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UN Should Protect its Long Underfunded Human Rights Pillar
The United Nations leadership has launched a major reform plan to make the cash-strapped world body more efficient and cost-effective. Unfortunately, it has offered little on how this will impact the UN’s already understaffed and underfunded human rights work and the victims it is intended to help.
The UN’s worsening financial crisis is largely due to the failure of some member states, including the United States and China, to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time. The Trump administration, which has gutted its foreign aid program budget, has halted most of its obligatory payments to the UN, while China has been paying extremely late.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “UN80” reform initiative, named to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the UN’s founding this year, is intended to address this liquidity crisis, but its impact will be severe. The package’s proposed 2026 budget calls for an average of 15 percent reductions in expenditures, including nearly 20 percent in staff cuts.
The UN secretariat has suggested one of its problems is that it has too many mandates, including on human rights. In a September 2025 report to the UN General Assembly, Guterres referred to the “proliferation of mechanisms” related to human rights, which he said has led to “fragmentation, duplication and competition for resources.”
UN member states create human rights mechanisms in response to crises. In the face of widespread atrocities in Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and elsewhere, for example, independent UN investigations were established to document abuses and support accountability. Many of these investigations are already struggling to function with shoestring staffs and a fraction of their budgeted funding.
For years, Russia, China, Iran and other governments with poor human rights records have also sought to defund UN human rights mechanisms in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, which is currently discussing the 2026 budget.
Cutting or merging crucial human rights mandates won’t solve the UN’s liquidity crisis—human rights accounts for less than 1 percent of total UN expenditures. But it will hurt victims of abuse by signaling to those responsible that scrutiny is being cut back. The UN leadership and its member states cannot let the opponents of human rights win.
Cambodia: Returned Migrant Workers Face Hunger, Joblessness
(Bangkok) – The Cambodian government is failing to provide support to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers with microfinance debts who returned from Thailand because of hostilities in mid-2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
Even before the border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, from July 24-28, Cambodian officials encouraged migrant workers in Thailand to return home because of rising tensions, and more than 900,000 have done so. The government’s promises of jobs and other support have not materialized for most though, and many are under pressure to repay microfinance loans they took before seeking work in Thailand. The government should assist returned migrant workers to find jobs in Cambodia and adopt measures to provide meaningful debt relief to them and other Cambodians.
“The Cambodian government has an obligation to assist the migrant workers its officials encouraged to return from Thailand because of discrimination and recent hostilities,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should ensure that predatory microfinance institutions are not putting improper pressure on returned migrants and other marginalized Cambodians who are struggling to feed their families.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 56 former migrant workers in Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province who returned from Thailand between May and September.
The Cambodian government has long failed to ensure the rights to an adequate standard of living, education, and health care, compelling many families to obtain predatory microfinance loans. The return of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers because of hostilities with Thailand and the promises of support from the Cambodian government have made their already tenuous situation even more difficult, Human Rights Watch said.
In May, tensions escalated at the Thai-Cambodia border. On June 14, Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen called on all Cambodians working in Thailand to return home to avoid expulsion or mistreatment in Thailand, calling it a “real and inevitable risk.” Prime Minister Hun Manet, Hun Sen’s son, said the government was prepared to facilitate repatriation, with the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training pledging more than 70,000 jobs for returned migrants and the Ministry of Economy and Finance ready to offer a “range of economic and social intervention packages aimed at improving their daily lives.”
On June 23, Thailand ordered the closure of all land crossings with Cambodia, except for migrant workers returning to Cambodia.
Migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they returned to Cambodia due to discrimination and harassment in Thailand, as well as the Cambodian government’s promises of employment and social assistance. But many said that once back in Cambodia, they have been skipping meals and forgoing medical care to make repayments on microfinance loans they incurred before going abroad. In 2023, the average Cambodian household held more debt than they spent for the year.
A 17-year-old who had worked for two years in Thailand said she had dropped out of school and migrated to help her mother repay a microfinance loan. She said that after fighting between Thailand and Cambodia began, her Thai employers would regularly verbally harass her: “I would cry every day because of the bad treatment at work.”
Despite government promises, returned migrant workers said that there were very few jobs available once they got back home. Some travelled to find work in the capital, Phnom Penh, hundreds of kilometers away from their homes in provinces along the Thai-Cambodia border, but few reportedly found employment.
A 32-year-old woman who tried to get a job at a Cambodian garment factory after returning from Thailand said she did not have the necessary experience. “I took a three-day skills test, and I didn’t pass because I didn’t have the skills to work and sew the garments,” she said. “They want skilled workers, and we don’t have the skills.”
Many returned migrants have loans from banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs). For years, Cambodian banks and MFIs have engaged in predatory lending, causing a household debt crisis, and pressure to repay debts often contributes to the decision to migrate to Thailand for work. Cambodia has the most microcredit debt per capita anywhere in the world.
A 2019 report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified microfinance debt as a growing driver of migration from Cambodia, and Cambodia’s microfinance sector has grown rapidly since then. The Cambodian Development Resource Institute (CDRI) reported that one-third of returned migrant workers are from households that hold formal loans ranging from US$5,000 to US$8,000, several times larger than Cambodia’s annual median per-capita income.
A 41-year-old woman who had lived in Thailand for 10 years working in construction in Bangkok said that she now had to balance repaying her loans with paying for health care and her children’s education. “We have to decide between food, making MFI payments, and whether our kids can still afford to go to school,” she said. Her household used to have three people working in Thailand but now all have returned, and the family has cut back to two meals a day. She said that if they miss their monthly loan repayment of more than $100, they will lose the land they pledged as collateral for the loan.
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Cambodia is a party, governments are obligated to take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, to progressively realize the human right to an adequate standard of living. This includes the obligation to protect people from conduct by third parties, such as predatory microfinance institutions, that would prevent the fulfillment of this right. Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, private companies also have responsibilities to respect human rights and to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for practices that have harmed people.
The Cambodian government should take prompt action to uphold the rights of returned migrant workers, including by following through on its pledges to assist them in finding employment. The government should also implement more effective measures to protect all Cambodians, including returned migrant workers, from predatory debt collection practices and the potential human rights harms of debt servicing.
This could include the restructuring of loans for returned migrant workers and others affected by the Thai-Cambodia border conflict, who face extreme economic hardship. The government needs to enforce penalties for aggressive debt collection practices and ensure that all microfinance institutions and lenders follow ethical standards for loan recovery.
The government also needs to address the broader situation that compels many families in Cambodia to take on considerable debt, including by removing barriers to health care and free education. The Cambodian government should allocate appropriate resources to both sectors and set budgetary spending targets aligned with international benchmarks.
“The situation is dire for these returned migrant workers, who are rapidly eroding their savings to survive and pay off their debts,” Lau said. “Cambodian authorities need to act swiftly to protect Cambodians from microfinance lenders and financial institutions and support workers who returned from Thailand at their urging.”
Fear of Violence, Discrimination Drove Migrant Workers to Return
Many migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they returned to Cambodia because they experienced or feared discrimination in Thailand, or feared violence, as tensions rose at the border.
A woman, 44, who had worked in Thailand for more than 20 years, said that after the border conflict began on July 24, everyday life in Thailand became more difficult. She recalled being told, “Why don’t you go back to Cambodia and pick up the bones of the dead Cambodians?”
“My husband and I could not handle the discrimination, so we returned,” she said. “People in the market didn’t want to sell us food because we are Cambodian. Every time we went to work, we felt this discrimination.”
A man, 30, who had worked in Thailand for 10 years reported witnessing violence against Cambodian migrant workers. “A group of Thai men, around 50, were on foot and motorbikes looking for Khmer to attack,” he said. “One of the people in my village was also beaten and chased [until] I was about 10 meters away. The couple wanted help but there were so many Thais beating them, no one dared to help.”
Thai media reported several assaults on Cambodian workers, as well as social media posts of a Thai ultra-royalist activist talking about Cambodian workers who were ungrateful and taking jobs from Thai citizens.
Returned migrants said that Thai police and authorities also discriminated against Cambodian workers. A woman, 37, who worked in construction in Bangkok said that Thai police would ask migrant workers, “Do you want to go home to Cambodia, or do you all want to go to prison together?”
A man, 18, who also worked in construction in the Thai capital, recalled Thai police going door-to-door to check visas and passports of Cambodian migrant workers, asking for money or detaining people who could not pay. Some migrant workers reported being required to pay bribes to Thai police or soldiers when they crossed back into Cambodia.
The border between Cambodia and Thailand has remained shut, and many workers fear a return to Thailand would mean further discrimination or even violence from Thai authorities or employers. Thai media reported that about 300 Cambodian migrant workers were arrested between mid-June and September for attempting to cross into Thailand without permission. Other Cambodian migrant workers have reported staying in Thailand despite the situation due to the economic pressures stemming from loans, including bank and microfinance loans from Cambodian financial institutions.
After border tensions again increased in early November, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on November 10 announced the suspension of a policy that allows about 100,000 migrant workers from Cambodia to stay in Thailand for an additional year after their work permits expire. This has left the legal status of Cambodian migrant workers remaining in Thailand in limbo.
Promises of Jobs Unmet
Some migrant workers said that Cambodian government promises of jobs and social assistance also encouraged them to return home. On June 14, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet posted on his Facebook page that the government was ready to handle a mass repatriation of workers, and specifically mentioned that the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training would help find jobs for returned migrants due to a shortage of tens of thousands of workers in the country.
Upon returning to Cambodia, many migrants found that there were few jobs available, and those that did exist were either too far from their homes or a poor match for their skills. A woman, 53, returned to Cambodia due to fears of violence and because she read news reports that the Cambodian government had jobs for returning migrant workers. “But when we returned, there were no jobs for us,” she said.
A man, 28, said that getting hired at a garment factory in Cambodia was difficult because the jobs were far away, and returned migrant workers often lacked any connections that could help them secure employment. Others reported that the costs of transportation and housing in Phnom Penh and the length of time it would most likely take to find a job would make it too expensive for many returned migrants to seek employment in the capital.
The CDRI reported that the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training claimed there were 190,000 jobs available for returned migrant workers. Even if true, with more than 900,000 migrant workers returning, more than 700,000 workers would not be covered.
The CDRI further noted a mismatch between the available jobs and returned workers, with the majority of migrants returning to border provinces, such as Banteay Meanchey and Battambang, while most of the available jobs were in Phnom Penh. In addition, more than half of returned migrant workers had been working in construction or agriculture in Thailand, while most of the available jobs in Cambodia were in other sectors.
In October, a group of local civil society organizations called on the government to address these issues through improved social security, especially unemployment benefits, large-scale and gender-sensitive employment programs, and debt relief, among other measures.
International human rights law provides everyone the right to social security, including during periods of unemployment. Currently, nobody who is unemployed in Cambodia has access to social security, based on the International Labour Organization’s data.
Debt Pressures
As Human Rights Watch has previously reported, Cambodian households often take out loans from paying supplementary school fees to affording out-of-pocket payments for essential medicines, and other human rights. But when household income must be diverted to service debt, it can also limit the fulfillment of rights like health, education, and an adequate standard of living, which includes the rights to food, housing, and water.
Like other Cambodians living in rural areas or in poverty, many returned migrant workers are in significant debt to microfinance institutions for loans they took out years ago.
Click to expand Image © Human Rights WatchWhile the Cambodian government has adopted laws and policies to regulate MFIs, they remain largely unenforced, allowing predatory lending and collection practices to persist.
In correspondence with Human Rights Watch from July, the National Bank of Cambodia, which has the authority to sanction and suspend or revoke licenses of MFIs, did not provide any instances in which it had penalized or sanctioned MFIs for any violation of consumer protection or regulatory laws or policies. Rather, the government has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for voluntary measures and self-regulation.
On July 30, the National Bank of Cambodia issued new guidelines to financial institutions that “encouraged” them to enact unspecified “relief” for returned migrant workers. None of the people interviewed identified any meaningful relief measures by microfinance institutions or banks.
A woman, 18, who was until recently working at an agricultural factory in Thailand said she moved abroad after dropping out of school in grade 9 because her family had to sell the motorbike that she was using to ride to school to repay their microfinance loans. She said that since returning to Cambodia in July, she eats about half as much meat as she used to at each meal and is worried about not being able to pay for treatment for her mother’s medical condition.
A woman, 35, who used to work on a farm in Thailand before the fighting began, took a microfinance loan to build a home, but now struggles to juggle repayments along with food and medical costs. “I have to cut down on my food a lot ... we are replacing meat and protein with more rice now,” she said. “Credit officers come to my home to pressure me to make payments.… I am afraid they will take my land. We are afraid of the MFIs more than we are of the police.”
A woman, 47, who has both microfinance debt and informal loans, expressed fears about repaying her debts: “I’m willing to go without eating to pay back my loans out of fear of losing my land that my home is on.”
These pressures have led returned migrant workers to take on more debt to make ends meet and avoid forced land sales, a common practice of credit officers who pressure borrowers to sell their land without using the legal foreclosure method when they are unable to repay their loans. A man, 55, with a microfinance loan who had pledged his land as collateral, said: “When I am late on repayments, I walk around my village looking to borrow money from people out of fear of losing my land and my home on it ... I worry every day about my microfinance loan repayments; I worry all the time. Whatever I have I will sell, because I am worried about them taking my land.”
Healthcare costs put over-indebted households under further financial strain, with 61 percent of all healthcare costs in Cambodia covered out-of-pocket, by far the highest percentage in the region and among the highest in the world.
A woman, 33, who had recently returned after working in Thailand for four years, said that she initially left Cambodia because she could not earn enough to repay a microfinance loan, which she needed partly to pay for treating her mother’s chronic illness.
“When we are late, credit officers will come and harass us to make payments, and we would avoid staying home to not have them pressure us,” she said. “There have been maybe three or four families in my village who have lost land because they didn’t pay MFI loans. The families who lost land had to go work in Thailand, but now we don’t know where they are, because they have nothing to come back to.”
Two former construction workers in Bangkok—a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman—had each taken out microfinance loans to cover healthcare expenses for family members, using land that their houses are on as collateral. They said they ate less than they did before returning from Thailand because they were worried about losing their land. “I repay because I’m worried that they [credit officers] will take my land away,” the woman said. “I see on Facebook that people have lost their land, so I stress about it.”
The Cambodian Government’s Inadequate Response
There are few options available for returned migrant workers who cannot find work and are burdened with heavy microfinance debt.
The Cambodian government should take prompt action to uphold the rights of returned migrant workers, including by following through on its pledges to assist them in finding employment. The government should also take additional measures to implement more effective consumer protection measures to protect all Cambodians, including returned migrant workers, from predatory debt collection practices and the potential human rights harms of debt servicing. This could include the restructuring of loans for returned migrant workers and others affected by the Thai-Cambodia border conflict, who face extreme economic hardship. The government needs to prohibit and enforce penalties for aggressive debt collection practices and ensure that all microfinance institutions and lenders follow ethical standards for loan recovery.
The government also needs to address the broader situation that compels many families in Cambodia to take on considerable debt, including by removing barriers to health care and free education. The Cambodian government should allocate appropriate resources to both sectors and set budgetary spending targets aligned with international benchmarks.
Yemeni Government Inaction on Gender Equality Speaks Louder than Words
By a Research Assistant, Middle East and North Africa Division
On November 23, Yemen’s President Rashad al-Alimi stated in a cabinet meeting that “it is unacceptable for the Yemeni government to remain without a single ministerial portfolio led by a woman in a country where women make up more than half of the population.” Al-Alimi added that women “possess the expertise and competence that make their absence a legal and institutional flaw that must be corrected.”
Yemeni Prime Minister Salem Saleh bin Buraik offered a similar sentiment in June 2025, praising “the remarkable role played by Yemeni women amid current challenges, affirming the government’s commitment to strengthening their participation in decision-making and ensuring a meaningful, effective partnership on the ground.”
The United Nations Development Programme noted in 2021 that “Yemeni women remain significantly under-represented in public and elected office holding only 4.1 per cent of managerial and decision-making positions …” Despite the repeated statements, women’s marginalization from government decision-making remains largely unchanged.
In 2020, the former Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalek formed his second cabinet without any women ministers—the same cabinet that remains in place today. Abdulmalek’s previous cabinet included only two women out of 36 ministers; since 2014 Yemeni women’s representation at the cabinet level has been strikingly low. Beyond ministerial [or cabinet] roles, women’s participation in decision-making should be actively supported in local government, private sector initiatives, and civil society.
Women in Yemen face continued challenges and risks as warring parties continue to target them. In March 2024, Human Rights Watch published a report documenting the parties’ violations and restrictions against women stating that “the restrictions have harmed women’s ability to access work, education, and health care, and are a form of discrimination.” The Yemeni authorities have failed to fully address restrictions on women’s movement, even within their own areas of control.
Yemeni women are also victims of political violence, including assassinations. On September 18, 2025, Ms. Iftihan al-Mashhari, head of the Cleaning and Improvement Fund, was assassinated in Taiz city by armed assailants.
While Human Rights Watch welcomes the recognition of women’s importance by the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, the government needs to translate this rhetoric into reality, including by expanding women’s role in decision-making at all levels of government and by addressing the mobility challenges and restrictions women face. The government, as well as the UN, should also ensure that women are adequately included in peace talks and any transitional justice efforts. Beyond simple inclusion in visible roles, the government and its partners should address the underlying structural barriers, including discrimination that women face, across all levels of society.
Nigeria: Renewed Spate of School Kidnappings
(Abuja) – Nigerian authorities should act urgently to secure the safe release of students and teachers recently kidnapped in the country’s northwest and take concrete steps to protect schools and communities from further attacks, Human Rights Watch said today. The groups responsible for the kidnappings should immediately release the students and teachers they are holding captive.
On November 18, 2025, 25 schoolgirls were kidnapped by unidentified armed men from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi state. Just three days later, on November 21, 303 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped at St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Niger state.
“These mass school kidnappings once again lay bare the deliberate targeting of students, teachers, and schools in Nigeria’s deteriorating security environment,” said Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The deepening crisis underscores the government’s failure to protect vulnerable communities.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nigeria has in recent years been plagued by violent attacks and kidnappings by criminal gangs colloquially called “bandits.” These groups have carried out kidnappings for ransom, including of schoolchildren in Nigeria’s northwestern and central states. On November 18, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or JNIM), which is active throughout the Sahel, claimed responsibility for an attack on a military patrol in Kwara state on October 29, apparently its first incursion into Nigerian territory.
Human Rights Watch spoke with parents of two of the girls abducted in Kebbi state. Isa Nazifi, whose 13-year-old daughter Khadija Nazifi, a junior secondary school student, was among those abducted, said: “I immediately took a motorbike and rushed to the school, where I found my second daughter, also a student at the school. She told me Khadija had been taken. We are extremely worried. My wife is in tears. I will stay here at the school until my daughter returns. If I go home without her, what will I tell my family?”
Malam Sani Zimri, whose daughter, Salima Sani Zimri, is a senior secondary school student who was also abducted, said he had heard rumors from other parents of a possible attack by bandits the week before the incident: “We developed confidence after seeing military operatives surveilling the area, only to realize that there were no security operatives on the premises for the entire three hours that the incident occurred.”
The 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction in Borno state by the armed Islamist group Boko Haram provoked global outrage. Since then, a series of school kidnappings across northern Nigeria has left families traumatized and entire communities living in fear that if their children went to school, they might never return home. In 2016, Human Rights Watch reported that Boko Haram had similarly abducted over 300 children from the Zanna Mobarti Primary School in Damasak, Borno state, in 2015.
In December 2020, more than 300 boys were kidnapped from a boarding school in Kankara, Katsina state. In early 2021, students were again taken in major incidents in Kagara, Niger state, and Jangebe, Zamfara state, followed by the kidnapping of over 100 studentsfrom Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state. The spate of kidnappings continued in 2024 with students taken from schools in Kuriga, Kaduna state, and Gidan Bakuso, Sokoto state.
Nigerian authorities have failed to apply lessons from previous attacks to create early warning systems and other measures that could prevent these atrocities, Human Rights Watch said.
In response to the recent kidnappings, the government has promised to rescue the kidnapped students and hold those responsible accountable. President Bola Tinubu directed security agencies to act swiftly to bring the girls back while also urging local communities to share intelligence.
The authorities have also shut down 47 federal secondary schools known as Federal Unity Colleges, and some states including Katsina, Taraba, and Niger have also closed schools or restricted school activities, particularly boarding institutions. While these measures are aimed at protecting students, they have disrupted learning for thousands of children, denying them access to education and the social and psychological support schools provide. Without concrete measures to provide alternative learning opportunities to ensure continuity in their education, the students are at risk of falling behind academically and facing long term setbacks in their development.
Nigeria is a signatory to the Safe Schools Declaration, committing the government to take concrete steps to protect education during conflict and insecurity. Yet kidnappings have continued at a relentless pace and scale. On November 19, the Nigerian Senate ordered a full-scale investigationinto the implementation of the government’s Safe School Fund, questioning why money earmarked for protecting schools has failed to prevent recurring attacks. The government should move with urgency to advance a proposal to introduce legislation to implement the Safe Schools Declaration, Human Rights Watch said.
“Children in Nigeria have the right to go to school without fearing for their lives,” Ewang said. “Nigerian authorities should prioritize the safe release of the kidnapped children and their teachers and bring those responsible for their abduction to justice.”
Myanmar is Safe?
Is it safe to return to a country wracked by an abusive armed conflict, widespread atrocities, and targeted ethnic violence, including war crimes and crimes against humanity?
The Trump administration says it is. On November 24, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued notice of termination of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for people from Myanmar, effective January 26.
TPS status protects non-US citizens from deportation to countries facing armed conflict or other crises making return unsafe. There are almost 4,000 people from Myanmar designated for TPS, and many may now become subject to arrest and deportation.
The notice acknowledges that Myanmar “continues to face humanitarian challenges,” but claims termination is justified due to “improvements” in “governance and stability,” including the military junta’s revocation of a state of emergency and plans for “free and fair” elections starting in December.
Extensive reporting on Myanmar contradicts almost every assertion in the notice. Myanmar’s supposedly revoked state of emergency in July was immediately replaced with a new state of emergency and martial law in scores of townships across nine states and regions. Foreign governments and United Nations officials widely understand the junta’s planned “elections” are a fraudulent ploy for international legitimacy.
The Homeland Security notice is directly contradicted by what other US officials openly admit: “For years… the military regime in Myanmar has carried out atrocities against its own citizens, including… appalling human rights violations and abuses,” wrote the US Mission to the UN just days ago, in a statement supporting a new UN resolution on Myanmar’s rights record. The resolution—which the US supported—specifically stated that the military’s abuses make Myanmar “unsuitable for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of all refugees and forcibly displaced persons.”
Military atrocities and attacks on civilians in Myanmar have not diminished and are documented daily in numerous UN investigations and guidance papers and outlined in reporting by the US State Department and other governments, media, and human rights groups. Extensive abuses have also been acknowledged in recent statements by congressional leaders from both parties. The UN has reported thousands of civilians killed by the military this year and the ongoing displacement of over 3.5 million people.
Homeland Security’s misstatements in revoking TPS for people from Myanmar are so egregious that it is hard to imagine who would believe them. Perhaps no one was expected to.
US State Department Debases Human Rights Diplomacy
The US State Department’s annual human rights report was created to give Congress a clear accounting of how other governments treat their people, measured against international human rights law. Recent media reports indicate that the Trump administration is turning that purpose on its head by mandating reporting in support of ideological priorities at odds with governments’ human rights obligations.
The 2024 version of the State Department report issued by the Trump administration in August already removed or significantly reduced sections on political freedoms, corruption, gender-based violence, and LGBTQ+ persecution. New guidance sent in November to US embassy personnel worldwide looks set to do even more damage.
According to the Washington Post, embassies will be instructed to document whether governments are implementing various policies the Trump administration opposes as though they were human rights violations. In reality, though, many of these targeted policies are important efforts to support and improve respect for human rights. These include government policies to improve access to abortion services and gender-affirming care, as well as efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
These changes would translate parts of the administration’s rights-abusing domestic policy agenda into US foreign policy.
This isn’t just about political slogans or ideological debates. US diplomatic pressure around these issues can influence whether people can exercise their rights, access essential services, and live with dignity. In many countries, restrictions on reproductive health care violate the rights of women and girls, while others on evidence-based gender-affirming careviolate the rights of transgender people, and attacks on inclusivity policies undermine the rights of marginalized people.
As the US government turns against key facets of international human rights protection, other governments should step forward. The stakes are high: when a country with global reach like the US warps its idea of rights to fit with a political agenda that undermines them, it risks weakening protections for people in every part of the world.
COP30 Fails to Confront Drivers of Climate Crisis
In Belem, Brazil, as the United Nations climate summit (COP30) convened, I marched alongside thousands of activists and Indigenous peoples calling on governments to urgently address climate change and protect human rights.
As previous host countries restricted such demonstrations, the November 15 march was exhilarating. However, despite clear—and powerful—calls from civil society for the summit to take bolder steps on climate change and to uphold human rights, COP30 failed to make progress on two key issues: fossil fuels and deforestation.
Human Rights Watch has researched how communities near coal, oil, and gas sites face severe harms, and how Indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities continue to face violence and land grabs. Ahead of the summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urged countries to agree on “roadmaps” to transition away from fossil fuels and to end the deforestation that has been disastrous for the country’s Indigenous communities. During negotiations, more than 80 countries—led by Colombia and supported by climate-vulnerable states—pushed for a roadmap on fossil fuels to be reflected in the final negotiated text.
But this momentum was opposed by producer countries including India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and the final text does not mention fossil fuels and avoids any concrete commitments or deadlines towards a phaseout. Similarly, the COP30 final text omitted a deforestation roadmap or binding commitments to protect forests, falling short of scientific evidence and the demands of frontline communities.
The most promising initiatives now appear outside of the formal COP process. While details remain limited, the Brazilian presidency announced the creation of two roadmaps: one for phasing out fossil fuels and another on ending deforestation. The next concrete step on the phaseout of fossil fuels is a conference to be co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in April 2026.Within the COP30 process, countries agreed to establish a mechanism on the just transition, committed to tripling adaptation finance by 2035, and took the unprecedented step of recognizing “the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge” in the final COP30 decision.
But for a summit intended to advance global efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the failure to make any tangible progress on fossil fuels and deforestation means COP30 fell far short of what is needed to protect people and the planet.
New Data on Censorship and Harassment of Brazil’s Educators
A new quantitative study from National Observatory on Violence Against Educators represents one of the most comprehensive efforts to date to measure the nature and scale of censorship and harassment of educators across Brazil.
While previous analyses have documented the legal and political tactics to undermine or prohibit human rights education, this new report offers a nationally representative dataset showing the problem’s breadth: in every region of the country, at least 90 percent of educators reported directly experiencing or indirectly hearing of acts of censorship or harassment.
The research draws on 3,012 responses collected through an online survey between May and September 2024 from educators in all regions and across levels of education. The sample was weighted using official employment data to approximate the regional distribution of the national education workforce. Most respondents (~70 percent) worked in basic education, and 88 percent were employed in public schools.
Nearly half of respondents said that, since 2010, they have experienced four or more incidents restricting their pedagogical autonomy, including school officials, parents, and political figures intimidating or prohibiting them from teaching topics protected under Brazilian and international human rights law.
Themes commonly targeted include questions of gender and sexuality, categories deliberately reframed by extremist actors as taboo or illegitimate in the classroom. These findings align with the patterns of gender- and sexuality-related harassment Human Rights Watch documented in a 2022 report, where misinformation was weaponized to curtail educators’ teaching of this content.
Among those who reported being directly targeted, 76 percent reported significant negative impacts on their work, while 67 percent reported impacts on their personal lives, including stress, self-censorship, and, in some cases, removal from duties by school authorities or physical aggression by students’ families, other educators, or students, among others. Even educators who only heard of attacks second-hand reported fear and self-silencing, pointing to the collective negative impact of harassment and censorship.
The report identifies spikes in censorship during electoral years, particularly 2018 and 2022, suggesting that schools have become political battlegrounds, with heightened persecution correlating with moments of intensified polarization. These findings should raise alarms for policymakers and civil society as Brazil approaches future electoral cycles.
The study provides essential empirical grounding for understanding the scale and systemic nature of attacks on educational freedom in Brazil. The federal government and local education departments should support educators to ensure that they feel confident and protected when teaching human rights content.
Honduras: Threats to Free, Fair Elections
(Washington, DC) – Escalating political pressure on electoral authorities threatens Hondurans’ right to vote in free and fair elections, Human Rights Watch said today.
Honduras will hold general elections on November 30, 2025, for the president, all 128 National Congress members, and 20 Central American Parliament members. In recent weeks, the Attorney General’s Office has opened criminal investigations targeting top electoral authorities. Meanwhile, deadlock within the National Electoral Council (CNE) has repeatedly delayed awarding contracts to organize the election. Allegations of fraud leveled by President Xiomara Castro, as well as members of opposition parties, also undermine the credibility of the electoral process.
“Allegations of possible fraud, aggressive moves by both prosecutors and the army, and political deadlock in the electoral authority are threatening Hondurans’ right to participate in free and fair elections,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “International election observation missions should closely monitor the process and press Honduran authorities to ensure that election conditions are free and fair.”
Since 2019, the electoral authority has been split between the Electoral Justice Tribunal (TJE), the highest authority on matters of electoral justice, and the CNE, which administers the electoral process. Both institutions are composed of three principal members, elected by a two-thirds vote in Congress. The appointments of members to the council and the tribunal stemmed from a political agreement among the Nacional, Liberal, and Libre parties, the largest in the country, with each securing one seat on each body. In recent months, tensions among the council members have paralyzed the CNE.
On October 29, Attorney General Johel Zelaya announced an investigation into Cossette López, the council member from the Nacional party, accusing her of plotting to manipulate the electoral results. Zelaya cited an audio recording, which López says was manipulated. President Castro described the disputed recordings as part of a “criminal conspiracy aimed at provoking an electoral coup.”
On November 10, prosecutors opened an investigation against two judges from the tribunal, alleging that they acted unlawfully by approving a resolution with just two of the three judges present.
On November 9, the council tested its nationwide system to transmit preliminary election results on election night. Councilor Marlon Ochoa from the Libre Party said the test had failed and that “there is a conspiracy against the electoral process from within the electoral body itself.”
The armed forces joint chiefs of staff chairman asked the council to provide the army with a copy of the presidential vote tally sheet on election day. Ana Paola Hall, the council president, said she rejected this request. The army has the constitutional duty to support the transportation of electoral materials on election day, but does not have any authority to access, count, transmit, or review the results.
On November 20, the armed forces filed a complaint before the Attorney General’s Office seeking to initiate a criminal action for defamation against López.
In this context of growing distrust and allegations of fraud, the role of independent domestic and international election observation missions will be critical to preserving the credibility of the process, Human Rights Watch said.
The Organization of American States observation mission has expressed concern about “frequent actions and statements—practically on a daily basis—that generate uncertainty and destabilize the electoral process” and raised concerns about “excessive judicial intervention” in the elections. The European Union has also deployed an election observation mission to Honduras. On November 18, the EU expressed concern over developments that could undermine Honduras’s electoral institutions ahead of the elections, saying that the authorities and political parties should ensure that electoral bodies can operate independently and transparently.
Brazil: Ensure Justice for Children Killed in Flamengo Fire
(Rio de Janeiro) – Reports that alleged systemic failures at Brazil’s top football club led to the deaths of 10 child athletes in a fire in 2019 raise critical questions about safeguarding and accountability in Brazilian sport, the Sport & Rights Alliance said today.
The acquittal of senior Flamengo club officials on October 21, 2025, was devastating and contradicts evidence of Flamengo’s failure to protect the athletes, victims’ groups said. The Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed an appeal.
For at least four years before the fire, media reported, Flamengo defied local regulations, received multiple fines, and was even sued by state prosecutors in 2015 for poor treatment and substandard living quarters for its youth academy players. In February 2019, five days after the deadly fire, a judge determined that Flamengo had failed to address the suit’s demands and issued an injunction prohibiting children and adolescents from entering the facility. After renewed inspections demonstrating the clubs’ compliance with regulations, in June 2019, the judge allowed the facilities to reopen and closed the civil case.
“The reports of the academy conditions at Flamengo – the most popular and profitable football club in Brazil – are incredibly alarming,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance. “Despite being sued for child protection failures years before the fire, the club was allegedly operating without basic fire permits and housing child athletes in highly flammable containers, with critical structural defects. As Brazil gears up to host the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, this case serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need to strengthen safe sport measures in the country.”
The Associated Press and the New York Times have published detailed allegations of systemic negligence at the facility, which they alleged may have created a death trap for the 10 children, ages 14 to 16, at the Ninho do Urubu academy. As portrayed in a 2024 documentary miniseries from Netflix, the young players were reportedly housed in combustible, temporary containers in a parking lot, with bars on the windows.
The Sport & Rights Alliance wrote to Clube de Regatas do Flamengo on November 12 requesting a response to questions. The club has not responded.
“The fire at Flamengo is not just a tragic accident; it reflects the grave consequences of widespread exploitation and substandard care of youth talent in football academy systems in some parts of the world,” said Alex Phillips, secretary general at FIFPRO, the global football players’ union. “The global industry of elite football depends on young players whose safety is entrusted to academies and clubs such as Flamengo. A failure to achieve justice in this case is a setback for young player safety in Brazil and beyond.”
In October, Brazilian news outlets reported that footage taken by a journalist, Renata Mendonça, exposes precarious conditions of the Flamengo professional women’s team training center. The video shows broken floors, container locker rooms with brown tap water, and a lack of adequate physiotherapy and gym infrastructure. Flamengo has yet to comment on the situation.
“If these allegations are true, the Brazilian government needs to ensure that the club is held accountable for severe negligence and appalling conditions for its youth and women players,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “The families of the victims at Ninho do Urubu have fought tirelessly over the past six years for justice and reform. The global sporting community should listen and act now to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.”
The Alliance stands in full solidarity with the Association of Relatives of Victims of the Ninho do Urubu Fire (Afavinu), who released a statement after the court’s decision highlighting a profound “affront to the memory of the victims and to the feelings of society as a whole.” Families who entrust their children to football academies like Flamengo should be able to trust that not only their training and talent but their safety, accommodations, and human rights are respected and protected, the Alliance said.
In November 2024, Brazil passed a bill requiring sports entities receiving public funding to adopt and respect safeguarding measures, noting that strengthened protections for child and women athletes would be its “legacy” as host of the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
To pursue this legacy, Brazilian government and sports authorities should also ensure justice and remedy for the families of the young Flamengo athletes, and work together to set up an independent national safe sport entity tasked to monitor and receive safeguarding complaints. The right to safety for child and women athletes is nonnegotiable, and sporting organizations have responsibility to protect all in their care.
Seventy-Nine Years Without a Woman Leader at the UN
In February 2026, it will be 80 years since the United Nations selected its first secretary-general, a man. Since then, eight other people have had that job, all men. Surely, it’s long past time a woman held the post.
António Guterres, the current secretary-general, completes his term in December 2026. Maneuvering over his successor is well underway. Also underway is a campaign, by 1 for 8 Billion, for the next secretary-general to be a woman. Several women have put themselves forward.
We are in the midst of a global human rights crisis, especially for women. The UN estimated in 2022 that at the current rate, it would take 300 years to achieve gender equality. But even that now seems overly optimistic. By 2025, the UN was reporting that a quarter of countries were experiencing a backlash against women’s rights.
Authoritarianism is rising, and misogyny is a common tool of authoritarian leaders. Conflict is also rising to levels not seen in this post-World War II era. In the past decade there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of women and girls living in conflict, with devastating consequences, including exacerbating gender inequality.
Women’s full participation in all decision-making is a core UN principle. Adopted in 2000, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security established that women should be full, safe, equal, and meaningful participants in all discussions about their country’s future, including peace talks. In 2024, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women issued guidance on how countries can reach decision-making gender parity and why they are obliged to.
Women’s participation is crucial because women are half the population. It is also especially needed in this period of rising conflict; research shows when women are fully involved peace processes more often lead to agreement, and agreements are more likely to be carried out.
The UN has responsibility for ensuring women’s participation and gender equality. The UN Sustainable Development Goals urge countries to “end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere” by 2030.
Those efforts should include the UN secretary-general selection process. All member states should present and support strong female candidates with a proven track record on human rights. With a diverse candidate pool in place, member states should select the most qualified candidate. In these perilous times we cannot afford an all-men’s club at the top of the UN.
Tunisia: Abusive Prosecutions of Refugee Group
(Beirut) – Five employees of the Tunisian Council for Refugees will go on trial on November 24, 2025, amid a broader crackdown on civil society groups in Tunisia, Human Rights Watch said today. The Tunisian authorities should drop the unfounded charges, release two detained employees, and stop criminalizing the legitimate work of independent groups.
Tunisian authorities shut down the council, froze its bank accounts, and are prosecuting six of its employees for their work assisting asylum seekers and refugees as a partner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The six include the founder and director, Mustapha Djemali, and project manager, Abderrazek Krimi. They face up to 23 years in prison if convicted of the unfounded charges of facilitating the irregular entry and stay of foreign nationals in Tunisia. One of the employees is not yet on trial, pending proceedings before the Cassation Court.
“The Tunisian Council for Refugees carried out essential protection work in support of refugees and asylum seekers, operating legally with international organizations accredited in Tunisia,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Targeting an organization with abusive legal action criminalizes crucial assistance work and leaves asylum seekers without the support they desperately need.”
The trial, before the Tunis Court of First Instance, is the first against a civil society group since the arrests of several nongovernmental organization workers between May and December 2024. It comes amid an unprecedented crackdown on civic space in Tunisia.
The Tunisian Council for Refugees, formed in 2016, provided initial screening of asylum applications for UNHCR. It also provided emergency accommodation and medical assistance for refugees and asylum seekers.
On May 2, 2024, the council published a public tender for Tunisian hotels for these services, causing a backlash on social media and among members of parliament amid an anti-migrant crackdown. The next day, the police searched the council’s headquarters in Tunis, shut down the organization, and arrested Djemali. On May 4, they arrested Krimi. The two have been in pretrial detention since.
On May 7, 2024, a court spokesperson said the public prosecutor’s office had accused the heads of an unnamed organization of “forming a criminal association with the aim of helping people to enter Tunisia” illegally. The accusation is linked to a “call for tenders to Tunisian hotel establishments for the accommodation of African migrants,” which was published “without coordination with the security and administrative authorities.”
That same day, an investigative judge ordered Djemali and Krimi detained pending investigation under articles 38, 39, and 41 of Law No. 40 of 1975 for having “provided information, planned, facilitated or assisted … the illegal entry or exit of a person from the Tunisian territory,” “harbored persons entering or leaving Tunisian territory illegally,” and “participation in an organization or entente” to commit these offenses. Between May and June 2024, the authorities also froze the council’s and Djemali’s and Krimi’s bank accounts.
On April 30, 2025, the investigative judge formally charged the six employees under the 1975 law. On June 3, the Indictment Chamber expanded the charges to include article 42 of the law, which alone carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Human Rights Watch reviewed the judge’s closing order and found the charges to be based soley on the legitimate work of the council, which operated legally in Tunisia and was almost exclusively funded by UNHCR.
Even though the council’s beneficiaries were asylum seekers and refugees registered by UNHCR in Tunisia, the investigative judge found the organization’s activities to constitute supporting migrants without regular status “to ensure their settlement in the country.” The closing order refers to activities such as providing accommodation and cash assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, which are standard UNHCR activities in many countries and often carried out via implementing partners.
Djemali, an 81-year-old Swiss-Tunisian national, was heard only once by the investigative judge during pretrial detention. He has Horton's disease, an inflammation of the arteries, and since September 2024 prison authorities have not provided him with adequate medication despite several requests, his family said. The judge denied six requests for provisional release during his detention, they said.
The abusive prosecutions and shutdown of the Tunisian Council for Refugees is part of a broader crackdown on civil society in Tunisia, Human Rights Watch said. Between May and December 2024, security forces also arrested at least six other workers at nongovernmental organizations in connection with their work combatting discrimination or assisting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. They include Saadia Mosbah, a prominent human rights defender and president of the anti-racism association Mnemty (My Dream); Abdellah Saïd, president of Les Enfants de la Lune (Children of the Moon); Saloua Ghrissa, president of the Association for the Promotion of the Right to Difference; and three current and former employees of the organization Terre d’Asile Tunisie (Tunisia, Land of Asylum). All have been in pretrial detention since.
The authorities have virtually ended assistance and protection for refugees and asylum seekers in Tunisia. In addition to targeting and shutting down organizations providing support, in June 2024 the authorities instructed UNHCR to suspend its processing of asylum applications under the pretext that Tunisia is seeking to establish a national asylum system. The country still lacks a national legal framework for asylum. As a result, asylum seekers have been left in legal limbo without access to international protection, exposing them to risks of arbitrary arrest and expulsion.
Tunisian authorities have also targeted several other civil society organizations with financial or criminal investigations, increased administrative and financial oversight, arbitrary banking restrictions, and temporary suspensions. Since July, at least 15 associations registered in Tunisia have received a court-ordered suspension, some without proper notice.
Tunisia is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which guarantee the rights to freedom of association, to not be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention, and to a fair trial.
The African charter also protects the right to seek and obtain asylum from persecution, and Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution guarantees the right to political asylum. Tunisia is party to both the 1951 UN and 1969 Organization of African Unity refugee conventions, which protect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. It includes a prohibition on penalizing people for irregular entry or stays if they promptly present themselves to authorities, as well as the absolute prohibition on refoulement—that is, the return to a place where they are at risk of persecution.
“Instead of criminalizing associations’ work and imprisoning human rights defenders under spurious pretexts, Tunisian authorities should be working hand in hand with civil society for the benefit of all those in the country,” Khawaja said. “The broad crackdown on civil society harms not only those employed by the targeted organizations but also the many who benefit from their work.”
Philippe Bolopion to Lead Human Rights Watch
(New York) – Philippe Bolopion, a 13-year veteran of Human Rights Watch and a former journalist who has extensively advocated on atrocities in conflict zones, has been named the executive director of Human Rights Watch, the organization announced today. Bolopion rose up through the ranks for more than a decade at Human Rights Watch to hold several senior leadership roles.
“Philippe is a superb choice. He has the strategic vision, the strength of leadership, the ability to represent Human Rights Watch well in all settings, and the values and character around which to build the organization,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch.
Bolopion began his career as a reporter deployed to Kosovo. He covered brutal ethnic violence in the province, the United Nations interim administration mission, and the fall of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who faced war crimes charges. Between 2000 and 2010, he was chief UN correspondent for several French media, including Radio France Internationale (RFI), the French newspaper of record, Le Monde, and the news channel France 24.
“Human Rights Watch has a pivotal role to play in holding perpetrators of crimes to account and promoting peace and justice, and I have no doubt that Philippe will be a vocal and determined advocate on behalf of victims of human rights abuses around the world,” said Dr. Denis Mukwege, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and member of the Elders. “Philippe was a well-known voice on African issues for RFI and has effectively advocated on many of the crises that have affected the African continent.”
As a journalist, Bolopion covered the most consequential crises of the day, including the run-up to the war in Iraq and was deployed to Darfur, Gaza, Lebanon, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the author of the book “Guantanamo: le bagne du bout du monde,” a vivid account of his visit to the US military detention site, where few journalists had traveled, and where he concluded early on that the treatment of many of the prisoners had amounted to torture.
“Philippe’s work in journalism has been defined by meticulous, unflinching reporting. He is deeply dedicated to exposing injustice and holding power to account,” said Natalie Nougayrède, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde. “He is a fearless defender of fundamental principles, and he’s got plenty of wit and agility. At the helm of Human Rights Watch, he will bring all that talent and energy to the fight for human rights, an ever more urgent task today.”
After a decade of chronicling the UN’s efforts to address mass atrocities and conflicts, in 2010 Bolopion brought his commitment to defending rights to the global stage by joining Human Rights Watch, first as UN director and rising to deputy director for global advocacy in 2016. In these roles, he championed the rights of people caught in major crises in Myanmar, Burundi, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, and Mali, often contributing to on-the-ground advocacy and research.
He advocated for the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, called out Western arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the context of war crimes in Yemen, helped build a coalition together with local and international partners to expose the systematic oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli government, and led a successful campaign to deny Russia a seat at the UN Human Rights Council. During that time, Bolopion was a powerful voice in the media on behalf of victims of human rights violations around the world.
Most recently, Bolopion joined the French asset management firm TOBAM to help launch an investment strategy which exposes the high costs authoritarian regimes exact on investors.
“Philippe’s impactful approach to leadership, which I have witnessed on several critical Africa issues, including on the Central African Republic where his advocacy contributed to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s efforts to bring Central African Republic militia leaders to justice, is precisely what Human Rights Watch needs at this moment,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “I am excited about what the organization can accomplish at this moment when the enjoyment of human rights is a distant mirage for many around the world.”
Bolopion takes over the direction of Human Rights Watch at a challenging time. Democracy has been in retreat across much of the world for two decades, hard-won human rights norms risk being eroded, and mass atrocities are taking place in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Some of his priorities will be to marshal new resources and double down on the organization’s unique role and path to impact: innovative and rigorous investigations; reporting and communications that affirm facts against propaganda; and pragmatic advocacy campaigns, designed to increase the cost of abuse for powerful actors.
“The human rights movement is facing a perfect storm, with China and Russia growing bolder in their global quest to undermine rights, while the Trump administration is assaulting the pillars of US democracy, with devastating effects for the entire human rights ecosystem,” Bolopion said. “Human Rights Watch is uniquely positioned to meet this challenge and cut through the noise by asserting the facts, naming the crimes, alerting the public, and pressuring those in power to hold abusers to account.”
The Legacy of the White Paper Protests
Three years ago, a series of protests in China has sparked a political awakening among Chinese youth, with many questioning Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authoritarian policies and practices and notably confronting the government’s abuses against Tibetans and Uyghurs.
In response to a deadly apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, blamed on harsh Covid-19 restrictions, thousands in Shanghai, Beijing, and other cities took to the streets in November 2022. They defied Xi’s draconian “Zero-Covid” policy, chanting “We want human rights” and “Down with the Communist Party.” As an act of wordless resistance and opposition to censorship, demonstrators held up blank sheets of paper, thus becoming known as the White Paper protests, China’s largest nationwide demonstrations since Tiananmen in 1989.
Although the government was already easing its zero-Covid policy, the protests accelerated its end.
The authorities arrested a number of protesters. Most were soon released, but a young Uyghur student, Kamile Wayit, was sentenced to three years in prison for “promoting extremism” after sharing a video of the protests online. A filmmaker, Chen Pinlin (陈品霖), was sentenced to three-and-a-half years for his documentary, “Urumqi Middle Road.”
The political awakening has also been visible among young Chinese diaspora: in New York City, for example, last year’s White Paper anniversary featured “East Turkestan” flags, which represent a Uyghur independence movement, along with Palestinian flags, reflecting a desire to be part of a broader movement.
These current demonstrations contrast sharply with the nationalism of past protests in China, which defended the government’s abuses against Tibetans during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and supported brands linked to Uyghur forced labor in 2021.
Some diaspora youths have become organized. Chinese Youth Stand for Tibet aims to promote Tibetan culture within Chinese-speaking communities and address ethnic conflicts and prejudice, including “majority ethnic Han chauvinism.” The authorities have noticed. In July, they arrested Tara Zhang Yadi, a France-based student activist and White Paper participant who had returned to China, for her advocacy of Tibetan rights.
The White Paper protests ignited a generation imagining freedom, respect for basic rights, and solidarity across borders that the arrest and detention of young activists are unlikely to extinguish.
EU-AU: Make Rights a Priority at Europe-Africa Summit
(Nairobi, November 21, 2025) – The African Union (AU) and European Union should put respect for human rights and international humanitarian law at the center of their partnership, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of the blocs’ seventh summit on November 24-25, 2025, in Luanda, Angola. Both regional blocs should redouble efforts to tackle conflict-related atrocities and strengthen institutions and norms protecting rights.
“Increasing polarization globally highlights the need for both the European Union and the African Union to live up to their core responsibilities,” said Allan Ngari, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The blocs should spare no effort to hold those responsible for atrocities to account and support strategies on both continents and elsewhere to respond to longstanding and emerging human rights challenges.”
Abusive armed conflicts have displaced millions of civilians as warring parties have carried out deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on them, resulting in deaths, injuries, and other severe violations.
Since April 2023, in Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting to control the country, and their allies have committed unlawful killings, torture and enforced disappearances, subjected women and girls to sexual violence, and blocked humanitarian access. Recent atrocities by the RSF in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher, are reminiscent of the group’s past crimes, including an ethnic cleansing campaign in West Darfur. The EU and the AU should urgently work together to advance and support robust initiatives to protect civilians in Sudan and close the accountability gap.
Throughout the Sahel, notably in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, Islamist armed groups have targeted civilians and caused extensive displacement. Government forces, at times with foreign fighters or pro-government militias, have led counterinsurgency operations that resulted in severe violations. The authorities have also cracked down on the political opposition, media, and peaceful dissent. The EU, which is debating a new approach to the Sahel, and the AU, which appointed a special envoy for the region, are in a strong position to jointly denounce atrocity crimes, call for robust protection of civilians, and press for investigations, accountability, and remedies for victims.
In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese forces and Rwandan forces with the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group have been committing serious violations of international humanitarian law, including mass killings, sexual violence, forced recruitment, forced labor and population transfers, and increasingly repressing civil society and media. Ongoing mediation efforts led by the United States and Qatar have not ended these abuses.
Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights each documented the killing of over 140 civilians, largely ethnic Hutu, by the M23 in Rutshuru territory in July 2025. The Wazalendo coalition of militias, supported by the Congolese government, also abused civilians in areas under their control. The EU and the AU should condemn crimes by all parties and call for an end to Rwanda’s and Congo’s support to these abusive armed groups. They should also press for the M23 and Rwanda to allow access for international investigators to areas that they occupy.
The EU and AU should act in multilateral forums to address serious abuses in armed conflicts around the globe, including Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and to ensure accountability for Russia’s grave abuses in Ukraine.
At the international level, the AU and the EU should ensure that global institutions have the resources and political support needed to carry out their missions, Human Rights Watch said, including adequate resourcing for the UN human rights pillar, which is chronically underfunded. The International Criminal Court is under extreme pressure from the US, which has imposed sanctions on several court officials, including African and European nationals, a UN expert, and civil society groups, and from the Russian Federation, which issued arrest warrants for court officials.
The EU and the AU should reaffirm support for the court and its global mandate and commit to protecting it from coercive measures. They should also press their own members, notably Hungary, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, to remain parties to the Rome Statute and encourage cooperation with the court.
The blocs should protect civilians from atrocities by supporting the adoption of an international treaty that would prevent and punish crimes against humanity. They should work to enable the broadest possible participation in the negotiations, including by legal experts, civil society groups, and victims associations that do not already have UN accreditation. The UN General Assembly laid out a multi-year roadmap for negotiations for a treaty, with the resolution adopted in December 2024.
The EU and the AU should also support the negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a historic process initiated in 2022 that could contribute to more equitable global tax rules to address pressing human rights challenges in both EU and AU countries and support human rights economies. The EU and the AU should also affirm support for and implement the landmark International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate change.
Finally, African leaders committed in July to dedicate the next decade to reparatory justice for Africans and People of African descent. To help realize the widely accepted right to reparation for lasting impacts of colonial atrocities, European governments should engage in human rights-based reparation processes. The AU should ensure that it collaborates with civil society in its efforts to establish frameworks for reparations that center on and empower communities.
“The Luanda Summit is an opportunity to translate both blocs’ commitments to human rights and international law into concrete actions,” said Philippe Dam, EU director at Human Rights Watch. “As civilians bear the brunt of brutal conflicts and multilateral institutions face attacks by states hostile to rights and international law, principled leadership from the AU and the EU is needed more than ever.”
Alarm Bells Go Off on Ethiopia
The fragile truce largely insulating civilians in northern Ethiopia from war crimes and other abuses may be unraveling. With many countries focused elsewhere, it is increasingly important that influential governments mobilize swiftly to prevent a resurgence of atrocities in the northern Tigray region that could spread further.
In recent weeks, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the Tigray region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of using its budget for military activities. The Ethiopian army chief called the party a “criminal clique” that needs to be eliminated. Tensions have risen since Ethiopian authorities and the TPLF repeatedly appealed—without success—for international mediation.
There have also been mounting tensions between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, which Ethiopia’s foreign minister alleged was colluding with the TPLF to wage war. For months, diplomats and analysts have been warning that provocations between the two countries could lead to renewed conflict in areas that have not had a chance to recover from previous fighting.
The 2020-2022 conflict in northern Ethiopia, which spread from Tigray to the Afar and Amhara regions, was marked by serious atrocities, claimed the lives of several hundred thousand people, displaced millions, and destroyed critical infrastructure. The Ethiopian government imposed a crippling siege on Tigray, while local officials and Amhara militias in Western Tigray carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Tigrayan population that amounted to crimes against humanity.
In November 2022, Ethiopian authorities and the TPLF signed an African Union-brokered truce. But as its monitoring mechanism largely failed to pay attention to human rights abuses, warring parties, including the agreement’s non-signatories, continued to abuse civilians in Tigray in violation of the agreement’s pledges to protect civilians.
Neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea have credibly prosecuted those responsible for the atrocities. The United Nations, capitulating to pressure from the Ethiopian authorities, failed to renew an international inquiry on Ethiopia in 2023, in favor of a domestic process that has all but stalled.
Now is the moment for diplomacy and de-escalation. The key guarantors of the truce—the African Union, Kenya, South Africa, and the United States—and Ethiopia’s partners should immediately mobilize to prevent further human rights abuses, and the AU needs to publicly report on violations of the truce, including against civilians.
The risk of renewed cycles of atrocities is all too real.
COP30 Should Accelerate Anti-Deforestation Efforts
This year’s United Nations climate summit (COP30) is taking place in Belém, gateway to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the summit by announcing a global investment fund to pay tropical forest countries to keep trees standing. Indigenous peoples have made their presence felt throughout, demanding recognition for their contributions as environmental defenders.
These events placed forests at the heart of the summit and raised expectations that it would advance efforts to protect climate-critical forests and the communities sustained by them.
At the national level, there’s been momentum. This week, Brazil finalized the process of formal legal recognition of four Indigenous territories.
In one of them, in Mato Grosso state, illegal ranchers threaten to encroach and convert the forest to pasture. The news has given renewed hope to the Manoki, the Indigenous group whose territory it is. “We will take our place in our territory with our heads held high, without fear, as our elders taught us,” Giovani Tapura, a leader of the Manoki Indigenous people, told Human Rights Watch.
Brazil also announced that it had advanced the process of formal recognition of the boundaries of another 23 territories. The evidence is clear, particularly in the Amazon region, that demarcated Indigenous and Afro-descendent territories register less deforestation than comparable areas.
But so far, the actual negotiations within the climate conference have not addressed commitments to stop deforestation and uphold the rights of forest peoples.
The latest draft of the COP30 outcome document doesn’t include a roadmap for forests even though countries previously agreed to end and reverse forest loss by 2030.
The COP30 outcome document should include a commitment for governments to begin work immediately on a time-bound roadmap to end forest loss as well as combat forest degradation.
Any forest preservation roadmap should also reflect an explicit commitment to advance Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights. In practice, this would translate into the legal recognition of customary land rights, combatting illegal invasions of traditional territories, strengthening governance of communally managed land, and investing in sustainable livelihoods for traditional communities. The roadmap should explicitly call for funding community-led conservation.
COP30 should mark a turning point for protecting climate-critical forests. Governments should develop a roadmap to end deforestation and advances rights.
Dominican Republic: Court Ends Security Forces Gay Sex Ban
(New York) – The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court has struck down provisions in the Codes of Justice of the National Police and the Armed Forces that criminalized consensual same-sex conduct by officers, Human Rights Watch said today. The ruling, made public on November 18, 2025, is a landmark victory for equality, ending a regime of state-sanctioned discrimination that violated the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) officers.
In Judgment TC/1225/25, the court held that article 210 of the Code of Justice of the National Police and article 260 of the Code of Justice of the Armed Forces violate constitutional guarantees to nondiscrimination, privacy, free development of personality, and the right to work. Both articles punished same-sex “sodomy” by officers with up to two years and one year in prison, respectively. No equivalent penalties existed for heterosexual sexual acts.
“For decades, these provisions forced LGBT officers to live in fear of punishment simply for who they are,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This ruling is a resounding affirmation that a more inclusive future is both possible and required under Dominican law.”
In an amicus curiae brief submitted to the court in August 2024, Human Rights Watch argued that the criminalization of same-sex conduct violates international standards, including the rights to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful interference with one’s private and family life and to one’s reputation or dignity, as emphasized by the United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In its ruling, the court emphasized that the criminalization of same-sex conduct in the security forces lacked “a legitimate constitutional interest or aims to strengthen and improve institutional efficiency.” Notably, the court found that “no regulation issued by state authorities or private individuals may diminish or restrict in any way a person’s rights based on their sexual orientation, an essential aspect of personal privacy and the free development of personality.”
The ruling aligns with a regional trend. In recent years, countries in the region, including Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the United States, have eliminated similar discriminatory laws and policies that criminalized same-sex conduct by officers.
Anderson Javiel Dirocie De León, one of the lawyers who brought the challenge, said: “This positive outcome represents the first case of general applicability advancing equality and dignity for LGBTI people in the Dominican Republic. There is still a long way to go, but it sets a historic precedent in the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
His co-counsel, Patricia M. Santana Nina, said: “This decision marks a decisive step toward ensuring that these institutions, as well as any public or private body, adapt their rules and practices to guarantee that no person is discriminated against or sanctioned for their sexual orientation.”
The Dominican Republic lags behind on LGBT and intersex rights compared with its Latin American neighbors, Human Rights Watch said. It lacks comprehensive civil antidiscrimination legislation, same-sex marriage or civil union rights, and gender identity recognition for transgender people, among other key protections.
In the Caribbean region, five Anglophone countries—Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago—still have laws on the books that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct, a relic of British colonialism. Consensual same-sex conduct remains criminalized in 65 countries, including Iran, Myanmar, and Sudan.
“President Luis Abinader and Congress should use the momentum of this landmark ruling to advance long-overdue protections for LGBT people,” González said. “By moving forward with laws addressing discrimination and violence, the Dominican Republic can align itself with progress in Latin America and demonstrate a genuine commitment to equality and dignity for all.”
West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government’s forced displacement of the populations of three West Bank refugee camps in January and February 2025 amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 32,000 people reportedly removed have not been permitted to return to their homes, many of which Israel forces have deliberately demolished.
November 20, 2025 “All My Dreams Have Been Erased”The 105-page report, “‘All My Dreams Have Been Erased’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank,” details “Operation Iron Wall,” an Israeli military operation across Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps that began on January 21, 2025, days after a temporary ceasefire was announced in Gaza. Israeli forces issued abrupt orders to civilians to leave their homes, including with loudspeakers mounted on drones. Witnesses said soldiers moved methodically through the camps, storming homes, ransacking properties, interrogating residents, and eventually forcing all families out.
“Israeli authorities in early 2025 forcibly removed 32,000 Palestinians from their homes in West Bank refugee camps without regard to international legal protections and have not permitted them to return,” said Nadia Hardman, senior refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 31 displaced Palestinian refugees from the three camps and analyzed satellite imagery and Israeli military demolition orders confirming the widespread destruction. Researchers also analyzed and verified videos and photographs of the Israeli military operations.
On January 21, Israeli forces stormed Jenin refugee camp, deploying Apache helicopters, drones, bulldozers, and armored vehicles to support hundreds of ground troops who forced people from their homes. Residents told Human Rights Watch they saw bulldozers demolishing buildings as they were being expelled. Similar operations took place in Tulkarem refugee camp on January 27 and in nearby Nur Shams camp on February 9.
The Israeli military provided no shelter or humanitarian assistance to displaced residents. Many sought shelter in the crowded homes of relatives or friends, or turned to mosques, schools, and charities.
A 54-year-old woman said that Israeli soldiers “were yelling and throwing things everywhere…. It was like a movie scene – some had masks and they were carrying all kinds of weapons. One of the soldiers said, ‘You don’t have a house here anymore. You need to leave.’”
Since the raids, Israeli authorities have denied residents the right to return to the camps, even with no active military operations in the vicinity. Israeli soldiers have fired upon people trying to reach their homes, and only a few have been allowed to collect their belongings. The military has bulldozed, razed, and cleared spaces for apparently wider access routes inside the camps, and have blocked all entrances.
Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery found that six months later, more than 850 homes and other buildings had been destroyed or heavily damaged across the three camps. The assessment focused only on areas of mass destruction that included buildings destroyed and severely damaged, often due to the widening of alleys and roads in the densely built camps.
October 14, 2024: © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. July 24, 2025: © 2025 Planet Labs PBC.
Satellite imagery recorded before and after the Israeli military raided Nur Shams refugee camp in February 2025 shows destruction within the refugee camp after six months of Israeli military operations. Before image: October 14, 2024 © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. After image: July 24, 2025 © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. Camp boundaries (2017): Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), accessed on September 5, 2025.
A preliminary satellite imagery assessment by the United Nations Satellite Center from October 2025, found that 1,460 buildings sustained damage in the three camps, including 652 that showed signs of moderate damage.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) established the three camps in the early 1950s to house Palestinians who were expelled from their homes or forced to flee following Israel’s creation in 1948. Those refugees—those displaced and their descendants—had resided there ever since.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable in occupied territory, prohibits displacement of civilians except temporarily for imperative military reasons or for the population’s security. Displaced civilians are entitled to protection and proper accommodation. The occupying power must ensure the return of displaced people as soon as hostilities in the area have ceased.
Israeli officials said in a letter to Human Rights Watch that Operation Iron Wall was initiated “in light of the security threats posed by these camps and the growing presence of terrorist elements within them.” However, Israeli authorities have made no evident attempt to establish that their only feasible option was the complete expulsion of the civilian population to achieve their military objective or why they have prohibited residents from returning, Human Rights Watch found.
Israeli officials have not responded to Human Rights Watch queries about when if ever Israel will allow the Palestinians to return. Finance Minister and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich said in February that if camp residents “continue their acts of ‘terrorism,’” the camps “will be uninhabitable ruins,” and that “[t]heir residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries.”
The authorities’ forced removal of Palestinians from the camps also amounted to ethnic cleansing, a non-legal term to describe the unlawful removal one ethnic or religious group from an area by another ethnic or religious group.
The raids were carried out while the spotlight has been on Gaza, where Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity—including forced displacement and extermination—and acts of genocide.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel, Israeli forces have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli authorities have increased their use of administrative detention without charge or trial, demolitions of Palestinian homes and building of illegal settlements, while state-backed settler violence and torture of Palestinian detainees are also on the rise. Forced displacement and other repression of Palestinians in the West Bank is part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
Senior Israeli officials should be investigated for the refugee camp operations and, where found responsible, appropriately prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including as a matter of command responsibility. Those who should be investigated include Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the Central Command commander who was in charge of West Bank military operations, and oversaw camp raids and demolition orders; Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who each served as Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli military; Minister in the Defense Ministry, Bezalel Smotrich, who sits on the security cabinet and also serves as Finance Minister; Defense Minister Israel Katz; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Click to expand ImageThe International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor and domestic judicial authorities under the principle of universal jurisdiction should investigate Israeli officials credibly implicated, including as a matter of command responsibility, in atrocity crimes in the West Bank.
Governments should impose targeted sanctions against Bluth, Zamir, Smotrich, Katz, Netanyahu, and other Israeli officials implicated in ongoing grave abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. They should also press Israeli authorities to end their repressive policies and to impose an arms embargo, suspend preferential trade agreements with Israel, ban trade with illegal settlements, and enforce ICC arrest warrants.
“Israel’s escalating abuses in the West Bank underscore why governments, despite the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, should urgently act to prevent Israeli authorities from escalating their repression of Palestinians,” Hardman said. “They should impose targeted sanctions on Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz, and other senior officials responsible for grave crimes against Palestinians and enforce all International Criminal Court warrants.”
Egypt: African Commission Should Act to Protect Rights
(Beirut) – The African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights should act decisively to address the dire, protracted human rights crisis in Egypt following its review of the situation in the country, 22 organizations said today. The commission has found Egypt in breach of numerous articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights but has not adopted a resolution on Egypt since 2015, despite the severe deterioration of Egypt’s human rights situation and the near-complete destruction of civic space.
The African Commission reviewed Egypt’s situation during its 85th session in October 2025, with the Egyptian government presenting a report covering 2019 to 2024. The report included false depictions of the human rights situation in Egypt and a blanket denial of abuses. The commission’s country rapporteur for Egypt also presented a report, which omitted widespread abuses and largely adopted government narratives.
“The Egyptian government painted a rosy picture of the dire human rights crisis in Egypt, while the African Commission’s country rapporteur adopted some of its narratives without scrutiny, dangerously amplifying them,” said Mohamed Lotfy, executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. “These misrepresentations make it all the more important for the commission to robustly address Egypt’s human rights crisis, the worst in decades.”
Flagrant and systematic human rights abuses in Egypt have been well-documented in numerous reports by independent Egyptian and international human rights organizations, United Nations and African human rights mechanisms, and even the government-appointed National Council on Human Rights, the organizations said.
The Egyptian government claimed in its report that it has no detained journalists or prisoners of conscience and that restrictions imposed on independent organizations, such as prohibiting them from conducting and publishing studies without permission, are to ensure “transparency and objectivity.”
In public sessions, the African Commission’s country rapporteur for Egypt rarely raised the acute human rights crisis and allegations of widespread abuses. She asserted that the 2023 presidential elections were held in a “peaceful” and “competitive” environment, contradicting well-documented evidence of repression, prosecutions targeting potential candidates and their family members, and Egypt’s effective criminalization of assembly, expression, and association.
The country rapporteur has asked the government to host an African Commission session in Egypt, without raising any concerns over the pervasive surveillance, security forces abuses, and crackdown on protesters. The repression has long been on display, including during the African Commission’s 2019 session in Sharm El-Sheikh and before and during the UN COP27 climate conference in Egypt in 2022.
In December 2024, the country rapporteur made an unannounced official visit to Egypt, which she described as an “information [familiarization] and advocacy visit.” However, she apparently did not meet with any independent human rights organizations before, during, or after the visit. In May 2025, the rapporteur published a report from the visit, which is no longer available on the commission’s website, repeating government narratives unchallenged, such as that “any person accused in a criminal case is entitled to all the rights stipulated in international conventions, especially the right to defense.” Many international and Egyptian human rights groups have raised concerns regarding the rapporteur’s visit and report publicly and in letters to the African Commission.
In the period covered by the commission’s review, the Egyptian government has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward dissent, virtually eliminated public space, and effectively criminalized the rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and association. Tens of thousands of activists, journalists, human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, peaceful protesters, labor unionists, and academics have been detained or prosecuted merely for exercising their rights. The government has harassed, detained, and prosecuted family members of critics, including critics living abroad.
Dangerously abusive constitutional amendments introduced in 2019 have severely undermined the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, and have further inserted the military into public and political life in unprecedented ways. New laws have further undermined basic rights, such as the 2019 law on associations and the 2024 asylum law. The government has failed to meaningfully amend existing abusive laws, such as the 2013 law restricting peaceful assembly, the 2018 cybercrimes law, the 2018 media regulation law, and the 2015 counterterrorism law.
The government has also failed to fulfill socioeconomic rights. Spending on education has effectively been reduced to the lowest level in many years. The government’s budget allocation for health care is well below the constitutional minimum and international benchmarks. Cash assistance programs cover fewer than one-third of those living in or near poverty, even according to official numbers.
The dire human rights crisis in Egypt has warranted four African Commission resolutions since 2013, in which it denounced violations such as the “severe restrictions imposed on journalists and media practitioners and their arbitrary arrest, detention and killing for carrying out their work,” as well as “disregard to regional and international fair trial standards [and] the unlawful imposition of mass death sentences.” The Egyptian government has failed to implement the vast majority of recommendations in these resolutions. International and Egyptian organizations met with several members of the African Commission during its 85th session to raise these human rights concerns. Several commissioners reflected a number of concerns in their public interventions.
Egypt has further failed to implement several final decisions in which the commission found it to be in breach of its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including three decisions adopted during the period under review since 2019.
The African Commission should take robust, decisive measures to highlight the ongoing human rights crisis in Egypt and protect the rights of Egyptians, the organizations said. It should ensure that the current review and concluding observations include an evidence-based assessment of Egypt’s human rights crisis and issue public statements, urgent appeals, and letters to the government raising systematic abuses and the need to repeal and amend abusive laws.
In light of the government’s failure to implement the commission’s previous resolutions on Egypt, it should issue a new resolution calling for investigations of abuses, accountability, and reparations for victims. The African Commission should also establish a follow-up mechanism under its Rule 112 to monitor Egypt’s implementation of recommendations and to engage with victims, civil society, and the state on concrete remedial actions. The commission, through its Working Group on Communications, must urgently address Egypt’s failure to implement remedies ordered in final decisions on individual cases and refer the matter to the African Union Executive Council.
It should use its early-warning mandate under Article 58 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to draw the African Union Peace and Security Council’s attention to the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt, particularly the risk of mass violations linked to impunity in detention and counterterrorism operations.
The African Commission should publicly commit to monitoring and speaking out about any such threats or restrictions. It should ensure that any country visit includes sufficient consultation with victims of abuses and Egyptian and international human rights organizations as well as credible government guarantees of confidentiality and safety for all those involved.
In case there is a bid to hold a session in Egypt, the African Commission should require the government to offer concrete guarantees that it would uphold and protect the safety and freedoms of all participants and the media. Participants must be able to freely enter the country, and the government must not create adverse consequences or retaliate for any involvement with the session. Critical Egyptian organizations must be allowed access without intimidation or reprisals.
“The African Commission has plenty of tools it can use to highlight and address the dire human rights situation in Egypt and ongoing flagrant abuses,” said Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “At the very least, the commission should ensure that the government narrative is properly scrutinized.”
Signatories:
Cairo Institute for Human Rights StudiesCommittee for JusticeDemocracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)Egyptian Commission for Rights and FreedomsEgyptian Front for Human RightsEgyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF)Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)EgyptWide for Human RightsEl Nadim CenterEuromed Rights NetworkHraak for Change and Youth EmpowermentHuman Rights WatchHuMENA for Human Rights and Civic EngagementInternational Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights DefendersInternational-Lawyers.OrgLaw and Democracy Support Foundation e.V. (LDSF)Ligue tunisienne des droits de l’hommeREDRESSRefugees Platform in Egypt - RPESinai Foundation for Human RightsTheir Right – To Defend Prisoners of ConscienceWorld Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders