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China: Authorities Shut Down Film Festival in New York
Chinese authorities harassed several dozen Chinese film directors and producers, as well as their families in China, causing them to pull films from the inaugural IndieChina Film Festival in New York City, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 6, 2025, the festival’s organizer, Zhu Riku, announced that the film festival, scheduled for November 8-15, had been “suspended.”
“The Chinese government reached around the globe to shut down a film festival in New York City,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This latest act of transnational repression demonstrates the Chinese government’s aim to control what the world sees and learns about China.”
Chiang Seeta, a Chinese artist and activist, reported that nearly all participating directors in China faced intimidation. Even directors abroad, including those who are not Chinese nationals, reported that their relatives and friends in China were receiving threatening calls from police, said Chiang.
On November 1, the organizers issued an announcement on social media saying they had received messages from some film directors and producers and their families about Chinese government harassment: “We are deeply concerned about the situation. … [I]f you are under pressure not to attend the festival … we fully understand and respect it.” By November 4, more than two-thirds of participating films had cancelled their screenings.
After the festival was suspended, Zhu issued a statement that the decision was not out of fear, but rather to “stop harassment of … directors, guests, former staff, and volunteers associated with the festival, including my friends and family.”
Independent film festivals in China have faced intensifying crackdowns over the past decade, Human Rights Watch said. The Chinese authorities have shut down all three major independent film festivals in China: Yunfest, founded in 2003; the China Independent Film Festival, founded in 2003; and Beijing Independent Film Festival, founded in 2006.
When the authorities shut down the last screening of the Beijing Independent Film Festival in 2014, they cut off electricity from the venue, confiscated documents from the organizer’s office, and forced the organizers to sign a paper promising not to hold the festival. Many festival organizers have tried without success to adapt, for instance by changing their format to screenings at multiple venues.
The 14th China Independent Film Festival was shuttered in 2018, the last time such a festival took place in China.
The Xi Jinping government’s tightening of ideological controls has resulted in the prosecution and imprisonment of a number of filmmakers and has caused many others to go into exile. In 2014, a court sentenced Shen Yongping, a prominent filmmaker whose documentary about the constitution is critical of the government, to one year in prison for alleged “illegal business activity.”
A court in January 2025 sentenced Chen Pinlin, known as Plato, to three-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he made a documentary about the “white paper protests” during Covid-19 lockdowns. In April, the authorities confiscated equipment and materials from Guo Zhenming, a Chinese artist, for filming Uyghur folk music in Xinjiang, where Uyghurs and other Muslims have experienced severe repression, and fined him 75,000 yuan (about US$10,550) for not providing his screenplay synopsis to relevant departments.
In Hong Kong, the authorities have banned 13 films from being shown on “national security” grounds.
Transnational repression can be defined as government efforts to silence or deter dissent by committing human rights abuses against their own nationals living abroad, their families at home, or members of the country’s diaspora.
The Chinese government’s transnational repression of the arts has not been limited to film. Chinese officials interfered with an exhibition in Bangkok and censored artwork by Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hongkonger artists in August.
“Governments should confront Chinese officials about their increasing use of abusive actions across international borders,” Uluyol said. “Film festivals and other art venues should band together with government support to counteract the Chinese government’s growing long arm to influence free expression abroad.”
Uganda Continues Targeting Fossil Fuel Activists
On November 6, a court in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, gave the go-ahead for the trial of twelve activists, eight of whom are students. The group faces charges stemming from their protests against the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), one of the largest fossil fuel infrastructure projects currently under development globally.
The activists were arrested on August 1 during a demonstration near Stanbic Bank, a Ugandan bank providing financial support to EACOP, and have been held in jail since, in violation of international due process norms. They are facing criminal charges for “nuisance on roads.” “Ongoing arrests are a way to suppress dissent and instill fear- especially since bail is often denied, so people know they could spend a long time in prison,” said Brighton Aryampa, a defense lawyer for the protesters.
This is the latest example of retaliation in response to peaceful demonstrations against EACOP that have taken place at various locations in Kampala, including Parliament, embassies, and banks, urging institutions to withdraw support to the project given its serious threats to human rights and the environment. Human Rights Watch has previously documented devastating impacts on the livelihoods of Ugandan families linked to EACOP’s land acquisition process.
The project will also disturb some of Africa’s most sensitive ecosystems and emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Human Rights Watch has reviewed documentation concerning 22 protests, in addition to the one at Stanbic Bank, that have led to prosecutions or police investigations of anti-EACOP protesters in Uganda since 2022. Several cases remain ongoing, while most already adjudicated were deemed to have insufficient evidence or dropped for procedural reasons.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented various ways in which the Ugandan government has cracked down on anti-fossil fuel activists and environmental defenders including harassment, threats, and arbitrarily arresting protesters.
Human rights defenders have the right to express their concerns. Instead of harassing EACOP protestors, the Ugandan authorities should listen to these concerns and respect protesters’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
Journalists in Niger Arrested Under Cybercrime Law
Share an invitation to a state-sponsored press briefing in Niger and face jail time. That’s the reality for six Nigerien journalists who were arrested last month in the military junta’s latest assault on media freedom.
Click to expand Image The journalists Omar Kane, left, Ibro Chaibou, top right, and Youssouf Seriba, bottom right. © PrivateOn October 30, police in Niamey, Niger’s capital, arrested Moussa Kaka and Abdoul Aziz of Saraounia TV; Ibro Chaibou and Souleymane Brah from the online publication Voice of the People; Youssouf Seriba of Les Échos du Niger; and Oumarou Kané, founder of the magazine Le Hérisson. Three of them—Chaibou, Seriba, and Kané—have been detainedin Kollo prison, outside Niamey.
Colleagues believe the arrests were linked to the circulation on social media of an invitation to a press briefing sent by the president of Niger’s Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland. The fund was created following the July 2023 military coup, and the junta says it uses the fund to raise money for the state security forces. At the press briefing, authorities announced new, expanded mandatory payments to the fund. The invitation was subsequently widely shared on social media by those critical of the new levies.
The authorities have accused the six journalists of releasing the invitation to the general public and charged them with “complicity in distributing documents likely to disturb public order” under the 2019 cybercrime law. The junta amended the law in 2024 to reinstate prison sentences of up to five years as well as fines for the “production or dissemination of data that may disturb public order or threaten human dignity.” The junta has used the vaguely worded law to prosecute journalists and silence critics.
Since the coup, Niger’s junta has restricted media freedom, threatening, harassing, and arbitrarily arresting journalists. Many now practice self-censorship amid fear of reprisals. The junta has also cracked down on the political opposition and civil society groups, and continues to arbitrarily detain former President Mohamed Bazoum and his wife, and human rights defender Moussa Tiangari. In August, the junta dissolved four major justice-sector unions, undermining workers’ rights to freedom of association and the independence of the judiciary.
Niger’s authorities should immediately release Chaibou, Seriba, and Kané, drop the charges against all six journalists, and repeal the amended cybercrime law. Otherwise, more journalists will face prosecution and prison time simply for sharing an invitation.
Hungary: Pastor Supporting People in Poverty Faces Charges
Instead of supporting those who fill the gaps left by Hungary’s crumbling public services and social security system, the government is prosecuting them. On November 3, prosecutors charged Pastor Gábor Iványi, who has long defended the rights of people living in poverty, with “group-committed violence against an official person” in connection with a February 2022 raid by the tax authority on the Budapest homeless shelter his church operates.
The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, part of the Methodist Church, which Iványi heads, provides shelter, food, and education in a manner that respects human dignity to those left behind by the state. It runs shelters, schools, and social programs that serve thousands of people across the country, offering vital support to families, children—including children with disabilities—and individuals experiencing poverty and social exclusion.
The fellowship’s social and humanitarian work has made it a frequent government target.
Human Rights Watch has previously reported on the government’s harassment of Iványi and his church, documenting how authorities sought to obstruct their humanitarian work and close down their activities, including, in 2024, three schools for children from low-income households.
In 2011, Viktor Orbán’s government stripped the church of its official status in a move the European Court of Human Rights later ruled unlawful. Since then, the government has withheld substantial funds that the court had ordered be paid, and under subsequent judgments, to the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship and other faith groups, while repeatedly subjecting the church to financial and administrative harassment.
The prosecution of Iványi and interference with his church’s work is part of a wider pattern of the Hungarian government targeting human rights defenders working with migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, people experiencing poverty or homelessness, children with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Instead of supporting those who provide services where the state has failed to meet its rights obligations, the government has sought to discredit, defund, and in some cases prosecute them.
The Hungarian authorities should immediately drop the charges against Iványi, end all forms of harassment against his church, and pay what is owed under the European Court’s ruling. The government should also restore the church’s legal status and ensure that its humanitarian and social work can continue free from political interference.
Türkiye: Justice Reforms Central to Fair, Durable Peace
(Istanbul, November 6, 2025) – A cross-party parliamentary commission in Türkiye should use its mandate to recommend concrete legal and institutional reforms that protect human rights, justice, and the rule of law for Kurds and all other communities in the country, Human Rights Watch, the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project, and the International Commission of Jurists said today. The organizations submitted a joint briefing urging the commission to prioritize reforms that enable a durable, rights-based peace.
Parliament established the National Solidarity, Sisterhood/Brotherhood and Democracy Commission in August, 2025 after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK’s) announced its intention to disarm and disband. The announcement followed efforts by the Turkish government and Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader, to end the four-decade conflict. The commission’s stated aim is to strengthen social integration, consolidate national unity and sisterhood/brotherhood, and advance freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
“Bringing an end to the four-decade Kurdish conflict requires not just ending fighting but concrete steps to change laws that have long been used to bring criminal charges against and incarcerate Kurds and other groups for nonviolent political activity and speech,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The cross-party commission has a unique opportunity to help shape a post-conflict society and should make bold recommendations to repeal abusive laws used to silence and marginalize people.”
The briefing, Advancing Human Rights, Justice and Democracy for Kurds and All Other Communities in Türkiye, draws on years of experience by the organizations in litigation, monitoring and documenting human rights violations and attacks against the rule of law and the separation of powers in Türkiye. The groups focused on abusive criminal law provisions which have been applied in discriminatory and politically motivated ways in Türkiye, particularly against Kurds and other perceived dissenting voices. While not exhaustive, the briefing outline four key areas in which structural reforms are urgently needed. The groups urged the commission to recommend achievable changes that can lay the foundation for a more rights-respecting, equitable and democratic post-conflict environment for all individuals and communities in Türkiye.
These areas include:
Reforming anti-terror legislation by repealing or substantially amending vague and overbroad provisions that have been used in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner to investigate, detain, prosecute and convict a wide range of people who have no material connection to armed groups. Those facing criminal charges have included journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and other activists, as well as individuals who peacefully express their opinions;Ending the misuse of criminal law against elected officials by stopping the widespread practice of arbitrarily detaining, prosecuting and removing elected opposition politicians, whether members of parliament, mayors, or municipal council members. The officials have been removed solely on the basis of political speech protected under international human rights law, or in response to peaceful activities. In the interests of protecting democratic space and upholding the right to free and fair elections, the commission should make clear that any restrictions on the exercise of an electoral mandate should be exceptional, based on compelling evidence of serious criminal wrongdoing, subject to effective judicial review, and consistent with international human rights law and standards guaranteeing free and fair elections and political participation;Guaranteeing the right to peaceful assembly by ceasing the systemic restriction of public assemblies and demonstrations and the unwarranted and violent police dispersal of those who attempt to exercise their right to peaceful protest. The commission should make clear recommendations to reform the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations and related practice in this area to ensure that the authorities view public demonstrations as a normal part of democratic participation and evidence of an engaged and pluralistic society.Recognizing the “right to hope,” by ensuring that prisoners who are serving “aggravated life” sentences without the prospect of release can be considered for release on the basis of a meaningful, reviewable process. The European Court of Human Rights has found that Türkiye’s current system violates the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment in the European Convention on Human Rights (article 3), and the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has repeatedly called on Türkiye to reform its law to guarantee all prisoners a real, objective prospect of release. Notably, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Action Party in coalition with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, has publicly referred to the “right to hope” in his parliamentary speeches on ending the conflict with the PKK.“The dialogue process between the parties to the conflict presents a historic opportunity to begin dismantling the entrenched cycle of violence and legal exceptionalism,” said Ayşe Bingöl Demir of the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project (TLSP). “The commission should draw on the available expertise from civil society, lawyers’ groups and academics and take an inclusive and wide-ranging approach to advocating for comprehensive reforms that uphold human rights and the rule of law, and that are necessary to underpin a sustainable peace.”
The briefing also highlights two broader cross-cutting concerns that the commission should address. One is judicial independence: concrete steps are needed to ensure that the judiciary is institutionally protected from undue influence and able to uphold the rule of law for all, without interference or discrimination.
The other is accountability for grave human rights violations: the commission should address long-standing impunity for serious human rights violations that has marked the conflict. The commission should propose credible avenues for accountability for these violations committed by abusers on all sides of the conflict, and mechanisms for truth-telling and justice as necessary conditions for building a rights-based and democratic future for everyone in Türkiye.
“To fulfill its mandate, the commission should go beyond symbolic recommendations by addressing the structural injustices and discriminatory legal frameworks that have sustained decades of conflict, repression and impunity,” said Temur Shakirov, Europe and Central Asia program director of the International Commission of Jurists. Achieving a durable peace requires dismantling these foundations and, instead, establishing enforceable human rights guarantees and ensuring accountability and democratic inclusion.”
Saudi Arabia: Migrant Workers in Mecca Arrested for Demanding Unpaid Wages
(Beirut) – At least 600 migrant workers employed by Saudi Arabian Baytur Construction Company have not received their salaries for at least eight months, Human Rights Watch said today. The actual figure of unpaid workers could be significantly higher. The workers at the US$26 billion Mecca-based Masar redevelopment project, funded by the nearly trillion-dollar Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), resorted to work stoppages and strikes as a last resort, based on media reports and interviews. Eleven migrant workers were detained and later released.
“The blatant wage theft against low-wage migrant workers by a company involved in a multi-billion-dollar project in Mecca speaks volumes about Saudi authorities’ broken wage protection system,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “These unpaid workers continue to face retribution, including intimidation and detention, for demanding their contractually owed wages.”
In October 2025, Human Rights Watch conducted four interviews, including with two former Baytur migrant workers, one of whom is now back in their home country and owed more than 150,000 Saudi riyals (around $39,997) in unpaid wages and benefits, and with Turkish union officials. Human Rights Watch also reviewed media reports and social media posts and analyzed video clips related to the strikes. Many workers refused to be interviewed, fearing retribution from Saudi authorities.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Saudi Arabia’s Human Resources and Social Development Ministry, Saudi Arabian Baytur, Umm Al Qura Development & Construction, and the PIF asking for more details and clarifications regarding the case. Only Saudi Arabia’s Human Resources Ministry responded, stating that the case was detected by the ministry’s inspection and wage monitoring mechanisms and that “corrective action was taken in coordination with the company, the affected workers, and their embassies.”
Media reports and interviews indicated that Saudi Arabian Baytur stopped paying at least 600 construction workers, including people from Türkiye, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan, for at least eight months. Workers said they had been paid irregularly over the last two years and not paid anything in the last few months. Several workers were also working under what are known as azad (free) visas, a sponsorship arrangement in which their visa is not tied to Saudi Arabian Baytur, and the workers Humans Rights Watch spoke to said that the company was aware of this arrangement.
The Masar project is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategic framework. Saudi Arabian Baytur is contracted by Umm Al Qura Development & Construction, which is partly owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
In its response to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi Human Resources Ministry confirmed Saudi Arabian Baytur’s noncompliance owing to “financial difficulties related to its operations” as detected by the “Ministry’s inspection and wage monitoring mechanisms.” The ministry stated that its Wage Protection System (WPS) “enables early identification of potential non-compliance, triggering inspection visits, the imposition of penalties, and other corrective measures in line with Saudi Labor Law.”
“The last two years [of irregular pay] have drained the life out of me,” one worker told Human Rights Watch. “Throughout this process, we were kept waiting, with excuses such as ‘the money was coming,’ ‘it was stuck in the bank,’ or there was a missing signature on the account.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed media reports and verified a video posted online on September 7, 2025, showing workers striking at Saudi Arabian Baytur’s labor camp in Mecca holding placards with messages such as, “Umm Al Qura [Development & Construction], pay our money,” “Baytur officials, where are you?” and “SOS [a reference to a Morse code distress signal].” In the video, a Turkish migrant worker read a statement: “Right now, we are like exiles who cannot pay their debts, who cannot look their spouses and children in the face, who have lost their self-confidence.”
Among the 11 detained workers, all but one of whom were visible in videos posted online during the strikes, 5 were detained for 48 hours and 6 for a longer period. “Some of our friends were handcuffed by police,” one of those arrested said. “They accused us of shouting slogans and speaking out against the prince and against the Kingdom… Our phones were confiscated.”
Another arrested worker said: “We didn't know that calling for a strike was a crime. They accused us of trying to overthrow the state… The handcuffs dug into our bones.” The two workers said that the police delayed their release by two days despite a release order from a prosecutor who reviewed the video footage and concluded that the workers had not done anything wrong.
Saudi Arabia harshly restricts free expression and prohibits migrant workers from joining trade unions or worker committees, as well as prohibiting collective bargaining or strikes. The risk of detention has created an atmosphere of fear among workers, and only one of the affected workers still in Saudi Arabia was willing to speak with Human Rights Watch.
Saudi Arabia’s extensive repression also impedes work by civil society, international trade unions, and media. “As a union, if it were another country, we would create more public awareness through actions, but we are concerned for our friends’ safety,” said Özgür Karabulut, general president of the Progressive Construction Workers Union (DİSK/Dev Yapı-İş), a Turkish trade union supporting the distressed workers, some of whom are its members. “Our struggle will continue until our friends get their money.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed a document that detailed a seven-month repayment plan submitted by Saudi Arabian Baytur to Saudi authorities, though both union representatives and workers were skeptical the plan would be implemented. One former Baytur employee said that “a similar plan was prepared in 2023 [and not followed through with],” while another worker described it as “fake.” Saudi Arabian Baytur did not respond to questions about the plan.
The Masar redevelopment project in Mecca is one of several high-profile wage theft cases in Saudi Arabia documented by Human Rights Watch. This includes wage theft cases at state-owned oil company Aramco’s project sites in which the government itself acknowledged that a Saudi Aramco subcontractor was found in “non-compliance” as “detected through the Wage Protection System.” Saudi Arabian Baytur, however, did not respond to Human Rights Watch.
In addition to group cases, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous individual cases of alleged wage abuses and contract violations, including in a 2024 report which documented violations linked to PIF-backed companies and projects, including NEOM and the Saudi Manpower Services Company (SMASCO). Saudi authorities, the PIF, NEOM, SMASCO, and others in the report did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s queries.
In practice, Saudi Arabia’s Wage Protection System has failed to ensure timely payment to workers and has instead worked, at best, as a monitoring system, since wage violations remain pervasive across the country. Even the monitoring role does not hold much practical relevance in the absence of authorities taking prompt action when alerted to nonpayment of wages. More generally, Human Rights Watch’s research over the last several years in Saudi Arabia has indicated that migrant worker victims are rarely compensated and, even when they are, the repayment is often partial and can take years.
The Human Resources Ministry highlighted that the Expatriate Worker Wage Insurance Service enabled workers to “claim unpaid wages and obtain travel tickets for departure through the insurance company” and that “those who applied for the compensation have received their dues while others who filed judicial claims have had their cases registered in court.” However, the ministry did not provide any details regarding the number of workers affected nor the number of claims submitted or resolved.
Moreover, under the current regulations of the Wage Insurance Service, wage recovery is capped at 17,500 riyals (around $4,663) and mandatory end-of-service benefits are explicitly excluded. Migrant workers who have spent years employed in Saudi Arabia could still lose tens of thousands of dollars in wages and end-of-service benefits under this policy even if the Wage Insurance Service partially reimbursed them for unpaid wages.
Saudi Arabia is undergoing a massive construction boom, including building 11 new and refurbished stadiums ahead of FIFA’s 2034 World Cup. Ongoing wage theft cases should serve as a stark warning to FIFA and other companies expanding their businesses in Saudi Arabia that without concrete labor reform, their operations will be stained with gross human rights violations.
“Many migrant workers tolerate Saudi Arabia’s extreme heat and harsh working conditions to support their families’ well-being and their children’s future prospects,” Page said. “There is no excuse to deny these workers their rightfully owed wages.”
Cambodia: Border Conflict Critics Arrested
(Bangkok) – Cambodian authorities have arbitrarily arrested and charged at least 16 people for expressing their views on social media about the Thai-Cambodia border conflict in July and August 2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
The authorities charged most of those arrested with incitement under articles 494 and 495 of Cambodia’s Criminal Code, which carries up to 2 years in prison. At least 3 face treason charges and could receive penalties of 5 to 15 years. The government should immediately release and drop the charges against the journalists, social media users, and political opposition members being prosecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression.
“Cambodian authorities are using the recent Thai border conflict as a pretext to intimidate people who freely express their views on social media and to harass critics of the government,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These wrongful detentions and misuse of incitement and treason charges show the Cambodian government’s disregard for free expression and media freedom.”
After weeks of mounting tension in disputed border areas, armed clashes between Thailand and Cambodia erupted on July 24 and lasted about two weeks. Both countries alleged that the other started the fighting. Thailand accused Cambodia of planting landmines that injured Thai soldiers, while Cambodia said that Thailand was using cluster munitions.
On October 29, Cambodian authorities arrested an activist, Phon Yuth, at his home in Takeo province. The Takeo Provincial Court later released a statement confirming that he had been charged with incitement due to several alleged Facebook posts that were critical of the government’s handling of the conflict.
Yuth, who has a physical disability and uses a wheelchair, was previously arrested twice: in 2019, and again in 2024, both times over his social media posts critical of the government. Cambodian prisons are overcrowded and he reported difficulty using the toilet and accessing adequate health care during his 2019 prison sentence.
Cambodian authorities have also recently targeted journalists for their coverage of the border conflict, with three arrested since July. The authorities had revoked the media license for Sara NCC Daily a week before they arrested Meas Sara, a journalist who worked for the outlet, in late August. He had live-streamed interviews with displaced Cambodian villagers from an area along the Thai border. The authorities charged him with incitement and released him shortly after his arrest, but he remains under judicial supervision as his case proceeds.
Two other journalists, Phorn Sopheap of the Battambang Post, and Pheap Pheara of TSP 68 TV Online, were arrested and charged with “supplying a foreign state with information prejudicial to national defense” under article 445 of the Criminal Code, a more serious conspiracy charge. Both men were arrested after they posted on social media a photograph of themselves alongside Cambodian soldiers at Ta Krabei temple near the Thai border. Thai media outlets later republished the photograph and alleged it showed unplaced landmines in the background.
Sopheap and Pheara have been held in pretrial detention and face between 7 and 15 years in prison if convicted.
Chheng Sreyrath, an online celebrity known as Love Riya, was arrested on August 14 for her social media commentary saying that she would continue to buy legally available Thai products despite online calls for a boycott. The authorities charged her with “incitement to discriminate” and “demoralizing the military” under articles 496 and 472 of the Criminal Code. She faces a prison term of two to five years if convicted.
The government crackdown has also ensnared political opposition members and critics who expressed their views on the border conflict. The authorities arrested and detained several members of the opposition Nation Power Party for incitement for Facebook posts or comments expressing their views about the government’s handling of the border conflict. Those arrested include Soeung Heang, a district party chief in Battambang province, and Eam Ravuth, a party official in Phnom Penh.
Keo Heang, 75, the provincial secretary for the Nation Power Party in Kampot province, was arrested in early July shortly after posting criticism of amendments to Cambodia’s Constitution and Nationality Law that give the government sweeping powers to revoke citizenship. The former prime minister and current Senate president, Hun Sen, had remarked that the amendments were necessary to allow the government to strip citizenship of Cambodians accused of colluding with foreign powers.
The Cambodian government has a long record of restricting free expression through the misapplication of criminal charges. The government has consistently misused incitement charges to suppress critics of the government. In 2021, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia expressed concern about the improper use of incitement charges.
Since Hun Manet became prime minister in 2023 after his father stepped down, the government has increasingly used treason charges to crack down on fundamental freedoms, filing them against political opposition members and environmental activists in 2021, land rights activists in 2023, student group leaders and refugees in 2024, and now social media users and journalists in 2025.
“All Cambodians have the right to express themselves both online and offline, and should not be detained and charged simply for expressing a critical opinion,” Lau said. “Concerned foreign governments should urge Cambodian authorities to drop these baseless charges and release individuals unlawfully detained.”
US: Millions Face Soaring Health Costs as Subsidies Expire
(November 5, 2025) – The US Congress’ failure to extend public subsidies for private health insurance threatens the right to health and financial security of millions of people, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America said today. As open enrollment for private health insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) government-operated marketplaces began on November 1, 2025, millions of households will no longer be able to afford health insurance.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act dramatically reduced the cost of private health insurance for low- and middle-income earners by enhancing public subsidies for plans purchased through ACA marketplaces. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) became law in July 2025, it expanded and made permanent numerous tax cuts that disproportionately benefit wealthy households and large corporations, while failing to extend these enhanced subsidies. Without new legislation, the subsidies will expire at the end of 2025.
“Congress’ failure to extend these subsidies is driving the government shutdown and will harm millions of people already struggling with soaring prices and healthcare costs,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These cuts are making ordinary people sacrifice their health to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy few.”
The introduction of the ACA in 2010 made health care more accessible for millions of people, including by reshaping federal regulation of the private health insurance industry, which in 2023 provided health insurance coverage for more than 90 percent of the population, or over 300 million people. Among other changes, the law created government-operated marketplaces through which people who do not receive health insurance from their employers or public programs could purchase coverage from a private company.
The ACA also established public subsidies to reduce the cost of health insurance premiums for these private marketplace plans. But those earning above 400 percent of the federal poverty level—$62,600 for an individual in 2025—were ineligible. This so-called subsidy cliff was especially harmful to older people who were not or were not yet eligible for Medicare coverage, the public health insurance program for older people and people with disabilities, because health insurance companies were allowed, within certain limits, to charge older people more for the same services.
The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act temporarily addressed this subsidy cliff by expanding eligibility to those earning above this income limit and capping premium costs for standard marketplace plans under the ACA at 8.5 percent of household income. These “enhanced premium tax credits,” originally set to expire at the end of 2022, were extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Since coming into effect, these changes have significantly reduced healthcare costs for millions of people. The population covered by ACA marketplace plans has more than doubled, rising from 11.4 million in 2020 to 24.3 million in 2025, helping drive a decline in the country’s uninsured rate.
“Instead of ensuring ordinary people can access adequate health care, the administration and Congress have chosen to prioritize large tax handouts for the wealthy and well-connected,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. “Not extending subsidies risks further inflaming economic inequality, which is already sky high and likely to increase following massively regressive cuts to social protection passed in July.”
On July 4, 2025, the OBBBA became law, expanding and making permanent many tax cuts originally implemented during President Donald Trump’s first term that disproportionately benefit large corporations and the country’s wealthiest households. The tax breaks for just the richest 0.1 percent of households alone cost substantially more per year than the enhanced premium tax credits; around $50 billion compared to $35 billion.
To partly offset the reduction in revenue from these tax cuts, the act dramatically reduces federal funding for public programs essential for human rights, including a projected $1 trillion in cuts over the coming decade to Medicaid, the public health insurance program for people with low-incomes, which will disproportionately hurt Black people and other people of color.
Unless Congress extends these enhanced subsidies, millions of people will soon be forced to choose between paying for extremely expensive health insurance or risking the potentially catastrophic harm of being uninsured, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America said.
Premium costs for the average subsidized ACA marketplace plan will more than double, rising from an average of $888 per year in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research organization. KFF estimated that the annual cost for an average 60-year-old couple earning just above the ACA’s income eligibility limit—or $85,000 annual household income in 2026—will increase by more than $22,600 next year, rising from 8.5 percent of household income to about 25 percent.
The Commonwealth Fund and Urban Institute, two US-based nonprofit organizations, have estimated that about 4.8 million people will become uninsured next year if these subsidies expire, increasing the US’ uninsured population by about 21 percent.
People without health insurance are far more likely to forgo and ration health care because of costs and are much more likely to die as a result. Cost-based access barriers are incompatible with health care as a human right for all, worsen inequalities, and can undermine people’s ability to bear costs associated with the enjoyment of other human rights such as the rights to housing, food, and education.
Older people without Medicare coverage because they are not yet old enough to qualify for coverage, or because of their immigration status or other restrictions, will be especially harmed. The country’s large and growing population of part-time and gig workers, also largely people of color, who are not legally required to receive employer-sponsored health insurance under the ACA, will also be disproportionately impacted. Even those with health insurance are likely to see their premium costs increase next year because of cost-shifting associated with this dramatic increase in the uninsured population.
On October 1, the federal government shut down as a result of Congress’ inability to pass a budget for the 2026 fiscal year. Democratic Party lawmakers, the minority party in both chambers of Congress, have said that their support for any bill to reopen the government is contingent on the extension of these enhanced healthcare subsidies.
Under international law, everyone has the human right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes the right to access healthcare goods and services regardless of one’s ability to pay. Many countries have better realized this right by creating a public healthcare system that aims to be universally accessible for all, by providing universal health insurance coverage, or through some combination of these two.
“Congress should fix the country’s healthcare system,” McConnell said. “But in the meantime, they shouldn’t make things far worse by cutting this lifeline for millions.”
Haiti: Cholera Resurgence Threatens Vulnerable Communities
(Washington, DC) – A resurgence of cholera in Haiti’s West department underscores the urgent need for coordinated, long-term action to restore basic water and sanitation systems, Human Rights Watch said today. The outbreak, part of a seasonal surge during the rainy period, is spreading in and around Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan area amid the near collapse of the capital’s health infrastructure and worsening insecurity.
Between January 1 and October 30, 2025, Haitian health authorities recorded 2,852 suspected cholera cases, 186 confirmed cases, and 48 deaths. Over a third of suspected cases are in children under 9, according to government data. After an 11-week period during which no new cases were reported, public health authorities are now seeing a resurgence of cholera.
“Cholera is once again threatening thousands of lives in Haiti because people lack access to the most basic services: clean water, sanitation, and medical care,” said Nathalye Cotrino, senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Haitians need serious government and international efforts to address the outbreak and avoid more preventable deaths.”
After over three years with no confirmed cholera cases, infections reappeared in the country at the end of September 2022. The resurgence marks a painful continuation of the country’s struggle with cholera.
In 2010, Haiti’s first cholera outbreak was traced back to sewage negligently released from a United Nations peacekeeping base into a river. It caused about 9,800 deaths and over 820,000 infections. In 2016, the UN acknowledged its role in causing the epidemic and accepted a moral, but not legal, responsibility to address it. Today, persistent gaps in sanitation, clean water access, and emergency preparedness continue to leave the population dangerously exposed to renewed outbreaks.
“Stagnant water, broken sewage lines, and the accumulation of trash across the city create ideal conditions for outbreaks to spread whenever the rains come,” Diana Manilla Arroyo, Head of Mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Holland in Haiti, told Human Rights Watch. “On top of that, a lot of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake.”
Lack of access to clean water, poor sanitation, and inadequate hygiene are major contributors to the spread of cholera. In Haiti, only 25 per cent of households have access to adequate handwashing facilities with soap, and 70 percent of people do not have access to an improved sanitation system, according to the UN. Heavy rain from Hurricane Melissa also risks spreading the bacteria to more non-chlorinated water sources.
The resurgence of cholera is exacerbated by extreme insecurity. Criminal groups have expanded their control across much of the country, blocking roads, restricting humanitarian access, and isolating communities in need. Violence has displaced over 1.4 million people this year, the highest number ever recorded in Haiti, forcing many into overcrowded informal settlements with little or no access to clean water or sanitation. These conditions put displaced people at serious risk.
For those who fall ill, accessing health care is difficult. Only 11 percent of health facilities with inpatient capacity in the capital remain fully operational, according to the UN. While people in more affluent and safer neighborhoods can reach private hospitals and treatment centers, those in areas controlled by criminal groups, such as Cité Soleil and lower Delmas, face severe movement restrictions, and do not have the means to pay for private health care.
The latest outbreak has reached Pétion-Ville, a more affluent neighborhood of Port-au-Prince where most UN and diplomatic offices are located, which had largely avoided significant cholera transmission in recent years.
With assistance from the Pan American Health Organization and other humanitarian partners, Haiti’s Ministry of Health has intensified efforts in the hardest-hit areas, including disinfection drives, public awareness initiatives, and the provision of chlorine, safe water, and hygiene supplies.
Haiti’s transitional government, with support from international partners, should urgently repair the national water and sewage network, guarantee safe humanitarian access to high-risk areas, and restore the operational capacity of public health institutions, Human Rights Watch said. Efforts to chlorinate water sources and conduct public awareness campaigns on cholera prevention and the use of chlorinated water are also crucial, especially during high-risk seasons.
Despite the worsening humanitarian and security conditions, several countries continue to return people to Haiti in large numbers, notably the Dominican Republic, the United States, and the Bahamas, as well as the British overseas territory of Turks and Caicos. These and other countries deported over 225,000 people to Haiti between January and the end of October 2025, according to the International Organization for Migration.
People should not be deported or otherwise returned to Haiti, where overlapping humanitarian, security, and public health crises endanger lives, and where they face a high risk of violence with no effective access to protection or justice, Human Rights Watch said.
“This cholera outbreak is being fueled by years of institutional neglect and the near collapse of essential services,” said Cotrino. “Foreign governments should be doing all they can to help Haiti put an end to cholera.”
In the Shadow of COP30, Brazil is Stripping Rainforest of Protections
While the city of Belém steps up to host the COP30 global climate summit in November, in another corner of Pará state, a federal government agency is planning hand over a large area of the Amazon rainforest to illegal cattle ranches.
The area in question, known as the Terra Nossa settlement, was created in 2006 by the federal land reform agency (INCRA). The aim was to provide sustainable livelihoods that lifted families out of poverty while preserving the Amazon rainforest. The majority of the settlement’s 150,000 hectares was to remain standing forest, a source of valuable natural products, while the rest would be available for residents to build houses or use for farming.
However, since the settlement was established, it has been targeted by landgrabbers who established illegal cattle ranches by setting fires and clearing large swathes of forest, including residents’ crops. Those residents who have confronted the ranchers have suffered violent retaliation.
According to INCRA, half of the settlement is now controlled by 37 unlawful ranches who have consolidated multiple parcels into large properties.
As a result, INCRA is now planning to divide Terra Nossa into three parts: one part would remain the Terra Nossa settlement; a second part would be downgraded to an ordinary settlement (with no provision for environmental conservation); and the third part would not have any protection at all.
If approved, this proposal could pave the way to the normalization and regularization of illegal land occupations, as Human Rights Watch warned INCRA’s president in a recent letter.
In response to the letter, INCRA acknowledged the importance of fighting the organized crime that is driving environmental destruction and violence in Terra Nossa, but, contradictorily, confirmed its plans to reduce the settlement would go ahead.
There is still time to save Terra Nossa and failure to do so will only benefit and embolden the criminals who are devastating Brazil’s rainforests and terrorizing its residents.
The president of INCRA should reject a plan that would give immunity for illegal land occupation and violence. If he chooses not to, federal prosecutors should take legal action to protect Terra Nossa’s residents and their land rights. That’s one critical way Brazil can align its actions and rhetoric ahead of COP30.
Indigenous Community in Limbo at Height of Panama’s Rainy Season
As the 2025 rainy season peaks in Panama, the Guna Indigenous community of Ukupa, which was displaced by floods late last year, is still waiting for much-needed governmental support.
After severe flooding in December 2024 left their homes on the Caribbean coast uninhabitable, community members chose a measure of last resort: to relocate to a new, safer site called Wichumur. But the government support that community members need to move in a dignified way still hasn’t materialized.
Another Guna community formerly living on a flood-prone and overcrowded island, Gardi Sugdub, previously sought support to relocate to Isber Yala, a process that took over a decade and was fraught with delays and other challenges. Finally, in 2024, community members received keys to their new homes.
Ukupa should not be left in protracted limbo for many years like Gardi Sugdub. With adequate planning, solutions for displaced communities can be more systematic and holistic. A robust, inclusive National Protocol on Planned Relocation, developed in close collaboration with Indigenous and local leaders, is vital, and a key recommendation from Human Rights Watch’s 2023 report on Gardi Sugdub.
Building on past government commitments, recent updates are promising. An Executive Decree was shared for public consultations and, once finalized, will lay the legal foundation for a National Protocol, alongside regular monitoring of climate displacement. However, the decree remains on the desk of President José Raúl Mulino, awaiting his signature.
Meanwhile, the Panamanian Ministry of Environment is taking steps toward the National Protocol. In September 2025, an Environment Ministry technical team visited the relocated community in Isber Yala and other communities in different stages of relocation. The consultations aimed to understand people’s experiences, challenges, and priorities for the National Protocol.
President Mulino should quickly sign the Executive Decree, and the Ministry of Environment should finalize and implement the National Protocol, ensuring that Ukupa and other communities are not left in limbo as the climate crisis worsens. It is imperative that this new protocol reflects the realities of Indigenous people and upholds their rights to self-determination, culture, and free, prior, and informed consent.
Panama’s forthcoming National Protocol could also be a model for other countries.
Hundreds of communities worldwide have already relocated or are relocating as rising seas and worsening storms threaten homes and livelihoods. Displaced communities need durable solutions, including through community-driven planned relocation as a last resort. As climate change accelerates, every country with a coastline needs to take these issues seriously and develop rights-respecting policies.
Alleged Cluster Munition Remnant Kills Cambodian Boy
On October 25, 10-year-old Sern Sovann died from an explosion after reportedly bringing home an item from a nearby field in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province near the border with Thailand. The blast also seriously injured his father.
The Cambodian Mine Action Centre found that the explosion was caused by an unexploded M-85 artillery-delivered submunition fired into Cambodia by the Thai military during July’s border conflict between the two countries. The Thai military denied the allegation, asserting that photographs showing the effects of the detonation do not match the damage caused by the artillery-delivered cluster munitions it stockpiles.
Cluster munitions can be delivered by aircraft or ground-launched projectiles, missiles, and rockets. They open in mid-air and disperse dozens and even hundreds of smaller submunitions, also called bomblets, over an area the size of several football fields. Many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines, posing a threat to civilians and relief efforts for years and even decades later.
While Thai authorities appeared to admit using the widely banned cluster munitions during the July 24–28 border clashes, they claimed that such munitions were only used against military targets and have no lingering long-term effects on civilians.
Although neither Thailand nor Cambodia is a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits member countries from using, producing, or stockpiling this type of weapon, Human Rights Watch considers any use of the weapon to be unlawfully indiscriminate, in violation of international humanitarian law.
Cambodia should seek a competent and impartial international organization or state party to the convention to promptly investigate Sern Sovann’s death, so that the country responsible can, at a minimum, provide compensation to his family.
Following the October 26 Kuala Lumpur peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia, the two countries should collaborate to survey, mark, and clear cluster munition remnants to protect civilians from harm. Both countries should also ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions and help ensure no other civilians are killed or maimed by these weapons.
Critic of Mali’s Junta Forcibly Disappeared
On the afternoon of October 25, Cheick Oumar Diallo chatted with companions on a street in Mali’s capital, Bamako. Suddenly, four gendarmes arrived in a pickup truck and motorbikes, arrested him, and drove off.
Click to expand Image Cheick Oumar Diallo, Bamako, Mali, 2025. © PrivateA week later, Diallo—a 43-year-old former trade union member and prominent critic of Mali’s military junta—has not been seen and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Witnesses said that the gendarmes told Diallo they had orders to arrest him. When he asked why he was being detained, they refused to explain. A scuffle broke out as Diallo resisted and he tried to flee. While running, he fell into a ditch and hurt his leg. Witnesses said the gendarmes pulled Diallo from the ditch and tossed him into the back of their pickup.
Diallo’s colleagues said they searched for him in police and gendarmerie stations across Bamako to no avail. They believe his disappearance is linked to his union activism and criticism of the junta.
Diallo is a former employee of the Mali national water company, member of the company’s autonomous union, and a whistleblower. In a July 2024 public letter, he alleged that the water Malians consume was not potable. The authorities arrested him shortly thereafter and, upon his release in May 2025 the state-run water company fired him.
The junta has previously targeted trade unionists. On June 6, 2024, Mali’s main bank union launched a strike after the arrest of its secretary-general, Hamadoun Bah. Bah had been detained on charges of forgery and falsification linked to internal union disputes, an action widely seen by workers as political intimidation. After five days, Bah was releasedand the union called off the strike.
Since taking power in a 2021 military coup, Mali’s junta has carried out a relentless assault against the political opposition, peaceful dissent, civil society groups, and the media.
Diallo’s arrest bears the hallmarks of enforced disappearance, when a government arrests someone without acknowledging their detention or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. Enforced disappearances can violate a range of human rights, including prohibitions against arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and extrajudicial execution.
Since 2009, Mali has been a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Mali’s authorities should immediately disclose Diallo’s whereabouts, release him and stop their attacks on trade union members and other critics.
Chinese Government Threatens Academic Freedom in the UK
Sheffield Hallam University in England terminated a project about Uyghur forced labor after Chinese state security officers reportedly interrogated a staff member in Beijing and a Chinese company named in a report filed a defamation lawsuit in the United Kingdom. The project was led by Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights and modern slavery at Sheffield Hallam.
In February, the university removed reports from its website that Murphy and others had published at the Forced Labor Lab of its Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice and restricted her from working on Uyghur forced labor. It lifted the restriction in October. A spokesperson for the university told The Guardian in November that “following a review, we have since approved Prof Murphy’s latest research and are committed to supporting her to undertake and disseminate this important work.”
The university apologized for its actions, but only after Murphy began legal action against it for violating her academic freedom.
The Chinese government’s efforts to manipulate information abroad, affecting academic freedom, should be cause for alarm. China studies scholars from British universities have reported harassment when teaching topics critical of Beijing. The issue of China’s “transnational repression”—cross-border human rights abuses—has been raised in the UK parliament, including in a recent report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
In 2022, the Chinese government denounced Sheffield Hallam University by name for Murphy and her team’s research on forced labor in Xinjiang, which they later linked to global supply chains for apparel, solar, and cars.
These abuses have also been well-documented by others, including Human Rights Watch, which released a report in 2024 documenting Uyghur forced labor in the aluminum supply chain and the automotive sector. Human Rights Watch also condemned the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang.
In recent years, the Chinese government has escalated its transnational repression and harassment of its critics abroad. In July, Chinese authorities arrested a Chinese student, Tara Zhang Yadi, for “inciting separatism,” a serious crime, because she had advocated for Tibetan rights while studying in Paris. Chinese companies, including some government-owned, have filed defamation and other lawsuits to silence rights researchers and activists.
The UK government should ensure that academic freedom is protected from Beijing’s transnational repression.
US: ICE Abuses in Los Angeles Set Stage for Other Cities
(Los Angeles) – The United States federal government’s violent campaign of raids and detentions during the summer of 2025 in Los Angeles set the stage for similar and subsequent abuses in cities around the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Then and now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stalk and seize people they suspect lack authorization to be in the country, separate families, and terrorize communities.
Since late May, ICE, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and other federal law enforcement agencies have staged hundreds of raids in and around Los Angeles at places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live, with violence and disregard for human rights. ICE agents have arrested food vendors and their customers. They have targeted car washes and other businesses that have Latino employees, and raided Home Depot parking lots where individuals look for work. Federal officials acknowledge agents consider a person’s perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin as key factors in deciding whom to detain.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is carrying out similar campaigns in other cities throughout the United States. The July 2025 federal budget bill for the coming year allocates a previously unheard of $170 billion for border enforcement, detention, and deportations.
“These raids, mostly targeting Latino communities, have inflicted devastating harm on the people of Los Angeles and have continued and even expanded their tactics as they have spread to other US cities,” said John Raphling, associate US program director at Human Rights Watch. “They tear apart families, cause people to live in fear, and showcase the cruelty of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.”
These widespread raids followed the late-May exhortation by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, that immigration officials should substantially increase the numbers of undocumented people arrested for deportation. President Trump posted on Truth Social at the time that he intended to “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion.”
Human Rights Watch analyzed videos, photographs, and written accounts in news and social media and interviewed 39 people, including those detained and released, families of those detained and deported, witnesses, people who provide services to Latino communities affected, and a Los Angeles County official.
Human Rights Watch analysis of ICE arrest data, excluding arrests by CBP or other agencies, confirms that from May 28 through July 28, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers dramatically increased arrests, primarily of people without violent or even any US criminal history. The agents almost invariably incarcerated people arrested in ICE detention facilities pending deportation proceedings. Some individuals interviewed said officials have inappropriately pressured people to agree to “voluntary departures.” Data suggests ICE agents detain people based on their perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin.
The raids Human Rights Watch documented from June to September occurred without warning, as agents arrived in unmarked vehicles, jumped out, and swarmed people they targeted. News and social media reports of other raids confirm a consistently similar approach.
Witnesses described and videos confirm agents usually carried military-style weaponry, sometimes dressed in civilian clothes or military outfits and often wearing masks hiding their identities and projecting a dangerous, lawless aura. There have been incidents of agents using excessive force and smashing car windows and pulling people from their cars.
Arrested people and their relatives said they and their loved ones experienced abusive treatment while being transported and in detention. They said those arrested were shackled for extended periods, denied food and water, forced to sleep on floors, and refused contact with family and lawyers.
Family members reported substantial harm of those arrested, including emotional and physical pain caused by separation from their loved ones, financial crises, and difficulty paying for childcare, elder care, and care for family members with disabilities.
The raids have constrained and discouraged many Latino people from participating in public life in Los Angeles. Immigrants interviewed almost uniformly confirmed the raids made them fear appearing in public, leading to them missing graduation ceremonies, medical appointments, and work.
People in Los Angeles have protested, advised people of their rights, filmed federal agents, implemented networks to warn of raids, and cared for people in hiding.
“The US government is inflicting abuse and putting Latino communities in a state of terror,” Raphling said. “Dramatically increased funding for ICE at a moment when its abuses are going totally unchecked will cause untold harm.”
Widespread Raids
Beginning in late May, federal officials saturated the Los Angeles region with teams of agents who conducted rapid raids where Latino people work or congregate. These raids have targeted Home Depot parking lots and other locations where people seek day laborer jobs; car washes, swap meets, and shopping centers; restaurants, food trucks and street vendor stands; and commercial farms. Agents have arrested workers, customers, vendors, and students.
Federal agents conducted the raids—in most cases documented and observed through social media and news coverage—by converging on a targeted person, group of people, or business in unmarked vehicles, then grabbing people, handcuffing them, and sometimes loading them into their vehicles without trying to determine their immigration status.
Agents frequently covered their faces and wore civilian clothes or military-style uniforms. Their clothing often did not identify their agency. In most videos Human Rights Watch observed and in witness descriptions, agents carry firearms, including military-style rifles. Agents arrest some of the people they detain in this way then incarcerate them in a detention facility.
Data available to Human Rights Watch extends only through the end of July, but interviews documented raids through September. At the time of publication, social media and news coverage indicates the Los Angeles raids are ongoing.
Human Rights Watch analysis of the data confirms the sharp increase in arrests during the surge in raids from May 28 through July 28, the last day of available data. During this period, ICE alone—the data does not include arrests by CBP or other agencies in Los Angeles at the time—arrested 540 people per week on average. That is an increase from the 139 people per week on average from President Trump’s inauguration until the surge in raids began, and the 87 per week in the 16 months before Trump became president.
Click to expand ImageWitnesses said ICE and CBP agents detained people and took them into custody without appearing to know who they were in advance. They said agents detained all Latino people in a particular location who were selling food or looking for work, without asking for identification. These actions suggest the agents were choosing whom to detain based on assumptions about their immigration status due to their perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin or their presence in a location or occupation the agents believed made them more suspicious.
Latino people—nearly half of Los Angeles’ population—are heavily concentrated in certain occupations, especially construction labor, food services, agricultural work, and clothing production.
Federal agents detained some US citizens or people with lawful authorization to be in the US, further evidence agents did not have reliable criteria for detaining people.
Federal officials have acknowledged in court proceedings they are detaining people based on their perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin, their location or occupation, and/or their use of the Spanish language. A Los Angeles federal district court on July 11 issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting government officials from making investigative stops based on these factors alone. The DHS, in their application to the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the district court order, said forbidding their reliance on only these factors would “thwart … enforcement of the immigration laws in [Los Angeles].” On September 8, the Supreme Court stayed the order, giving ICE a free hand at least until the court makes a final decision.
ICE data does not directly indicate whether agents detained anyone based on a warrant or previous knowledge of a person’s status. Data analysis suggests ICE did stop many people based on observations they deemed suspicious, including a person’s perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin, spoken language, location and occupation.
Prior to late May, on average 50 percent of people arrested by ICE agents had administrative or judicial orders for removal, meaning officials knew they were deportable. From May 28 through July 28, that percentage dropped to 25. This data does not include people detained and then released because they had legal status.
Click to expand ImageImmediately after the temporary restraining order came into effect, arrest numbers plummeted 64 percent, from 104 arrests per day to 38, further suggesting stops based on the characteristics cited in the restraining order were central to the operation.
June 6 Ambiance Apparel Raids
On the morning of June 6, federal agencies, including ICE and the FBI, conducted a series of raids near downtown Los Angeles, including at two facilities of the clothing company Ambiance Apparel. Dozens of agents stormed the locations in tactical gear with military-style weaponry, many wearing face masks. They detained and arrested over 40 workers, shackling them and forcing them into unmarked vans. Family members of those arrested said officials took the workers initially to a lock-up at the federal courthouse, then to one in Santa Ana, and then to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, operated by the private company Geo Group.
The acting US Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said the agents had a judicial warrant to search for “fictitious business documents.” Family members said federal officials had been to the location some weeks earlier so officials may have identified people to target.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 10 family members of people detained and arrested during the Ambiance Apparel raids and one person who was arrested and later released. They described abusive conditions, especially being held shackled in crowded, extremely cold vans for many hours; not receiving food or water for extended periods; not being allowed to use the toilet for many hours; being forced to sleep on floors for several days; and being denied communication with family and lawyers.
Several told their family members of coercive efforts to get them to sign documents waiving their rights to contest deportations. One detained person signed and was rapidly deported.
One person arrested has lived in the United States for decades, working at Ambiance Apparel for many years. He raised his children, all born in the US, and is his family’s primary source of financial support. His son watched masked federal agents shove him into a van then handcuff other workers and push them into vans. His son said his father reported being kept handcuffed in the van, with cold air blasting and no chance to use the toilet for almost eight hours. The authorities denied him communication with his family for five days, even after moving him to Adelanto.
Another man said he has lived in the United States for over 20 years, working at Ambiance Apparel for the last several years. On June 6, federal agents closed off the entrances to the business, trapped him and others inside, handcuffed them, and kept them seated on the floor for several hours. Agents then forced them into a van and held them inside shackled by their hands, feet, and waists overnight with the air conditioner running. Officials refused to remove the handcuffs to allow him to use the toilet. They moved him to the lock-up in Santa Ana and then to Adelanto. He slept on floors until June 9 when they gave him a bed, though others did not get beds until the next day. After two weeks, they released him with an ankle monitor.
A third man has lived in the United States for over twenty years, working at Ambiance Apparel for five. One of his daughters said his family had no communication with him for over a day after his detention. He told his daughter that agents yelled at him, demanding he sign papers, but he refused. He remains in detention, and his family is in distress because he is their main source of income and emotional support. His daughter said another one of his daughters has been unable to hold food down due to the distress.
All family members of people detained in the Ambiance Apparel raids described financial difficulties and emotional distress. Many described being overwhelmed with fear and not leaving their homes, especially as raids continued.
The data analyzed reveals a considerable increase in detentions following arrest while deportation proceedings are pending by the Trump administration, especially during the surge in Los Angeles arrests. During the Biden administration, 74 percent of the people ICE arrested in Los Angeles who did not have a criminal history were released while immigration proceedings occurred. Since the Trump administration began, immigration officials have incarcerated nearly everyone ICE has arrested in Los Angeles, including those with no criminal history.
Click to expand ImageHuman Rights Watch data analysis also indicates a substantial increase in “voluntary removal” during the surge of enforcement. Those figures are cause for alarm in light of reports from some family members of pressure to waive rights to contest deportation.
Raids at Home Depot Parking Lots
Human Rights Watch documented nine raids at Home Depot parking lots, interviewing witnesses and reviewing photos and video evidence. Researchers also reviewed social media and news coverage of dozens of other raids at these stores. They all follow similar basic patterns of unmarked vans with armed and frequently masked agents driving into the parking lots and chasing down and detaining Latino people who appear to be day laborers or vendors. At some raids, agents detained and arrested large numbers of people, while at others, people escaped.
Home Depot is a US chain of large hardware stores with numerous outlets in Southern California. People regularly wait in their parking lots seeking day jobs. In the Los Angeles area, these workers are predominantly Latino, some undocumented.
On June 19, federal agents raided the Home Depot in the Hollywood neighborhood. An account by a witness, videos of portions of the raid, social media posts by other witnesses, and news reports tell a consistent story of what happened. Federal agents primarily from CBP, in white vans, wearing tactical gear, and carrying weapons, descended onto the parking lot and sidewalks from all sides.
They immediately and forcibly detained about 20 mostly Latina street vendors who regularly set up on St. Andrews Place, zip tying their arms and moving them across the street. Other agents chased men who were in the parking lot area seeking work. They tackled some. They pulled several out of their cars, even breaking one person’s car window.
A community member who was there has been tracking Home Depot raids, speaking with arrested people about their experiences, and helping them contact their family members. She said agents detained people without asking for identification and she knew of 25 day laborers and 4 vendors detained.
She said agents arrested one man who previously had been granted asylum and then released him that afternoon. She said it was his second arrest during the recent raids. Agents tackled a man who was filming the operation and advising people of their rights. They arrested him and released him an hour later.
A DHS spokesperson said CBP had “arrested 30 illegal aliens” in the operation.
The community member tracking the raids estimated there were over 50 similar raids between June 6 and the end of August. These included one she witnessed at the Cypress Park Home Depot store on June 30 in which CBP agents detained and arrested 17 people she was able to confirm. She witnessed another raid at the Van Nuys Home Depot store on July 5 where agents, mostly CBP, pulled several people out of cars, 14 of whom were detained and arrested that she was able to confirm. Federal agents have raided some of these locations multiple times, according to this community member and news reports.
The raid and the 30 people arrested on June 19 do not appear in the ICE arrests database because CBP were the arresting agents, but they also do not appear in publicly available CBP apprehension data. This suggests the data the DHS releases may not be comprehensive.
Raids at Other Locations
On June 11, Human Rights Watch spoke to a woman who ran a small fruit and vegetable stand in Camarillo, a city an hour north of Los Angeles that is surrounded by commercial farms. She said every day that week federal agents had raided a different farm, taking workers picking crops. She said the neighboring fields had far fewer workers than usual immediately following the raids and people in her community who worked in those fields had expressed fear to go to work. News reports at the time indicated farm workers were staying away. Federal agents raided a farm in the area a month later.
On June 12, a man finished his workday as a house painter and was talking to a friend in the parking lot of a small shopping center in Rosemead, a suburb of Los Angeles. Both men wore paint-covered work clothes as they stood in front of their trucks with ladders and tools visible, said a witness. At least two unmarked vehicles drove up to the men, who ran in opposite directions. Several agents from a Ford Explorer caught the first man. One agent had a shirt generically saying “Police” but not identifying an agency; the others wore civilian clothes. One was masked and the others wore sunglasses.
The man’s family said immigration officials had never been in touch with him, in which case it would be unlikely the agents had a warrant or knew who he was. The witness said the agents, in cars with out-of-state license plates, had been driving around the neighborhood as if looking for people. A family member said the man was still in the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico at the time of the interview. He was unable to take his daughter to start college, and his children missed his emotional and financial support.
On June 19, a woman who has lived in the United States for 29 years and raised two children in the country was selling tamales outside a shopping center in Pacoima, she said. As she began to pack up her stand in the late morning, a white car pulled up. At first, she thought it was a potential customer, but then two men got out, wearing masks and dark glasses. Without saying a word, they grabbed her and pulled her toward their car. She began to panic and felt intense pain in her chest. She told them she could not breathe. She prayed for protection. The agents told her: “Keep walking.” She passed out and fell.
When she regained consciousness, she saw agents grabbing her friend, who yelled: “I’m a citizen.” One of the agents checked the pulse of the woman on the ground, said it was high, then backed away, leaving her there. Her friends called for paramedics, who took her to the hospital, where she stayed for five days. She told Human Rights Watch that doctors at the hospital told her she had experienced a heart attack and they had performed medical procedures to clear her arteries.
While agents were grabbing the woman, said a concerned citizen who was filming the raid, other agents armed with military-style rifles came out of white vans and fanned out into the parking lot; they were wearing masks with no badges or clothing identifying their agency. Los Angeles Police Department officers were also present. When the person filming attempted to observe what was being done to the woman, the police officers pushed him back, then slammed him to the ground and arrested him. They jailed him without bail and released him four days later without charges.
On the morning of September 9, 12 to 15 federal agents in various kinds of unmarked cars raided a car wash in Van Nuys owned by Rafie Shouhed. Shouhed said they showed no warrant and did not ask for anyone by name. One agent walked through the hallway of the car wash and knocked the 79-year-old Shouhed to the ground, he said, then walked over him. Shouhed got up and went outside to see agents detaining several of his employees. Some of the agents had military-style weapons, were masked, and dressed “like they are going to war,” he said.
Shouhed asked an agent: “Can I help you?” The agent said nothing, he said, but grabbed him. Another agent ran over and threw him to the ground. A third agent knelt on top of him as they cuffed him, then loaded him into their SUV and took him to the detention area at the downtown federal building.
The agents held him for about 12 hours, mostly handcuffed, even though he provided his driver’s license and they confirmed he was a US citizen, and despite his requests for medical attention for his injuries and heart condition. Agents detained four Latino employees of the carwash. Officials said he was arrested for impeding federal agents.
These tactics—federal agents sneaking up on people in unmarked vehicles, rapidly descending on them in military gear, brandishing weapons, seizing and shackling them, sometimes using additional force, and taking them away—are disproportionate, considering both the aims of these operations and given the total absence of any apparent threat posed by any of the people involved, Human Rights Watch said. Indeed, the agents’ tactics appear to be deliberately and egregiously violent and deeply traumatizing. At least two people have died fleeing raiding agents.
Impact on Communities
All Latino people and service providers interviewed described people living in fear since the raids began, with many withdrawing from publicly visible life.
One woman who has lived in the United States for over 13 years and raised 3 children in the country said in June there had been repeated raids in her neighborhood, including at the local grocery store. She and her children saw federal agents driving through the neighborhood and near their schools. She stopped working to avoid exposure to roving patrols; her husband used sick days to stay home as much as possible.
After hearing warnings ICE might appear, she and her husband missed their children’s graduations, one from high school and the other from trade school. She stopped participating in community work and depended on others to go to the store or run other errands for her. She described her situation as being like “prison” or “quarantine.” She said similar fears are widespread throughout her community.
“What is the sin that we have really committed?” she said. “To us, this is like our country. I’ve always loved this country. This is where I’ve raised my kids. It is where I have given my [life]. We’ve helped this country grow.”
Another woman said in late June she did not fear deportation, but feared being grabbed off the street, incarcerated, and injured by immigration officials. Mostly, she feared being taken from her children. She cares for two teenage daughters with disabilities, including regularly helping at their schools.
She stopped going to their schools. She got sick but cancelled her medical appointment. Her husband has to work, and she was overcome with worry each day that he may not return. She cares for her 2-year-old grandson but feared taking him to the playground. She said she is “not safe anywhere. It’s like I’m in a cave.”
People interviewed described a range of negative impacts from the raids and actions people were taking to avoid them, including forgoing work or staying away from markets, especially Latino markets, that might be targeted. One woman said in June people in her community were stocking up on food to reduce their number of trips outside.
Service providers from two organizations said they created delivery services to take food to people so they could avoid shopping. News reports stated people were staying away from church and community events were being canceled. “We stay in the shadows as much as possible,” one woman said in September.
Unhoused people are particularly vulnerable. People living in encampments on Skid Row said community members were hiding in their tents, not going to jobs or riding on buses. A woman on Skid Row, who has lived in the United States for over 25 years, said dozens of friends and neighbors had been taken by ICE agents since the raids began. “People are just disappearing, and I have no idea where they were taken and what’s happening,” she said. “They’re just gone.”
The pervasive raids, massive numbers of workers incarcerated, and climate of fear have affected the economy in the Los Angeles region and throughout the state. Based on a study by the University of California Merced Community and Labor Center, California’s total number of noncitizen workers declined by 12.3 percent from May to July, while citizen workers declined 4.9 percent. The researchers found the decline was primarily Latino workers.
The raids especially hurt the agriculture and food sectors. Farmers reported workers not showing up. By one estimate, in June, between 25 and 45 percent of the agricultural workforce in Ventura County stopped working, causing delays in food harvest and loss due to rot. Other sectors of the economy that depend on immigrant workers, including child care providers and the garment industry, have felt impacts on working conditions and sales.
Federal Response
Federal officials, particularly for the DHS, have repeatedly justified this campaign by claiming the raids target dangerous criminals. In fact, Human Rights Watch analysis of the government’s own data indicates in the Los Angeles area, about 66 percent of those detained during the raids from late May through July had no US criminal history at all; only 5 percent had previous violent or sex offense convictions.
The fact that officials are arresting a lower percentage of people with criminal histories, in addition to their dishonest justifications for the raids, suggests they are arresting more people who are unknown to them, and relying on perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin as major factors in their decisions.
Click to expand ImageOther analysis indicates that nationally, fewer than 7 percent of those detained had violent criminal records and almost 15 percent had only traffic or immigration violations.
Community Resistance to the Raids
Many people in Los Angeles have opposed the raids and taken various actions to protect their family and community members. Hundreds of people turned out in response to the operations at the Ambiance Apparel facilities to bear witness, voice support for the workers, encourage assertion of legal rights, and protest. Thousands of people participated in protests in downtown Los Angeles in the weeks after the raids began, often facing excessive force and deliberate brutality from local and federal law enforcement officers.
Immigrants’ rights and other community and advocacy organizations, as well as unaffiliated concerned citizens, have formed “rapid response” networks to share information about the locations of federal agents and to warn people of impending raids, said community activists and service providers interviewed. Supportive organizations have set up systems to track who is getting detained to help them obtain legal representation and to help family members communicate with them. Organizations provide food and other necessities for undocumented people unable to leave their homes.
People who have witnessed federal agents pursuing and capturing people during raids have resisted by advising those detained of their legal rights, getting their names to try to connect them with legal assistance and inform their families, and videotaping the detentions to expose the violence and abuse.
The US Constitution’s First Amendment and California state law protect the right to witness and film law enforcement activity, including immigration detentions. Law enforcement officers have arrested people who were filming or witnessing them, however, in some cases alleging assault.
On August 15, according to a community activist, federal agents raided the parking lot of the Home Depot in Van Nuys again. Some people sought refuge inside the gated “laborers’ center” in that parking lot. Agents attempted to enter the site, but community members intervened, eventually convincing them to leave.
Tanzania: Killings, Crackdown Follow Disputed Elections
(Nairobi) – The authorities in Tanzania responded to widespread protests following the October 29 elections with lethal force and other abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 1, Tanzania’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission, announced that the incumbent president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, won the election with 97.66 percent of the vote. She was sworn in on November 3 for a second term at a ceremony closed to the public amid continuing protests.
The protests, some of which were violent, erupted on election day and have continued over three days in Dar es Salaam and other cities. Police responded with tear gas and live ammunition to disperse crowds. The government imposed nationwide internet restrictions on October 29, and multiple internet monitoring organizations confirmed that internet connectivity had been disrupted. Reports on the evening of November 3 indicate that some internet access has been restored but that restrictions on social media and messaging platforms persist.
“The Tanzanian authorities’ violent and repressive response to election-related protests further undermines the credibility of the electoral process,” said Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government has a responsibility to maintain security, but it needs to respect rights and ensure that all those responsible for violence are investigated and appropriately prosecuted.”
In October, Human Rights Watch reported that the Tanzanian government intensified political repression, suppressed political opposition and critics of the ruling party, stifled the media, and failed to ensure the electoral commission’s independence in the lead up to the elections.
Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), had urged its supporters not to participate in the elections. An opposition party official and a resident of Dar es Salaam told Human Rights Watch that police officers and individuals in civilian clothes shot and killed protesters and passers-by on election day and in the two days that followed.
John Kitoka, the director of foreign and diaspora affairs of Chadema, said that the party had collected reports of up to 1,000 people killed by police and unidentified security force personnel in the aftermath of the elections in eight of Tanzania’s 31 regions.
Human Rights Watch has not been able to confirm these numbers but regional and international bodies such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Southern African Development Community, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the European Union have raised concerns in their public statements about the large number of fatalities.
A resident of Dar es Salaam’s Temeke district told Human Rights Watch via telephone that on October 30 at around 3:30 p.m., her neighbor, who was not participating in the protests, was shot and killed outside his home by a man that witnesses said was wearing civilian clothes.
From the evening of October 29 until November 3, the government imposed a 24-hour lockdown, ordering all residents to stay at home. A resident of Dar es Salaam told Human Rights Watch that shops were closed for three days after election day but were allowed to open briefly on November 2. The resident said the lockdown prevented them from leaving their homes to buy food and get money from the bank.
The lockdown prevented the media from being able to report on the elections and the ensuing protests. Two Tanzania-based journalists said they were unable to carry out reporting on the ongoing events because of the lockdown.
The authorities appear to have blocked foreign journalists from covering the elections by failing in some instances to respond to accreditation applications. The International Press Association of East Africa said it does not know of any journalists working for international media who were accredited to travel to the mainland to cover the elections.
Agence France-Presse reported on October 24 that its journalists, despite being accredited, were denied access to grounds in Stone Town, Zanzibar, where President Hassan was due to hold a rally.
One journalist told Human Rights Watch that he applied for accreditation to cover the election on mainland Tanzania via an online portal on the election commission’s website but did not receive any response. He followed up with phone calls to the commission and was told by a high-ranking official that they would return his call, but they did not.
The Tanzanian authorities should immediately end the use of excessive and lethal force against protests, and take steps to ensure accountability for allegations of election-related killings, beatings, and assaults by security forces, and hold those responsible accountable, Human Rights Watch said.
Tanzania is obligated to respect everyone’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association under international human rights law and its constitution. Tanzania security forces should abide by the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which require law enforcement officials to apply nonviolent means and to use force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. The principles also require governments to ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offense under national law.
Under international human rights law, Tanzanian authorities should refrain from imposing internet shutdowns, disruptions, or blocking access to websites and platforms including before, during, and after elections. The African Commission stated that the recent shutdown in Tanzania violates article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which guarantees the rights to freedom of expression and access to information. It called on the Tanzanian government to respect and protect the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.
“Street demonstrations against the conduct of elections should not be used as a pretext for violating people’s rights,” Nyeko said. “The authorities are obligated to promote and protect the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and fully restore access to the internet.”
Central Asia-US Summit: Address Region’s Growing Repression
(Berlin, November 3, 2025) – Governments attending the Central Asia-US summit on November 6, 2025, should focus on improving their human rights records amid discussions of economic and security cooperation, Human Rights Watch said today. The summit is taking place while all participating governments have increased efforts to stifle dissent, silence the media, and retaliate against critics at home and abroad.
The summit, hosted by US President Donald Trump, will bring together the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan in Washington, the media reported. The C5+1 format, as it is known, began in 2015 and has sought to strengthen economic and energy cooperation and regional security.
“The Central Asia-US summit should ensure human rights is a key part of the agenda, especially as repression increases across Central Asia,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Participating countries should recognize that they risk recent social and economic progress if international partners seek stable environments elsewhere for engagement and investment.”
The US government’s 2025 State Department human rights report highlighted serious abuses across Central Asia, including credible reports of torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary arrests and detention of civil society activists and opposition figures. The report said that freedom of expression and media remained severely restricted in the region, with journalists facing harassment and retaliation for their work. It also cited excessive state control over religious organizations, prosecutions on vague extremism charges, lack of judicial independence, and pervasive corruption.
The United States is also experiencing a backsliding on human rights and democratic values, with rollbacks on voting access, attacks on immigrants, and efforts to silence educators, journalists, and activists. The Trump administration should reverse course to improve its domestic human rights record and make respect for fundamental freedoms and good governance central to any new security or economic initiatives in Central Asia, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch research and media reports have found that the Kazakhstan authorities routinely violate the rights to peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression and association, and misuse overbroad criminal charges in counter-extremism legislation to target critics.
The Kazakh opposition leader Marat Zhylanbaev and the journalist Duman Mukhammadkarim are each serving seven-year prison sentences on politically motivated charges of “financing extremist activities” and “participating in the activities of a banned extremist organization.” In September, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom found that “religious freedom conditions in Kazakhstan remain poor.”
The Kyrgyz government has intimidated and silenced journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders, and government critics, Human Rights Watch said. New laws curtail the rights of citizens to information. The government has taken inadequate action against rising domestic violence, including against women with disabilities. In 2025 the Kyrgyz government dismantled the independent National Center for the Prevention of Torture. In its 2025 Annual report, the US Commission urged placing Kyrgyzstan on the State Department’s Special Watch List for its continuing systematic abuses of religious liberty.
The Tajikistan government represses independent and critical voices by closing hundreds of nongovernmental organizations and jailing scores of bloggers, journalists, and public figures for their opinions. Several political movements and parties seen as a threat to the government are banned, including the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and Group 24, with its members serving lengthy prison terms.
Tajik authorities have carried out a crackdown on dissent in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, following the violent dispersal of peaceful demonstrations in the region in 2021 and 2022. During 2025, five Pamiri prisoners detained as a result of this crackdown died in custody.
Turkmenistan’s government is among the world’s most authoritarian and repressive, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities impose arbitrary foreign travel bans and engage in transnational repression, including by denying Turkmen citizens the right to renew their passports abroad. For more than two decades, dozens of individuals have remained victims of enforced disappearances, and torture in custody persists without accountability.
There is no media freedom in the country and access to the internet is severely restricted and heavily censored. The government relentlessly targets journalists and civil society activists and their family members.
In recent years, Uzbek authorities have ramped up restrictions on human rights activism and freedom of expression, targeting activists, bloggers, and others, including with unfounded criminal charges. Nongovernmental organizations are subject to excessive and burdensome registration requirements and at least two bloggers have been put into forced psychiatric detention in violation of their rights to liberty and security and health.
Uzbek authorities also restrict religious freedom by preventing registration of religious communities, subjecting former religious prisoners to arbitrary controls, and prosecuting Muslims on broad and vaguely worded extremism-related charges.
“Economic and social reform processes in Central Asia deserve international support, but they need to be rooted in respect for human rights and the rule of law to have legitimacy,” Williamson said. “That’s the only way the 82 million people living in the region can truly benefit from any deals their leaders make in Washington.”
Obstetric Violence Deadly for Sierra Leone Women, Newborns
(Freetown) – Women giving birth in public healthcare facilities in Sierra Leone face demeaning, dangerous, and potentially deadly neglect, abandonment, and abuse by healthcare providers if they cannot pay for health care, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 75-page report, “No Money, No Care: Obstetric Violence in Sierra Leone,” documents cases of verbal abuse, medical neglect, and abandonment of women and girls facing serious obstetric complications, practices that experts interviewed say are common. Many women interviewed said they were shamed and mistreated by healthcare providers for expressing pain, needing help, or for not having enough money to pay fees. Others described humiliating experiences in which healthcare providers treated them brusquely or withheld important health information. Some cases documented constitute obstetric violence, a largely unaddressed form of gender-based violence prevalent across the world.
November 2, 2025 “No Money, No Care”“Women giving birth in some government hospitals face shame, long waits, untreated pain, and suffering, and even risk losing their or their newborn’s lives, said Skye Wheeler, a senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Sierra Leone’s government is failing to address harmful practices in its public health care system, leaving providers to resort to extracting money from extremely vulnerable patients.”
Obstetric violence is a globally pervasive but underrecognized spectrum of abuses against women in reproductive health care settings. It includes violations of bodily autonomy, such as forced sterilization and other operations or medical interventions carried out without the patient’s consent. It also includes harmful labor and delivery room practices that are often seen as routine, such as tying women to hospital beds while they give birth, verbal abuse, neglect or abandonment, and the denial of pain medication.
Human Rights Watch interviewed over 50 postpartum women and 50 health care providers. Some hospital staff reported regularly seeing women and more often newborns die or suffer serious health complications because of delayed and denied care caused by the inability to pay hospital staff adequately. Human Rights Watch also spoke to women whose newborns had died or were born with acute health conditions after the women waited hours or even days to receive care at the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital (PCMH), the country’s primary obstetric hospital, in Freetown, the capital.
One woman, who had no money when her son was born there, attributed his death to the poor care she received. “They only focused on the ones who had money and because I lacked money I had to suffer,” she said. She said because she could not pay for soap and plastic sheeting, she was abandoned for two hours while in labor, during which her husband desperately collected money from their community. Eventually a midwife appeared. “I heard the baby, but then it died,” she said.
Another pregnant woman waited for treatment at PCMH for almost three days, sleeping on the ground, before she was finally seen by healthcare providers. Her condition at that point required major surgery, but it was too late to save her baby. The doctor who did her cesarean section told her that the baby had died because of her delayed care, which she attributes to her inability to pay. “He was so angry,” she said. “He said it was the fault of PCMH that my baby died.”
All women interviewed said that fees levied by hospital staff, which are often indistinguishable from opportunistically solicited bribes, determined their access to and the timeliness and quality of the care they received. They said the demands were often exorbitant and highly coercive and often made while they were under extreme physical and mental duress. The women and their families had no access to a complaints system or other form of accountability or redress.
Maternal mortality rates remain high in Sierra Leone despite a 70 percent decline between 2013 and 2023, falling from what was once believed to be the highest in the world. The under-5 mortality rate, the probability that a newborn will die before reaching age 5, was among the highest in the world in 2024.
Sierra Leone has acknowledged the urgency of improving the quality of maternal health care and has created training on respectful maternity care, which some healthcare providers interviewed said had reduced harmful practices. The Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, under the Ministry of Justice, has also acted to reduce medical corruption in public healthcare facilities.
In 2010, the government announced a policy, the Free Health Care Initiative, requiring free health care for pregnant and lactating women and children under 5. Around the same time, Sierra Leone also barred traditional birth attendants from assisting home deliveries. But women and healthcare providers interviewed said the program was a “ghost” or “mirage” and that all the women had paid for some aspect of their care.
Human Rights Watch found that the government’s inadequate financial support of the public healthcare system drives many abuses. As many as 50 percent of Sierra Leone’s public healthcare workers are unpaid volunteers. Public healthcare facilities face chronic shortages of even basic healthcare commodities, including essential medicines. All healthcare facilities Human Rights Watch visited had major gaps, pressing patients to use commodities purchased by providers.
Sierra Leone is a very low-income country, but it can do more to meet its right to health obligations including its laudable goal of achieving universal health coverage, Human Rights Watch said. Publicly acknowledging the human rights harm including obstetric violence should be an important first step. The government also needs to procure needed drugs and other commodities and reduce the number of volunteer health workers. Women and their families also need accessible complaints systems and effective redress mechanisms when abusive treatment occurs in public healthcare facilities.
Other countries and international institutions should take action to help ensure that Sierra Leone’s high international debt repayments do not undermine its ability to raise and allocate public financial resources toward the realization of human rights, including maternal and newborn healthcare.
“Without action, Sierra Leone’s significant progress in reducing maternal deaths is at risk,” Wheeler said. “But this is not just about public health statistics. The government should listen to the stories and experiences of women and recognize how obstetric violence has caused deep harm to girls and women’s rights.”
Brazil: Serious Investigative Failures in Deadly Rio Raid
(São Paulo) – Police have failed to take crucial investigative steps to determine the circumstances of the killing of at least 121 people, including 4 police officers, during a raid in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. The raid affected low-income, primarily Black neighborhoods.
Police did not preserve crime scenes for analysis, a very important step to determine the circumstances of death. A Rio de Janeiro forensic expert told Human Rights Watch that to their knowledge, forensic experts—who are part of the civil police in Rio de Janeiro state—have not conducted a crime scene analysis in any of the killings. A state prosecutor said their office is waiting to confirm, but that they have the same understanding.
“The families of the people killed in the October 28 raid, including those of police officers, deserve to know the circumstances of their loved ones’ deaths,” said César Muñoz, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch. “We are very concerned that crucial investigative steps were not taken and that important evidence may have already been lost.”
In the early hours of October 28, about 2,500 heavily armed military and civil police, backed by armored vehicles and helicopters, entered the vast Alemão and Penha neighborhoods, targeting one of the most powerful drug-trafficking groups in Brazil. Intense shootouts ensued, lasting hours.
Later that day, officials said that 64 people had been killed, including 4 police officers. The next day, residents found scores of additional bodies in a wooded area.
The military police secretary said in a news conference that police had pushed members of the criminal group toward the wooded area, which police knew gang members used as an escape route. At the top of hills there, the military police’s elite unit, known as BOPE, had established what the secretary described as a “wall” with agents waiting for the fleeing alleged gang members.
A resident told Brazilian press that her son sent her his location and said he wanted to turn himself in, but he was afraid that police would kill him. His body was found in the wooded area.
The forensic expert said they believed that police officers had recovered the weapons that were in the hands of the people killed there and left.
On the morning of October 29, residents went to the wooded area and recovered scores of bodies, which they moved to a square in the Penha neighborhood. Reporters also reached the wooded area and found important unguarded evidence, including blood spatters, bullet casings, and clothing.
“We recognize the inherent difficulties of a wooded area, but the lack of control over the preservation of the site is surprising,” the Rio de Janeiro state attorney general said.
The civil police secretary, head of the state force tasked with investigating crimes, said they had opened an investigation into the people who moved the bodies for possible tampering with evidence and accused them of removing clothing from the dead. Yet residents were only able to reach the bodies because police failed to protect the site of the shooting, Human Rights Watch said.
The forensic expert told Human Rights Watch that civil police chiefs did not deploy forensic experts to conduct crime scene analysis. Crime scene analysis should be carried out even if a body has been removed, as there can be additional evidence at the site.
Furthermore, forensic experts were not sent to the square to which the residents had moved scores of bodies, the forensic expert said. This was an important additional failure of the investigation, Human Rights Watch said.
Forensic experts should have been at the square to take photographs and collect evidence, including gunshot residue samples, which can show whether the person fired a weapon. This residue becomes lost with the handling of a body, such as during transportation.
Firefighters collected the bodies from the square and took them to the morgue. Medical examiners are conducting autopsies, yet there are concerns about limited personnel and infrastructure, as well as chronic underinvestment in the state’s forensic services.
The state Public Defender’s Office said civil police did not allow its staff to be present during the autopsies. Several civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, asked Rio de Janeiro’s attorney general on October 30 to ensure that a victims’ representative was present during the autopsies. That has not been done.
The Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office said it had deployed its forensic experts and a prosecutor to the morgue.
Police said they had seized 118 weapons. The weapons should have been kept in a strict chain of custody in sealed bags and sent to forensic analysis for fingerprint and ballistic analysis. Instead, civil police presented the weapons to the press. Television reports show police and even reporters handling guns and other apprehended equipment without gloves.
In a 2017 ruling on a case in Rio de Janeiro, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Brazil to ensure that police abuses are investigated by “an independent body, distinct from the police force involved in the incident…assisted by police, forensic and administrative personnel unrelated to the law enforcement body to which those who are possibly involved belong.”
The Brazilian Supreme Court has ruled that the Public Prosecutor’s Office should lead investigations whenever there is “suspicion” of the involvement of law enforcement agents in an unlawful killing. The Supreme Court’s decision emphasized the importance of properly preserving the crime scene to collect evidence at the site.
The court also ordered Rio de Janeiro police to use body cameras. But the military police secretary told reporters that the batteries may have run out during the operation and that “images may have been lost.”
Resolution 310, adopted by the National Council of Prosecutors on April 29, 2025, established that the Public Prosecutor’s Office should open criminal investigations into all killings by police. It said they can be assisted by forensic experts separate from the law enforcement force under investigation. The resolution states that prosecutors should ensure the integrity of the chain of custody of evidence and that investigations should abide by the Minnesota Protocol, a set of international guidelines which the Supreme Court also mentioned in its decision.
On October 30, the Justice Ministry announced it would send 20 federal police forensic experts to help with crime scene and ballistics analysis as well as autopsies.
In 2024, Rio de Janeiro police killed 703 people, official data show. They killed another 470 from January through August 2025. Of those killed in 2024, 86 percent were Black.
“Brazilian authorities should ensure a prompt, thorough, and independent investigation of each of the killings as well as the decisions and planning that led to such a disastrous operation,” Muñoz said. “This case also highlights the urgent need for Rio de Janeiro’s governor to introduce a bill to separate forensic services from the civil police and to invest in independent, high-quality forensic analysis, a key part of any criminal investigation, not just in cases of police killings.”
Afghan Women’s Return to Football a Human Rights Victory
When the former Afghan Women's National Football Team, now known as Afghan Women United, took the field this week in Morocco for their first games in four years, they didn't just play a match; they returned from exile, from dispossession, and from a system that sought to erase them.
Their return to compete after the Taliban banned all sports for women and girls is a true victory for human rights.
Even before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Afghan women athletes faced death threats for representing their country. But once back in power, the Taliban systematically shut all women and girls out of sports. They shuttered training centers and banned competitions. Women athletes had to destroy evidence of their athletic lives, burying uniforms and trophies. For many, sports had been their pathway to leadership, education, employment, dignity, and joy.
The players had to flee the country and make new lives for themselves abroad as refugees. They rebuilt their team, while shouldering the dreams of their former teammates in Afghanistan suffering under the Taliban’s repression.
The Sport & Rights Alliance and Human Rights Watch reported how FIFA’s nonrecognition of the Afghan women’s team effectively exported the Taliban’s repressive policies abroad and denied Afghan women athletes their right to compete, even outside Afghanistan.
But after four years of seeking official recognition, the players’ determination has forced FIFA to allow the team to compete.
“Playing for my country is one of the ways I can stand up for the girls back in Afghanistan,” said Fatima Foladi, who played on Afghanistan’s Under-15 and Under-19 national teams. “My dream is to be reunited with my teammates from all over the world, to play with them again and bring back the football dreams we had when we lived back home.”
FIFA has not yet formally recognized the Afghan players as the women’s national team, and they should do so. FIFA and other sport federations including the International Cricket Council need to stand with Afghan women athletes, rather than those who seek to exclude them from sports.
To see the team rebuilt and competing again gives hope for future generations of Afghan women and girls that they too can reclaim their rights, not only in sports but in all aspects of their lives.