sprayed me in my eyes. There were five of us, three made it. They opened the gate and pushed us back. I was hot in the face and in pain from the spray. I rested for two days then tried again. I got stuck again and couldn’t jump. Out of the six of us, four jumped and two of us got stuck. A good border guard came, he gave me water and was nice. He asked how old I was, where I was from. He took us to a car and drove a short distance. I said I need international protection, but he just said, “No, no, I can’t.” I said I was 17. But he opened the door and pushed us back through the gate.
When Shada tried the third time, in May, she said she broke her leg with an open fracture. A Human Rights Watch researcher saw the scars and photographs of the fresh wound. Polish border guards called an ambulance and after a week in a hospital she was able to apply for asylum, she reported. She was processed as an adult because she was deemed to be an adult on the basis of a wrist x-ray, an unreliable means of assessing age. She said she had lost the photo of her birth certificate when her phone was broken and Belarusians had taken her passport.
Djoum, a 24-year-old from Cameroon, said he tried to cross five times in May and was pushed back each time.
One time they handcuffed me and then beat my foot [with a baton]. There were ten of us, two girls. There were maybe four soldiers, they beat all of us, even the girls. They took our phones, put us in the car, handcuffed, and then pushed us back through different doors in the big fence. They decide where to push you back. They beat us like animals.
Human Rights Watch spoke with two women who were pregnant and who were admitted into Poland by border guards. But a third pregnant woman, Amina, from Comoros, was pushed back with her companion in October.
I was too weak, we got across and went to the police, we begged to stay. I think they didn’t believe that I was pregnant…. They sent us back. They helped my husband pick me up to put me in the car, they took us to a door in the fence and told us to go. We begged them from the other side. My companion carried me to a military camp [in Belarus] and the soldiers there called an ambulance.
She said was eventually able to enter Poland via the official border crossing at Terespol; her companion was still in Belarus when we spoke with her.
Abusive Treatment at Border Posts
Seven people, including Eli, the 26-year-old Somali, said they were pushed back after their claims for asylum were processed at a border post.
Ali, 21, from Yemen, said he was in a group of 10 people apprehended by Polish border officials in August. By his account, they had walked 12 kilometers from the border fence:
Then border guards with dogs came. The dog bit me. They took our phones and searched our bodies and bags. They broke our phones. Then they took us to a station. It was night. We stayed there until morning, and they took my fingerprints.… They made me sign papers. The others too. I don’t know what paper it was. It was in Polish. After we signed, they showed me an Arabic paper and forced me to sign. I read only after I signed. It said go to Belarus and do not enter Poland again.… After that, they took us by car to a point very far from our starting point. They dropped us, opened the gate and told us to go.
Saynab, a 33-year-old Somali woman travelling alone, said she and nine others were pushed back in August. After walking for hours inside Poland, they were getting help from one of the associations that provides humanitarian aid when Polish border guards arrived.
They caught us and said to the volunteers “there will be no Poland.” Then they put all of us in car and drove us to a border guard station. When we got to the station, we signed the papers, they took photos and fingerprinted us. The paper said “you didn’t come to Poland” in Polish. They forced me to sign. Some signed, some didn’t.… Then they took us by car to the fence and pushed us through a door.
On her next attempt, in September, Saynab said she broke both her feet falling off the ladder used to get across coils of razor wire at the border fence. Polish border guards called an ambulance and after a period in a hospital she was able to apply for asylum. She was still in a wheelchair when interviewed and showed papers relating to her hospitalization.
Maklit, an 18-year-old Ethiopian, said that guards pushed her back five times in October. Four times she was apprehended and summarily returned to Belarus. One time, however, she was taken to a border post after an association assisted her in the forest:
They made me sign papers in Polish, I don’t know what it said. There was one in Amharic about me, I signed that. They handcuffed me very tightly.… Then they pushed me back.… I got lost, I didn’t have a phone. I got back to the Poland fence and asked to be let in, but the guard just laughed and showed me direction to the Belarus fence.
Dawit, a 24-year-old Ethiopian, was pushed back in April. He and two others “walked all night and through the next day” after crossing into Poland before they were caught by the police:
They beat us, they punched me in the face and the side. They hit one guy so hard he vomited, and they took him to the hospital. They [police] called the border guards, they handcuffed me and took me by car 10-15 minutes to a station. They told me to sign a paper in English. It said I didn’t want asylum in Poland.
Dawit said he and the other man were pushed back to Belarus.
Sumaya, a 28-year-old from Somalia, said she and 11 others were pushed back from Poland in June, despite being at a formal border station:
We were at the station for an hour. I asked for asylum in Poland, but they wouldn’t listen. The border guards only asked us to sign a paper. They just put a paper in front of me … [and] just told me to sign. So I signed. There was no interpreter, and they didn’t explain what the paper was. After, they took us to the border and pushed us back through a door in the fence.
Sudan: War Crimes in South Kordofan
(Nairobi, December 10, 2024) – The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed scores of civilians, and injured, raped, and abducted many others in waves of attacks in Habila and Fayu, two towns in Sudan’s South Kordofan state, between December 2023 and March 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks on mainly ethnic Nuba residents, which had not been widely reported, constitute war crimes.
“The Rapid Support Forces’ abuse of civilians in South Kordofan is emblematic of continuing atrocities across Sudan,” said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These new findings underscore the urgent need for the deployment of a mission to protect civilians in Sudan.”
For 16 days in October, Human Rights Watch researchers visited areas of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N), a primarily ethnic Nuba armed group that has controlled parts of the state for decades. Researchers visited sites hosting tens of thousands of mostly Nuba displaced people who had fled areas controlled by the parties fighting for control of the country – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF – in South Kordofan and elsewhere in Sudan.
Researchers interviewed 70 displaced people, 40 of them survivors of RSF attacks on Habila, Fayu, and neighboring villages, and analyzed satellite imagery of the area from December 2023 to October 2024. Researchers also spoke with 24 other people, including aid workers, local officials, and others with knowledge of the area.
Human Rights Watch documented the killings of 56 unarmed people in these attacks, including 11 women and 1 child, based on interviews with witnesses. The RSF killed people both execution-style in homes and by shooting them on the streets. The actual figures may be significantly higher, given that most people fled in various directions after the attacks.
Human Rights Watch also documented the rape of 79 women and girls, including in the context of sexual slavery, based on interviews with survivors, witnesses, and relatives and friends of the victims.
On November 25, Human Rights Watch sent a detailed email summary of its findings with specific questions to Lieutenant Colonel Al-Fateh Qurashi, the RSF spokesperson, but had not received a response at time of publication.
Since the start of the conflict between the SAF and the RSF in April 2023, hundreds of thousands of people have fled to SPLM-N-held territory, which experienced conflict throughout the 2010s but is currently one of the most stable parts of Sudan. There have been clashes between the SAF, RSF, and SPLM-N in other parts of South Kordofan bordering areas controlled by the SAF and the RSF. Among the affected areas were the towns of Habila and Fayu, and neighboring villages, all in Habila county.
RSF fighters attacked the town of Habila, held by the SAF, on December 31, 2023. On that day and in the following days, the RSF killed at least 35 civilians and unarmed fighters in deliberate and indiscriminate attacks, injured other civilians, and raped women and girls. They also looted extensively from civilians.
Three women said the RSF killed at least eight people, including their relatives, in the family compound where their extended family had taken refuge in al-Safa neighborhood early in the morning of December 31.
“When the RSF arrived, they told the men, ‘Get your weapons out for us!’” one woman said. “The men said they did not have guns. Then the RSF said, ‘Bring out your money.’ The men said they had no money. That’s when the RSF started shooting them.”
Four survivors said most residents fled Habila after the RSF took over and that civilians were shot and killed while fleeing. The RSF also executed unarmed SAF soldiers and policemen, including in their homes. Civilians who remained faced grave abuses at the hands of the RSF, who looted, raped women and girls, and killed men and boys who tried to intervene. Some who had initially fled returned a few days later to collect their belongings and found the town had been pillaged.
On January 1, the RSF attacked Fayu, 17 kilometers south, also under SAF control. This was the first of several attacks in which the RSF killed at least 21 civilians, abducted at least 18 women and girls and 5 men, and looted and destroyed civilian property.
A woman from Fayu, who fled along with other Nuba residents after the initial attack on January 1, said she returned a few weeks later to collect her property. “There was nothing [left],” she said. “Everything was destroyed, looted completely … They took my bed, my bedsheets, our tractor with the trailer, our clothes, and all our property inside [our house] … even the door.”
Tens of thousands of people fled their homes as attacks, including on civilians, continued throughout the region, and as the RSF and its allied Arab militias and the SPLM-N clashed in attempts to wrest control of Habila and Fayu. As of April 2024, over 47,000 people had been internally displaced from Habila county to other areas of South Kordofan, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Satellite imagery shows signs of looting and burning in Habila and Fayu and fire damage in four nearby villages. Human Rights Watch geolocated a video in one of these villages, Tungul, located 13 kilometers southwest from Habila, showing men wearing RSF uniforms riding on a motorbike in the village. Houses on fire can be seen along the road. Analysis of satellite imagery shows that the houses were burned sometime between February 11 and 14, while thermal anomaly data captured a fire over Tungul on February 12.
The deliberate killings of civilians, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging, and the deliberate destruction of civilian property are war crimes.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented grave abuses by the RSF and allied militias in other places in Sudan, including war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in West Darfur.
The United Nations and the African Union have not taken concrete steps to protect civilians. In an October 28, 2024 report to the UN Security Council, which made recommendations for the protection of civilians, the UN Secretary-General acknowledged that Sudanese civilians and local and international human rights groups were calling for the creation of a civilian protection mission, but did not propose how it could be deployed.
“The United Nations and the African Union should take decisive steps to deploy a mission that can protect Sudanese civilians from rampaging forces,” Gallopin said. “A mission to protect civilians could deploy to areas where civilians have found refuge but where humanitarian needs are dire, such as the areas of South Kordofan we visited.”
For more information on the abuses in Habila and Fayu and surrounding villages, please see below. The names of some of those interviewed have been withheld or replaced with pseudonyms for their protection.
Human Rights Watch findings on sexual violence will be published in a separate upcoming report.
Killings, Injuries, Looting in HabilaDecember 31, 2023Rapid Support Forces killed civilians, unarmed SAF soldiers, and policemen when they attacked Habila on December 31, 2023.
Ruba, 20, said Arab men in civilian clothing entered her compound that morning and ordered her and other civilians in the house to hand over their valuables. She said the men then asked her husband if he was a soldier. When he said he was a civilian, they asked him his tribe. She said when he replied he was Nuba, “[The RSF forces] said, ‘Nubas, we are angry at you, today is your day,’ and then they shot him,” killing him on the spot.
Two other witnesses said a man in RSF uniform shot and killed Abir, a 25-year-old woman, and her relative Abderrahman, and shot and injured another man in Abir’s home, also on the morning of December 31. Abir’s neighbor Hawa Idris, who was in the home at the time, said she saw the assailant shoot Abir, who was on her bed, in the chest, and that Abir and Abderrahman died on the spot. Hawa Idris said Abir had given birth four days earlier, and that her baby, Mohammed, survived the attack but died of hunger five days later.
Nafisa Abdulrahim, a nurse, said the RSF summarily executed her 18-year-old nephew, Manadil, along with a group of men in the neighborhood of Tee on December 31. Manadil’s 34-year-old brother Sadik was shot and injured in the leg, but pretended to be dead and survived to tell her the story. He was one of just two survivors, Nafisa said.
The RSF also shot and killed civilians who were trying to flee. Abdu Jalil Jumaa said he was carrying his children and running for his life, when he saw assailants on motorbikes wearing headscarves shoot and kill his neighbor, a driver in his late 20s named Youssef Omer, who was also fleeing. “They came with motorbikes, and stopped and started shooting,” Abdu Jalil said.
During the early stages of the attack, the RSF clashed with SAF forces located on and near the mountain abutting the town. But they also killed unarmed members of the SAF and policemen in residential neighborhoods. Zahra Musa said RSF forces rounded up three of her neighbors, all unarmed soldiers with the SAF, from their home and summarily executed them. She said when she and her relatives came out of her home at 5 a.m. on hearing gunfire, they encountered RSF fighters wearing uniforms and turbans:
My neighbors were soldiers.… They are siblings, in their early 20s … [They were wearing] normal civilian clothes because at that time they were at home.… The RSF … lined them up, kneeling on the ground with their arms tied behind their backs … They said, ‘You, you join us!’ The soldiers’ response was, ‘We have sworn [allegiance to] the SAF, we cannot join you!’… [Then] they shot them in front of us.… One in the head, one in the chest, and one in the stomach.… And we cried when they were shot. [The RSF] threatened to shoot us if we cried again. They said, ‘We are here to rule you. We have already chased [away] the SAF, and we are the ones who will rule the area.’
Ijla Um Umr said her 30-year-old brother Mujahid, a policeman, was shot at the police station by RSF fighters alongside another policeman in his 20s, known as Kabbashi, and a 40-year-old guard named Jaafar. All three died, though Mujahid initially survived his injury and described the incident to Ijla. Two other relatives of Mujahid confirmed the killings.
The RSF continued to carry out grave abuses, including killings, after it defeated the SAF in Habila, witnesses said.
“After they chased away the SAF from the base, they came back to the [residential areas],” said Peter Gadoul, a 47-year-old farmer. He said 13 men in RSF uniform came to his house and started beating him with sticks, asking, “Are you a soldier? Are you a rebel?” They looted the house, stealing 7 million Sudanese Pounds (about US$3,200), 40 bags of sorghum, a barrel, and all clothing, and then burned down the house.
Waleed Kafi, 40, said that an hour after the fighting ended, a group of seven RSF fighters in uniform came to his neighborhood in cars and on motorbikes. They entered his house and looted his “clothes, bedding, cooking pots, and everything else,” he said. “One said to me, ‘If you speak, we will shoot you.’” Then, Waleed said, the RSF killed his two brothers, Muhammad Kafi, 50, and Adam Silik, 40, both farmers “I heard the gunshots, and I went running and found them dead in their rooms.”
Mahmoud Abdelaziz, who fled and observed the attack from a distance, said he saw the RSF “move from house to house,” taking “what they need” and then burning down the houses.
Satellite imagery captured on December 31, 2023, shows a plume of smoke emanating from a military position on the eastern side of the town. Thermal anomalies are also detected in the same location, as well as in a residential area just south of the market.
January 1 and the Following DaysGrave abuses continued in the following days. RSF fighters killed, beat, and raped civilians, looted property, and destroyed houses. The RSF carried out further abuses against civilians in February and March during episodic fighting with the SPLM-N, which tried to take control of Habila.
Mamzula Dawood said when she returned with her family to Habila on January 1 to try to recover some of her belongings, RSF men entered the compound of her house and killed her son, Al-Ajab, 25, and 85-year-old uncle, Abderrahman.
Nesrin said that on January 3, six men in beige uniform came to her house on motorbikes. She recalled them saying, “Nuba, today is your day!” She said the six men raped her and shot her 40-year-old husband and 25-year-old son who tried to protect her, killing them on the spot. “They were saying, ‘You Nuba, we will rape you and your husbands.’”
Hasina could not leave for two weeks after the attack and said that during that time, six men in khaki and green uniform came to her house. “It was clear that they were the RSF … [they were] the only forces in the city at that point. [They] came to our house and tried to steal our cattle,” she said.
Hasina said when her husband Daniel, 40, yelled at them to stop, one of the men shot him, killing him on the spot. The men then left with the family’s cattle. In the following days, men wearing the same uniforms came and gang raped her, returning every day until the SPLM-N took control of the city about a month later, she said.
Bakhita Angalo said she returned to Habila about three days after the attack to find that her house had been looted. “They took our goats, our beds, and everything,” she said. Jamila Nyaman also returned to Habila at that time and found “everything had been looted.” With other women, she fled toward Kurtala, in SPLM-N territory, but 10 men in beige and green uniform stopped them. She said, “They made us lie on the ground and demanded our money … and they beat my mother who was with us. She is still suffering from the pain.”
The SPLM-N reportedly attacked Habila on February 9 and retook control on February 10, allegedly causing the displacement of about 15,000 people. In late February, the RSF reportedly attacked Habila again, allegedly causing 40,000 people to flee.
Click to expand Image Infrared satellite imagery from March 10, 2024 shows burn marks in several residential areas in the town of Habila, South Kordofan, Sudan. On infrared images, the vegetation appears in red and the burned areas more clearly in dark. Image © 2024 Planet Labs PBC.Thermal anomaly data captured fires on February 9 and satellite imagery from the same day and February 10 shows new burn marks on the outskirts of Habila, including in residential areas. A large burn mark appeared on a residential area on the eastern side of the town between February 20 and 22. Satellite imagery shows new burned residential areas between March 8 and 10 in the south of the hill overlooking the town.
During the attack in March, Salah Bashir said, “the RSF prevented civilians from fleeing. They had checkpoints at the entrances to the town and would shoot at any civilians trying to flee.” That day, he said he found his neighbor Kunda, who was in his 60s, lying dead outside his house, along with six other civilians who had been sheltering there.
Since then, Habila appears to have become a ghost town. “There are no people there now,” said Abdu Jalil Jumaa. Satellite imagery from July to October shows vegetation progressively overgrowing in the town. Areas usually clear of vegetation during the rainy season in October – paths, courtyards around the houses, and part of the marketplace – are visibly overgrown on a satellite image from October 11.
October 2, 2022: © 2024 Copernicus Sentinel Data October 11, 2024 : © 2024 Copernicus Sentinel Data
Satellite imagery comparison between October 2, 2022 and October 11, 2024, shows that by October 2024 vegetation has encroached through the town of Habila, South Kordofan, Sudan. Paths and courtyards around the houses are usually cleared during the rainy season, but are visibly covered by vegetation in 2024.
High resolution satellite imagery from November 12 shows the extent of the damage and indications of looting in the town. In areas where burn marks were visible in February and March, most of the houses and fences have been destroyed. Elsewhere in the town, in areas without clear signs of burning, the majority of corrugated metal rooftops have been removed from the buildings.
September 8, 2023: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. November 12, 2024: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC.
Satellite imagery comparison between September 8, 2023, and November 12, 2024, shows destroyed houses and fences in a residential area in the town of Habila, South Kordofan, Sudan. Most of the corrugated metal rooftops on the buildings were missing in the later 2024 photo. Burn marks appeared over this area in February 2024.
September 8, 2023: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. November 12, 2024: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC.
Satellite imagery comparison between September 8, 2023, and November 12, 2024, shows corrugated metal rooftops are missing from the buildings in a residential area in the town of Habila, South Kordofan, Sudan.
Killings, Looting, Abductions in FayuWitnesses said the RSF and local Arab militias repeatedly attacked Fayu, a small, majority-Nuba town south of Habila, in January and February, with killings, indiscriminate shooting, and abductions, including of women and girls who were later held in conditions of sexual slavery. The crimes of sexual slavery are documented in an upcoming Human Rights Watch report.
The RSF first attacked Fayu on January 1, when it was under SAF control, residents said. Ibrahim Bakit said nobody tried to defend the town and that 15 civilians were killed. He recalled that SAF soldiers had already left when the RSF targeted their base. While hiding at home, he saw civilians moving around in panic. He said he saw four RSF fighters tell two of his neighbors – a 35-year-old trader and a 25-year-old driver – to come out of their home:
Two RSF fighters knew these people, and two others didn’t know them.… The four of them disagreed. ‘Can we kill these people?,’ ‘No, we know them!’ One of the neighbors, they shot him with a gun. They stabbed the other with a bayonet, then took an axe and killed him.
Kaltuma Idris, 45, said when the RSF attack started, she tried to flee with other civilians. RSF fighters were moving around the village, and she saw a fighter shoot a man in his 60s in the head and shoot another in his 70s, killing them on the spot. Her 25-year-old son was hit in the leg by a bullet that ricocheted, she said.
Hania said that she and eight other civilians encountered gunmen in lightly colored uniforms, heads covered with scarves, riding five green vehicles. “They chased us and opened fire on us,” she said. “I laid down. They shot my uncle … [who] was 50 … and the other man who was with us, [who was] 40.”
Three witnesses said the RSF abducted at least five young men. Kaltuma Idris said the RSF abducted two of her sons, ages 15 and 22, and that she had not heard from them since. Ibrahim Bakit said he believed the RSF forcibly recruited his 18-year-old son and two neighbors of the same age, after unsuccessfully asking them to join the RSF in October 2023.
Many residents who managed to flee later returned to find their belongings had been looted. “[The RSF] looted a lot of things from there,” said Ibrahim Bakit. “They looted from the shops, took civilians’ property, took animals. They destroyed everything.”
On February 6, the SPLM-N briefly took control of Fayu from the RSF without fighting, but the RSF attacked again the next day, two residents said. They killed civilian men and women, raped and abducted women and girls, and looted and destroyed civilian property.
Sara said three local Arab gunmen she recognized entered her house and told her husband, 45, “You Nuba, we will pluck your eyes out!” The assailants then raped her niece, Sara said, and then asked her husband where the couple’s daughter was. When he said he did not know, the assailants shot and killed him.
Fatna Ibrahim gave the names of 12 people who were killed during the February 7 attack, including five civilians. She said she saw the body of her neighbor Mohammed, the owner of a hookah shop in his late 30s, who had been shot in the back. Uneyda Dhahab, who worked at a nongovernmental organization that focuses on nutrition, said she saw the RSF fighters shoot and kill two men trying to flee during the February attack, and that she later saw the bodies of two colleagues, a 50-year-old man and a 35-year-old man.
The RSF abducted at least four women and girls that day, residents said.
Human Rights Watch analyzed a satellite image from April 4, 2024 showing burned houses on the southern part of the town, the removal of the majority of the corrugated metal rooftops from houses and the market stalls, and debris around them.
September 8, 2023: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. April 4, 2024: © 2024 Airbus. Google Earth. © 2024 Planet Labs PBC.
Satellite imagery comparison between September 8, 2023, and April 4, 2024, shows missing corrugated metal rooftops on the market and most of the other buildings in the town of Fayu, South Kordofan, Sudan. Debris is visible around the market as well as some burned houses in the southern part of the town.
By March, everything in Fayu had been destroyed, said Ibrahim Bakit who returned to the village. “It [was] like the bush.”