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Bahrain: Immediately Release Prominent Activist
(Beirut,) – Bahraini authorities have detained Ebrahim Sharif, a prominent political activist, for peaceful comments he made in Beirut, Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said today.
Yusuf al-Jamri, a blogger, said that the authorities detained Sharif, former secretary general of Bahrain’s National Democratic Action Society, due to comments he made in Beirut to LuaLuaTV calling for Arabs and Arab governments to support Palestinians. The Bahrain authorities should immediately release him and end their long-standing practice of detaining people for their peaceful free speech.
“Governments should be ensuring they are taking action to prevent genocide and other crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, not detaining their citizens who make peaceful comments to support them,” said Niku Jafarnia, Bahrain and Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Sharif was arrested at Bahrain International Airport on November 12, 2025, upon his arrival from Beirut, where he had attended the Arab National Conference. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry published a statement later that day stating that he had been arrested for “spreading false news on social media and uttering phrases offensive to sisterly Arab states and their leadership.” The next day, Bahrain’s Public Prosecution stated on Instagram that the public prosecution had ordered his detention while the charges against him are investigated.
This is the eighth time that Bahraini authorities have arrested, interrogated, or prosecuted Sharif since 2011, all on the basis of exercising his right to peaceful assembly and speech.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in following his participation in the peaceful 2011 uprising in Bahrain. The authorities held him incommunicado for months, and at times in solitary detention, with no access to family members prior to his first appearance before the special military court. According to BIRD, He was tortured during his detention, including sleep deprivation, sexual abuse, and beatings.
After being released on June 19, 2015, he was rearrested on July 11—three weeks later—for his peaceful criticism of the government in a speech he gave the day before. Authorities accused him of encouraging the overthrow of the government and “inciting hatred.” He was released one year later and placed under a travel ban.
The authorities rearrested Sharif on November 13, 2016, after he told the Associated Press that Prince Charles’s visit to Bahrain threatened to “whitewash” the Bahraini authorities’ crackdown on dissent. Authorities charged him with “inciting hatred” against the government.
They dropped the charges two weeks later, but then rearrested him in March, 2017, on the same charges relating to a series of tweets he published.
Between his arrest in 2017 and November 12, 2025, Sharif was arrested or prosecuted three more times, in 2019, 2023 and 2024, all for expressing peaceful views in social media posts.
Sharif’s case is not unique in Bahrain. Human Rights Watch has for decadesdocumented Bahraini authorities’ consistent arbitrary detentions of people for exercising their rights to free speech.
According to research by BIRD, an estimated 320 people are currently arbitrarily detained for political reasons in Bahrain, some of whom have been imprisoned since the 2011 pro-democracy uprising. Among them are some of the country’s most prominent human rights defenders and opposition figures, including Hassan Mushaima, Abduljalil Al-Singace, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, and Abdulwahab Husain.
Twelve of these prisoners are on death row, including Mohamed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa, whose imprisonment was declared arbitrary by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which also called for their immediate and unconditional release.
The UK and the EU have continued to sign trade deals with Bahrain without publicly calling on Bahrain to release the many political activists in detention, including Al-Khawaja and Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad who both are EU citizens. Just a few months ago, the UK signed a partnership agreement with Bahrain worth 2 billion GBP (US$2.6 billion).
“Governments allied with Bahrain should end their whitewashing of Bahrain’s abuses and place real pressure on Bahrain to end their violations against peaceful activists and the political opposition,” said Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei, advocacy director at BIRD.
UN Security Council Should Resist South Sudan Attempt to Undermine Peacekeepers
The South Sudanese government has demanded that the United Nations drastically scale back its peacekeeping mission in the country (UNMISS), including withdrawing 70 percent of its international peacekeeping forces (though not regional forces), grounding its helicopters, and closing its operating bases and civilian protection sites. The call should ring alarm bells as civilians in South Sudan face grave abuses.
The UN’s peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, warned the UN Security Council that gutting the peacekeeping force’s presence in the country would jeopardize the mission and its mandate to protect civilians. The UN has already begun to roll out plans to close some offices, reduce staff, and cut back on the number of deployed peacekeepers in the country due to a funding crisis.
The South Sudanese government has long resisted international scrutiny and obstructed UNMISS’ work. And scrutiny in South Sudan is more important than ever, as civilians need greater protection. In September, UNMISS reported a twofold increase in the number of civilian casualties by warring parties compared with 2024.
In March, Human Rights Watch reported how government forces carried out aerial attacks using improvised incendiary weapons in Nasir, Longechuk, and Ulang counties, all in Upper Nile state, killing at least 58 people and severely burning many others. The government’s airstrikes have hit civilian infrastructure, including a Doctors Without Borders-run hospital in Old Fangak, Jonglei state, in what the humanitarian organization called a “deliberate bombing.”
Clashes between government and opposition forces in parts of Western Equatoria, Central Equatoria, and Upper Nile states have also led to killings, forced displacement, sexual violence, and grave violations against children by all sides, among others abuses.
South Sudan’s humanitarian crisis also remains dire. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported that 1.3 million people in South Sudan need urgent food aid, while residents of Nasir and Fangak are at risk of famine. The government has restricted aid access to conflict-affected areas controlled by opposition forces.
The UN Security Council should press South Sudan to end ongoing access restrictions and ensure UNMISS can safely operate. The council should also reject revisions to operational capacity and staffing that would dilute the mission’s independence and weaken early warning, protection, and human rights monitoring functions. The stakes for civilians who have borne the brunt of abuse by warring parties couldn't be higher.
A Family Erased in Mali
A quiet desert night in northern Mali turned deadly when an apparent military drone launched its explosive munition on a tent, leaving an entire family dead. The strike was a recent example of Malian military operations killing civilians and may amount to a war crime.
The November 13 strike at about 9:30 p.m. on the village of Tangatta, in Mali’s northern Timbuktu region, killed seven civilians, including five children ages 7 to 15, from the same ethnic Tuareg family, according to media reports and a witness interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The attack displaced all surviving residents of the village.
A 45-year-old teacher who survived the attack told me by phone about seeing the drone in the sky with a light and then hearing a loud explosion. He said he found the bodies of the parents and their five children. “Six of the bodies were charred,” he said. “The body of the father was not charred but had visible injuries in his face and left leg. We buried them in two graves, the mother with the children in one, and the father in another.”
The teacher said the Malian military flies drones over Tangatta “every day,” as the Azawad Liberation Front (Front de libération de l’Azawad), a coalition of Tuareg armed groups, and the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM), operate in the area. No armed men were present at the time of the strike, he said.
Hostilities in northern Mali have intensified since January 2023, when Mali’s military authorities ended a 2015 peace deal with Tuareg armed groups. Meanwhile, JNIM has tightened their control across the country, laying siege to the capital, Bamako, and cutting off fuel supplies.
This recent strike is not an isolated incident. Malian forces have previously conducted drone attacks that caused high civilian casualties. The day after the incident in Tangatta, another drone strike in the nearby village of Albouhera reportedly killed two women and two toddlers.
Under the laws of war, civilians must never be targeted. All parties to an armed conflict need to take all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations, such as attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, are war crimes if committed deliberately or recklessly.
Malian authorities should urgently conduct an impartial investigation into the Tangatta strike and hold those responsible to account. They should promptly provide adequate compensation to the relatives of the victims. And they should stop carrying out unlawful drone strikes.
France: Overseas Territory’s Education Barriers
(Paris) – The French overseas department of Mayotte, an island territory in the Indian Ocean and a former French colony, is failing to provide education to all children, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. A devastating cyclone in December 2024 worsened longstanding deficiencies in Mayotte’s education system that reconstruction efforts have not effectively addressed one year later.
November 18, 2025 France: Overseas Territory’s Education BarriersAddress Longstanding Inequalities in Mayotte
The 73-page report, “Exceptional Failure: France’s Persistent Education Shortcomings in Mayotte,” finds that Mayotte’s municipalities often impose significant and arbitrary barriers to school enrollment, including by demanding documentation not required by law. Children who are enrolled often attend overcrowded schools ill-equipped to meet their basic needs, such as access to drinking water, sanitation, nutritious food, and a safe learning environment. Children living in informal settlements known as bangas, are particularly affected, as are children from migrant families.
“It is shocking that thousands of children in Mayotte are denied access to school, while those who do attend face substandard learning conditions,” said Elvire Fondacci, France advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch. “All children in Mayotte should be able to experience their right to education on an equal footing with children elsewhere in France.”
Mayotte is 1 of 13 overseas territories of France, all former French colonies. It is France’s poorest department and one of the most disadvantaged parts of the European Union. More than 75 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The authorities have struggled to humanely manage arrivals of migrants from the nearby island nation of Comoros and asylum seekers from Central and East African countries.
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 40 children, as well as parents, government officials, teachers, academic researchers, and members of associations that support children.
Children and their families face burdensome and unlawful enrollment requirements in many municipalities that delay or prevent children from going to school. Some municipalities only accept birth certificates issued within the previous three months. Others have required current proof of social security or other social benefit documents, parents’ and sometimes landlords’ recent tax bills, or even required landlords to come in person to municipal offices. These barriers are in part an effort to manage enrollment rates, local officials told Human Rights Watch.
The French government’s neglect of Mayotte is an ongoing legacy of colonialism that has left the island persistently underdeveloped. Mayotte’s education system has for years had a shortage of classrooms and teachers. Mayotte has the worst educational outcomes in France. And teaching is often inadequate for most children for whom French is a second language.
To cope with the lack of classrooms, many schools operate on an alternating schedule, meaning that children attend class for only part of the day, sometimes receiving fewer hours of instruction than required under national standards. Some municipalities have also reportedly resisted building new schools, fearing they would primarily benefit the children of migrants.
Children also face danger on their way to and from school. Groups of local youths throwing stones target school buses, often motivated by rivalries between neighborhoods. The attacks discourage some students who have no other means of transport from attending school.
Unlike in mainland France, where hot lunches are the norm, most schools in Mayotte offer only a snack, which for many students is their only meal of the day. Children whose families cannot afford to pay for the snack go without food.
“If you haven’t paid for the school lunch, you don’t eat,” a boy who was interviewed said. “It’s really hard to go to school when you’re hungry.”
A devastating cyclone in December 2024 inflicted widespread damage to homes, schools, and other infrastructure, compounding the pressures on Mayotte’s education system. The islands have also faced a prolonged drought, leading to water shortages that have sometimes caused schools to close.
Under French law, education is free, compulsory between the ages of 3 and 16, and should be available to all children on French soil. Yet, a 2023 University of Paris Nanterre study found that as many as 9 percent of Mayotte’s school-age children, about 9,000, were not in school.
Mayotte also has the highest population growth rate in France, estimated at nearly 4 percent a year, contributing to severe strain on housing, education, and public services. Thousands of children in Mayotte live in makeshift dwellings lacking access to running water, electricity, or sanitation. Mayotte’s underdevelopment and resulting socioeconomic disparities are symptoms of France’s failure to address the impacts of its colonial legacy.
National and local authorities have not effectively addressed the insecure housing, inadequate food, health, and social protection, and unemployment faced by many of the islands’ inhabitants.
Laws that apply only in Mayotte, including restrictive citizenship provisions, further marginalize children and families, many of whom have lived there all their lives.
France has an obligation to ensure the basic needs of everyone in its territory and guarantee the right to education for all children without discrimination.
Municipalities in Mayotte should strictly adhere to the provisions of the national law on school enrollment by requiring only the documents the law specifies. And the prefecture—the representative of the national government in Mayotte—should strictly enforce compliance, Human Rights Watch said.
French authorities and legislators should repeal laws that apply only to the territory and that have harmful repercussions on fundamental rights, including for children, such as those for residence permits as well as social and labor protections. Restrictions on access to citizenship should be revised to remove arbitrary barriers for children accessing their fundamental rights.
“The French government should urgently ensure that every child in Mayotte can attend school full time and in dignified conditions, with access to food, water, and safety,” Fondacci said.
Mali: Army, Militias Massacre Villagers in Central Region
(Nairobi) – Mali’s military and allied militias killed at least 31 civilians and burned homes on October 2 and 13, 2025, in 2 villages in the country’s embattled Segou region, Human Rights Watch said today.
On October 2, Malian army forces and the Dozo, a predominantly ethnic Bambara militia that has been taking part in counterinsurgency operations for a decade, killed at least 21 men and burned at least 10 homes in Kamona village. On October 13, these forces killed 9 men and one woman in Balle village, about 55 kilometers away. The two villages are in a central Mali region controlled by the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or JNIM). Witnesses said soldiers and Dozo militias summarily executed the villagers after accusing them of collaborating with JNIM.
“The October massacres in Segou region are just the latest atrocities attributed to the Malian army and allied militias,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Malian authorities should credibly and impartially investigate these killings and hold those responsible to account in fair trials.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 people with knowledge of the incidents by phone in October, including 5 witnesses and 5 community leaders, civil society activists, and journalists. On November 8, Human Rights Watch wrote to Mali’s justice and defense ministers with its findings and questions but has received no replies by the time of publication.
Witnesses said they identified the soldiers by their camouflage uniforms and the Dozo by their traditional attire and amulets around their necks.
On October 2, at about 10 a.m., soldiers, on at least seven pickup trucks and three armored vehicles and Dozo militiamen on motorbikes entered Kamona and began searching for male villagers. Witnesses said JNIM fighters had alerted residents that the military was coming, leading many residents to flee.
“Those who could not flee were rounded up and executed,” a survivor told Human Rights Watch.
Witnesses said that JNIM fighters fled the village before the military arrived and that there was no confrontation between the two sides.
Witnesses believe the killings, which media reports corroborated, were linked to recent JNIM attacks in Segou region, including one that destroyed the sugar production plant in Siribala on August 8.
Villagers later found 17 bodies under a tree in the village and 4 more on the northern side of Kamona. They said the soldiers burned at least 10 huts and 3 sheds belonging to ethnic Fulani residents.
A 40-year-old herder who hid in an abandoned home with his 9-year-old daughter said that when the assailants left, at about 4 p.m., he found the 17 bodies. “The people had been sprayed with bullets,” he said. “One had his head completely smashed. I also saw several bullet casings next to the bodies.”
Another man, 39, said he helped bury the bodies. “We dug a mass grave under the tree and put the 17 men inside,” he said. “Further north, we found 4 more bodies. All had been shot in the stomach and head, so we dug another grave, put them inside, and covered them with sand.”
Villagers provided a list of the 21 victims, all men, ages 20 to 65. They believe soldiers killed more people during the attack. “We heard that at least 15 other men were killed in the bush that day,” said one villager. “But we didn’t go there to verify as we were afraid the military would return.”
On October 13, at about 1 p.m., Malian soldiers on 5 pickup trucks and Dozo militiamen on at least 30 motorbikes entered Balle village, causing some residents to flee. “I didn’t flee immediately, but when I saw soldiers going door to door and slapping and kicking men, I ran away,” a 24-year-old man said. “From my hiding place, I heard gunshots.”
Witnesses said that the soldiers and Dozo militiamen killed 10 civilians, including a 55-year-old woman, and 9 men, ages 22 to 67, and stole at least 100 cows.
A 33-year-old man said that after the attack, he found the 10 bodies in the middle of the village. “They were one by the other, riddled with bullets,” he said. “Some had their legs and arms broken.”
The 21-year-old daughter of the woman who was killed said her mother shouted at soldiers, accusing them of abusing villagers. “She walked toward the soldiers,” she said. “So they took her where the men had been rounded up and shot her.”
In an October 14 statement, the Malian army’s chief of staff said that on October 13, soldiers conducted an “offensive recognition” operation around Balle resulting in the “neutralization of about 20 terrorists,” and the seizing of military equipment.
Witnesses and residents said that Balle has for several years been under JNIM control. “We pay the zakat [Islamic tax] every year,” said a man. “If there are disputes, the jihadists settle them. There are no soldiers, no gendarmes, no police here. As a result, the army assumes we’re JNIM fighters. The army doesn’t differentiate between us and them.”
Since 2012, successive Malian governments have fought armed conflicts with various Islamist armed groups. The hostilities have resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians and have forcibly displaced over 402,000 more. Human Rights Watch has documented grave abuses by the Malian armed forces and allied militias and mercenary groups during counterinsurgency operations, as well as atrocities by JNIM and other armed groups.
The military assaults on civilians in the Segou region took place after JNIM began a siege of Mali’s capital, Bamako, in early September. The siege has cut off fuel supplies to Bamako and prompted the military junta to temporarily shut down all schools and universities across the country.
All parties to Mali’s armed conflict are bound by international humanitarian law, notably Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and customary laws of war. The laws of war prohibit attacks directed at civilians, as well as murder, cruel treatment, and torture of anyone in custody. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent or are responsible as a matter of command responsibility may be prosecuted for war crimes.
Although Mali withdrew from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in September, the country is still party to the court’s Rome Statute until September 2026. In January 2013, the court opened an investigation into alleged war crimes in Mali since 2012.
The African Union (AU) has largely failed to respond effectively to the worsening conflict in Mali, despite its mandate to promote peace and security, Human Rights Watch said. While the security situation has deteriorated in recent months, the AU Peace and Security Council has offered little more than statements of concern.
“The AU Peace and Security Council should make the conflict in Mali a priority,” Allegrozzi said. “It should hold regular briefings, strengthen diplomacy, and coordinate regional and international action to strengthen accountability for abuses by all sides.”
Bangladesh: Hasina Found Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity
The International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh on November 17, 2025, found Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister, and Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, the former home minister, guilty of crimes against humanity during the violent suppression of student-led protests in 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.
Both were prosecuted in absentia, not represented by counsel of their choosing, and sentenced to death, raising serious human rights concerns. The third accused in the case, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, a former police chief who is in custody and served as a prosecution witness, was given a reduced sentence of five years in prison.
“There is enduring anger and anguish in Bangladesh over Hasina’s repressive rule, but all criminal proceedings need to meet international fair trial standards,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Those responsible for horrific abuses under the Hasina administration should be held to account after impartial investigations and credible trials.”
The Bangladeshi authorities committed serious human rights violations during the three weeks of protests in July and August 2024 that toppled the Hasina government. The protests and crackdown resulted in about 1,400 deaths, mostly protesters shot dead by security forces, according to a United Nations report.
While those responsible for abuses should be appropriately held to account, the prosecution failed to meet international fair trial standards, including for a full opportunity to present a defense and question the witnesses against them, and the right to be represented by counsel of one’s choosing. Concerns over the fairness of the trial are exacerbated by the death sentences.
The three defendants were accused of inciting widespread and systemic attacks on protesters by security forces and supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party, and ordering the use of drones, helicopters, and lethal weapons to target unarmed demonstrators. They were also accused of failing to prevent atrocities or take punitive action in three specific cases of illegal killings by the security forces.
The prosecution produced 54 witnesses. About half of them provided expert testimony, while the rest were victims or family members.
The evidence against Hasina included audio recordings of conversations with officials in which she appeared to order the use of lethal weapons. While a government-appointed defense lawyer for Hasina and Khan, who received no instructions from the defendants, could cross-examine witness, he did not produce any witnesses to counter the allegations.
Trials in absentia fundamentally undermine the right to a fair trial as set out in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is crucial to a legitimate legal process. The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the ICCPR, has stated that to guarantee defendants’ rights, “all criminal proceedings must provide the accused with the right to an oral hearing, at which he or she may appear in person or be represented by counsel and may bring evidence and examine witnesses.”
In their 453-page ruling, the judges said that article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which defines crimes against humanity, had formed the basis of the tribunal’s proceeding, and that the testimony of the victims had informed its finding of crimes against humanity. The judges also said that while Hasina in recent interviews blamed “breakdowns in discipline among security forces on the ground,” she also accepted her “leadership responsibility.”
The need for justice and accountability for serious rights violations by the Hasina government, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and torture, is critical, Human Rights Watch said. However, Bangladesh authorities have a long history, including under the Hasina government, of bringing politically motivated cases, including before the International Crimes Tribunal, to arbitrarily arrest and detain, unfairly prosecute, and in some cases carry out death sentences against political opponents.
Such practices have continued under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, who took charge in August 2024 after Hasina fled to neighboring India.
The International Crimes Tribunal is a domestic court that Hasina created in 2010, originally to prosecute crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence movement. Tribunal proceedings during Hasina’s rule repeatedly failed to meet international fair trial standards and imposed the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.
While the Yunus government has not abolished the death penalty, it amended the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act in November 2024 to bring provisions on command responsibility and crimes against humanity closer to the ICC’s Rome Statute. The amendments specifically list enforced disappearances as a crime.
However, further amendments in 2025 gave the tribunal broad authority to prosecute and dismantle political organizations, which could be used to violate international standards of due process and freedom of association. In the Hasina trial verdict, the tribunal did not rule on dismantling the Awami League but said the government should confiscate Hasina and Khan’s properties to compensate victims. Hasina is also a defendant in three more cases before the tribunal, two relating to enforced disappearances during her rule and one relating to mass killings in 2013.
The Yunus government should adopt measures to ensure that the fundamental rights of the accused are protected, Human Rights Watch said. Articles 47(3) and 47A of Bangladesh’s constitution specifically strip those accused of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity, of fundamental rights that are otherwise guaranteed to defendants. These include the right to protection of the law (article 31), fair trial guarantees (article 35), and the right to seek remedies from the Supreme Court for the violation of fundamental rights (article 44). The Bangladeshi government should ensure equal access to constitutional remedies for all defendants, and to impose a moratorium on the death penalty with a plan to abolish it altogether.
The government should respond to any demonstrations in accordance with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, Human Rights Watch said. Awami League leaders should discourage violence by party supporters opposing the tribunal verdict.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Bangladeshi government signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding in July 2025 to open a mission in the country “to support the promotion and protection of human rights.” The interim government, which has pledged to hold elections in February 2026, should also seek international assistance for fair trials. Such assistance will require a moratorium on capital punishment.
Following the guilty verdicts, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry called on the Indian government to turn over Hasina and Khan, citing an extradition agreement between the two countries. While Indian authorities should support accountability efforts in Bangladesh, any extradition request should allow for the individuals sought to contest the extradition in legal proceedings in India that meet due process standards. No one should be extradited if they would face a trial abroad that does not meet international fair trial standards and could result in the death penalty.
“Victims of grave rights violations committed under the Hasina government need justice and reparations through proceedings that are genuinely independent and fair,” Ganguly said. “Ensuring justice also means protecting the rights of the accused, including by abolishing the death penalty, which is inherently cruel and irreversible.”
Japan: New Government Should Adopt Human Rights Diplomacy
(Tokyo, November 18, 2025) – Japan’s new government should make the promotion of human rights central to its foreign policy, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on November 6, 2025. The Japanese government should affirm its commitment to human rights by taking the lead in promoting civilian democratic rule and the rule of law across Asia and around the world.
Prime Minister Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, took office on October 21. Japan, as the only Asian member of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies, has a significant role in promoting fundamental rights and freedoms abroad, including in Cambodia, China, Myanmar, and North Korea. Japan’s longstanding official policy “puts effort into improving the global human rights situation through bilateral dialogues, proactive participation in multilateral forums such as the UN, and constructive dialogues with the UN human rights mechanisms.”
“Japan has long claimed to pursue human rights diplomacy, but it has yet to take meaningful steps needed to make that a reality,” said Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Takaichi should swiftly enact necessary measures to promote rights-respecting governance crucial for the security and well-being of people throughout Asia and elsewhere.”
The new Japanese government has the opportunity to adopt a number of important measures to promote human rights, Human Rights Watch said. The government should adopt a global Magnitsky-style sanctions law, which will allow Japan to impose targeted sanctions on serious human rights abusers abroad. Japan is currently the only G7 country without such a law.
The government should introduce legally binding human rights and environmental due diligence for Japanese companies to address forced labor, child labor, sexual harassment, exposure to toxic substances, retaliation for organizing, and low wages in global value chains. In addition, the government should legislate import and export bans on goods produced through means involving forced labor and deforestation.
The Japanese government should also show its support and commitment to international justice and the rule of law by acceding to the Genocide Convention. It should publicly express strong support for the International Criminal Court, including by denouncing and taking measures against US government sanctions on the court and providing the court with the resources it needs to carry out its work.
Other priorities for Japanese human rights diplomacy include publicly denouncing cases of transnational repression by China and other governments; increasing assistance for refugees and other vulnerable groups; and establishing a program to support human rights defenders and open civic space abroad.
The Japanese government should also take up key human rights issues in specific countries, particularly in Asia. It should press the Chinese government to end its growing repression, including crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, forced assimilation in Tibet, and the erasure of freedoms in Hong Kong. Japan should also continue to raise concerns with other governments about the Myanmar junta’s proposed elections; and press the Cambodian government to lift the severe restrictions on freedom of expression, the media, peaceful assembly, and association.
“As Japan’s new leader, Prime Minister Takaichi has the power to transform Japan into a global leader on human rights, both at home and abroad,” Doi said. “Despite a turbulent geopolitical climate, Prime Minister Takaichi should embrace this opportunity to adopt new laws, policies, and practices that will allow Japan to reach its human rights potential.”
Brussels Rips EU Corporate Accountability Law
On November 13, a European Parliament majority sold out rights protections to corporate interests in the course of negotiating amendments to the European Union’s landmark Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). It ripped through years of efforts to build comprehensive legislation that holds corporations accountable for human rights and environmental abuses in their global supply chains.
In the negotiations, the European People’s Party (EPP) sided openly with far-right parties to create a majority toeing the demands of corporate lobbies for deregulation. Their proposed amendments mostly mirrored those of lobbyists, including from the fossil fuel industry, deleting climate transition plans and prohibiting EU member states from proposing better provisions when transposing the directive into national law. Leaning on the far-right has unfortunately become more frequent for the EPP, to the detriment of human rights guarantees.
As the EU Commission, Council, and Parliament head into tripartite negotiations to finalize the Omnibus I amendments, the low bar already set by each of them risks making what remains of the CSDDD a mostly empty shell. The combined institutions’ positions could mean there would be no harmonized civil liability, no climate transition plans, limited access to justice for victims, and even when suppliers are involved in cases of severe abuses, the requirement for companies to disengage from those relationships will be optional if such a disengagement could substantially prejudice the company’s business interests.
These decisions falsely pit human rights and environmental standards against competitiveness. In fact, a recent report by the UN Development Program and the World Benchmarking Alliance reveals a positive link between improved rights records of companies and “enhanced asset efficiency.” The report reinforces that human rights due diligence is a “strategic investment in resilience and long-term value” rather than an obstacle to competitiveness.
EU institutions should spare no effort during the trilogue to protect the risk-based approach to due diligence across the supply chain, and to further strengthen the law by reintroducing civil liability at the European level. Failing again would dangerously normalize a global erosion of human rights standards at the hands of corporate lobbies.
Protect Civilians from Explosive Weapons
(San José, November 17, 2025) – Governments should act on recent political commitments to protect civilians from the bombing and shelling that devastates cities and towns around the world, Human Rights Watch said today in a report issued with Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.
The 37-page report, “Strengthening Civilian Protection: Principles for Implementing the Declaration on Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas,” introduces seven guiding principles to help countries that have endorsed the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Area put their commitments into practice. Civilians make up the vast majority of casualties caused by the use of explosive weapons—such as aerial bombs, rockets, missiles, and artillery and mortar projectiles—in populated areas. Explosive weapons also turn urban areas into rubble, destroy infrastructure, and damage the environment and cultural heritage.
“Countries at war that use explosive weapons in populated areas kill, injure, and traumatize civilians, disrupt access to essential services, and cause mass displacement,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms adviser at Human Rights Watch; lecturer on law at the Harvard Clinic; and lead author of the report. “The extensive harm recently documented in Ukraine, Gaza, Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere shows that governments should intensify efforts to implement their expressed commitments to protect civilians from this method of warfare.”
Play VideoThe declaration, adopted in Dublin in 2022, is a nonbinding international instrument that seeks to prevent and remediate the devastating effects on civilians associated with using explosive weapons in cities, towns, and villages. Endorsing countries and other relevant stakeholders will meet in San José, Costa Rica, from November 18 to 20, 2025, for the declaration’s second international conference to encourage broader endorsement, review and strengthen implementation efforts, and outline next steps.
The declaration says that countries that endorse it should take a variety of steps to better protect civilians, including “restricting or refraining from” the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and assisting victims of harm that has already occurred. Endorsing countries should also gather and publicly share data about the use and effects of explosive weapons that can be analyzed to learn lessons that improve civilian protection in the future.
Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Human Rights Clinic urge governments to follow seven guiding principles to effectively implement the declaration’s commitments. These principles are applicable to all countries, no matter the structure of their government or size of their military.
Countries that have endorsed the declaration should (1) comprehensively address the humanitarian consequences of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, and (2) develop progressive civilian protection standards that go beyond existing international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch and the Harvard clinic say in the report. Countries should also (3) collaborate with a wide range of actors; (4) ensure that all decisions are informed by relevant data; and (5) be transparent in implementation efforts. Finally, they should (6) internalize their commitments as part of their national laws and policies and (7) promote the declaration and its norms beyond the endorsing countries.
“Strengthening Civilian Protection” builds on the 2022 report “Safeguarding Civilians: A Humanitarian Interpretation of the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas,” co-published by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Human Rights Clinic, which focuses on interpreting the declaration’s provisions.
Human Rights Watch is a co-founder of the International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), the coalition of civil society groups that helped drive creation of the declaration. The network and two civil society partners—Fundación para la paz y la democracia (Foundation for Peace and Democracy or FUNPADEM) and Seguridad Humana en América Latina y el Caribe (Latin American Human Security Network or SEHLAC)—will host a Protection Forum, open to all delegates, on the first day of the San José conference.
“Governments that adopt strong measures based on shared principles can help maximize the declaration’s potential as a tool for protecting civilians,” Docherty said. “They can set standards that influence not only other countries that have endorsed the commitments, but also parties to armed conflict that have yet to do so.”
Myanmar: Elections a Fraudulent Claim for Credibility
(Bangkok) – Foreign governments should reject the Myanmar junta’s plans to hold elections from late December 2025 through January 2026 because they will not be free, fair, or inclusive, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the February 2021 military coup, the junta has systematically dismantled the rule of law and the country’s nascent democratic systems, and ahead of the polls it has ramped up repression and violence.
The junta announced that the first two phases of the multistage elections will take place on December 28 and January 11. Since the coup, the junta has banned dozens of political parties and jailed an estimated 30,000 political prisoners, including nearly 100 people detained under a draconian election law passed in July. Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta’s leader, has acknowledged that the elections will not be held in all townships, reflecting the widespread fighting with opposition armed groups characterized by the military’s war crimes.
“The Myanmar junta’s sham elections are a desperate bid for international legitimacy after nearly five years of brutal military repression,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments lending any credibility to these polls would signal a complete lack of support for rights-respecting civilian democratic rule in Myanmar.”
On July 29, the junta enacted the Law on the Prevention of Obstruction, Disruption, and Sabotage of Multiparty Democratic General Election, which criminalizes criticism of the election by banning all speech, organizing, or protest that disrupts any part of the electoral process. Violators can face up to 20 years in prison and the death penalty.
Junta authorities have arrested 94 people under the new law since August—including at least 4 children—for social media activity, distributing stickers and leaflets, delivering speeches, and other alleged acts of election “interference” and “disruption.” On September 9, a man was sentenced to seven years with hard labor in Taunggyi, Shan State, for a Facebook post criticizing the junta. On October 29, the filmmakers Zambu Htun Thet Lwin and Aung Chan Lu were arrested for “liking” a Facebook post that criticized an election propaganda film.
The authorities have detained nearly 2,000 people since February 2022 for online activity supporting the opposition or criticizing the military, part of the junta’s gutting of freedoms of speech, the press, and assembly.
The military lacks sufficient territorial control to hold credible elections, with much of the country contested or held by the opposition, Human Rights Watch said. The nationwide census attempted in October 2024 to compile voter lists was held in only 145 of the country’s 330 townships, fewer than half. The Union Election Commission declared in September that voting would not take place in 56 townships deemed “not conducive,” while the two phases announced thus far cover only 202 townships.
Junta efforts to retake territory from the armed resistance ahead of the elections has involved repeated airstrikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure that amount to war crimes. China and Russia, the junta’s primary suppliers of aircraft and arms, are both backing the election. The two countries have long supported the junta while blocking international action on military atrocities at the United Nations Security Council.
Military abuses and spiraling conflict have internally displaced over 3.5 million people and left about 20 million in need of humanitarian assistance. Independent media and civil society groups have reported that junta authorities have pressured displaced people and prisoners to vote, as well as increasing checkpoints and digital surveillance.
The 2021 coup effectively ended the country’s halting and limited democratic transition under Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). During general elections in November 2020, the NLD secured 82 percent of contested seats, roundly defeating the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). In response, the military alleged widespread voter fraud, an unfounded claim rejected by the Union Election Commission and international and domestic election observers.
Early on February 1, 2021, when the new parliament was to sit for the first time, the military detained President Win Myint, Aung San Suu Kyi, and scores of other NLD ministers, members of parliament, and regional administrators, thereby depriving Myanmar’s people of their right to choose their government as enshrined in international law.
In the months following the coup, the junta arrested at least 197 ministers and members of parliament and 154 Union Election Commission officials. Suu Kyi and Win Myint are serving prison sentences of 27 and 8 years, respectively, on a slew of fabricated charges.
In January 2023, the junta enacted a new Political Party Registration Law designed to disqualify senior NLD members from participating in elections, violating international standards on the rights of political parties to organize and for their candidates to run for election. In March that year, the junta announced the NLD was among 40 political parties and other groups dissolved for failing to register under the new law. The junta disbanded four additional parties in September 2025 for failing to meet the law’s requirements.
The junta had previously declared the opposition National Unity Government and its parliamentary body, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, as “terrorist organizations.” Opposition groups have made clear they oppose any election under the junta.
After the coup, the junta replaced the civilian Union Election Commission with a military-appointed body. The European Union has sanctioned the current chair, Than Soe, appointed on July 31, 2025, and other junta commission members for being “directly involved in actions undermining democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar.” Before the coup, Than Soe led the military bloc in parliament’s upper house. Under the 2008 Constitution, the military appoints 25 percent of parliamentary seats.
On July 31, in preparation for the elections, the junta announced the formation of the State Security and Peace Commission to replace the State Administration Council, in place since the coup. It also declared a new state of emergency and martial law orders for 63 townships in Chin, Kachin, Karen (Kayin), Karenni (Kayah), Rakhine, and Shan States, and Magway, Mandalay, and Sagaing Regions, which were extended for another 90 days on October 31. The orders, issued primarily for townships under opposition control, transfer the “powers and responsibilities of the said townships to the Commander-in-Chief.”
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing for alleged crimes against humanity committed in 2017.
The junta has sought to crush all political opposition, derail any possible establishment of democratic civilian rule, and obtain legitimacy for a military-controlled state, Human Rights Watch said. It has laid the groundwork for elections dominated by the military-backed USDP. While the official 60-day campaign period began on October 28, the military proxy party’s campaigning was already well underway. The junta has reportedly banned campaign processions.
At the October summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a “a credible path back to civilian rule” in Myanmar, stating: “I don’t think anybody believes that those elections will be free and fair.” Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called holding the elections in December “unfathomable.”
While ASEAN highlighted that peace and political dialogue “must precede elections,” the regional body lacks the tools to preclude individual member states from providing technical assistance or support bilaterally.
“Malaysia, Japan, and other Asian governments that have made clear these elections are harmful to Myanmar’s people should urge their neighbors to do the same,” Pearson said. “Counterbalancing any support from China, Russia, and other countries backing the polls will require a clear, emphatic message that these illegitimate elections will only entrench Myanmar’s descent into violence, repression, and autocratic rule.”
Australia: Press Laos on Rights Abuses
(Sydney) – Australian officials should press the Lao government to take concrete steps to improve its human rights record, Human Rights Watch said today. The 9th Australia-Laos Human Rights Dialogue is scheduled for Vientiane on November 18, 2025.
In an October submission to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Human Rights Watch urged Australian officials to forcefully raise the Lao government’s attacks on critics and cross-border abuses, known as transnational repression, during the dialogue.
“The Lao government has a track record of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of its critics,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “Australia should use the Human Rights Dialogue as an opportunity to press the Lao authorities to fully investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for serious abuses.”
The Lao government denies allegations that it has abducted activists, critics, and political dissidents. But December is the 13-year anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, a Lao civil society leader whose case exemplifies the country’s impunity for the grave rights violations against its critics.
Over the past decade, the Lao government has engaged in apparent quid pro quo agreements with neighboring countries, including Thailand and China, to forcibly return exiled dissidents. These so-called “swap mart” arrangements are aimed at deterring critics and dissidents. Such efforts by governments to silence dissent outside of their territorial jurisdiction have become known as “transnational repression.” Swap mart victims have included both dissidents from neighboring countries who fled to Laos and Lao dissidents who fled to Thailand.
Australian officials should urge the Lao government to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which it signed in 2008. Lao officials should immediately disclose the whereabouts or situation of those forcibly disappeared and end any policy or practice in conjunction with neighboring governments, including Thailand, that facilitates transnational repression.
“The upcoming Australia-Laos dialogue is an important reminder that bilateral relations are contingent on respect for human rights and the rule of law,” Gavshon said. “Australia should focus on the Lao government’s attacks on its critics and the need to resolve enforced disappearances, end transnational repression, and set clear benchmarks for progress on human rights.”
Ecuadorian Rights Group Files Case to Enforce Amazon Oil Referendum
Mexico City: Proposed Public Care System Lacking Disability Rights
(Mexico City) – The care system bill submitted to lawmakers by the government of Mexico City fails to guarantee autonomy, equality, and protection from abuse for people with disabilities and older people, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Mexico City Congress has formed a committee of experts to organize a public consultation on proposals for a new care and support system, which will include a proposal by Clara Brugada, head of the city government. The proposed Public System of Care seeks to address longstanding gender, age, and disability-related inequalities in caregiving. This is an important goal, because women, including women with disabilities and older women, have long disproportionately shouldered caregiving responsibilities, Human Rights Watch said. However, disability and older people’s rights groups and advocates said that the proposal contains serious omissions and inconsistencies that fail to guarantee the rights and autonomy of people with disabilities and older people.
“The draft law recognizes care as a right but omits essential elements to make that right effective,” said Carlos Ríos Espinosa, associate disability rights director at Human Rights Watch. “It does not clearly define what ‘support’ means, specify the types of services that would be provided—such as personal assistance, decision-making support, and other support essential for people with disabilities—or guarantee that users have control over their care and support arrangements.”
In a letter to lawmakers, advocates said that organizations representing people with disabilities and older people need to actively participate in designing, managing, and monitoring the care system. They warned that the current approach risks reproducing the fundamental flaws of charity-based models, in which people are treated as passive recipients rather than active participants in shaping their support.
Under international standards, support includes measures that enable people to make their own decisions, participate in their communities, and live independently. This may include personal assistance, communication and decision-making support, technology and accessibility services, and assistance for children and adolescents with disabilities as they transition to adulthood. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in its Advisory Opinion 31/2025, recognized support for independent living as an inherent component of the right to care.
A lack of adequate support systems can also leave people with disabilities at greater risk of violence and abuse within their homes. In its 2020 report “Better to Make Yourself Invisible,” Human Rights Watch documented cases in four Mexican states, including Mexico City, where people with disabilities experienced neglect and mistreatment by family members or caregivers, a problem often fueled in large part by the absence of independent living support.
A woman with a physical disability in Mexico City told Human Rights Watch that she has not left her home in years because her relatives do not allow her to go out alone. She said they often yell at her and scold her for wanting to be more independent.
“They tell me: ‘You can’t go out, you’ll get hurt, you don’t understand,’” she said. “They get angry when I insist. Sometimes I feel like I’m in prison.” Her situation illustrates how the absence of alternatives to family-provided support can create environments in which control, neglect, or abuse may occur, Human Rights Watch said.
“Without access to personal assistance or community-based support, many people with disabilities are forced to remain in family settings where they experience neglect, coercion, or abuse,” Ríos Espinosa said. “A comprehensive system of care and support should empower people to report violence and make their own choices about where and with whom to live.”
Human Rights Watch also noted that the proposal lacks clarity on the specific services to be provided—such as publicly funded personal assistance—and fails to establish a dedicated budget or framework that could expand and improve the system over time.
A strong and inclusive care and support system is urgently needed to promote equality, autonomy, and shared responsibility in caregiving, Human Rights Watch said. That system should fully align with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons, ensuring that care and support policies empower users rather than limit their independence. An inclusive care and support system could also advance gender equality by enabling women—including women with disabilities and older women—to exercise their rights and participate fully in education, work, and community life.
“The authorities should use this consultation process to strengthen the bill,” Ríos Espinosa said. “The law should reflect the lived experiences of those it is meant to serve—people with disabilities, older people, caregivers, and support providers—so that the right to care and support becomes a reality, not merely a promise.”
ILO: Strengthen Global Rules to Protect Gig Workers
(New York) – Governments negotiating a new global treaty on gig work should strengthen the draft text to ensure fair wages and social security for these workers and protect them from exploitative management, Human Rights Watch said today, submitting a briefing with proposals for the treaty.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is currently developing the first global rules for work organized through “digital platforms,” businesses like Uber, Lyft, or DoorDash. As part of the ILO process, governments, workers, and employers are submitting comments on the draft ahead of final negotiations in 2026.
“This is a historic opportunity to make sure technology and the economy work for workers, not against them,” said Lena Simet, senior economic justice researcher at Human Rights Watch. “At the ILO, governments, employers, and workers are writing the rules together, and those rules should protect the people doing the work, not the corporations that shift costs and risks onto their workers.”
The ILO estimates that platform work has nearly doubled in recent years, and the World Bank estimates that up to 400 million people now earn income through these businesses.
These companies promise their workers freedom and flexibility, but in reality, undermine their rights.
Around the world, platform companies misclassify workers as self-employed, evading legal obligations for minimum wages, safety, and social security. Algorithms determine who works, when, and at what rate, usually without transparency for workers or accountability for errors and injustices. Existing international law does not provide guidance on algorithmic management in the workplace, leaving a major gap in securing protections for workers’ rights.
The Human Rights Watch briefing complements a joint submission with nine civil society organizations outlining concrete proposals to ensure the treaty delivers on its promise of decent work for all platform workers. Human Rights Watch’s recommendations build on findings from a report the organization released earlier in 2025, which documented that platform workers across the US are being denied their human rights, including with pay below the minimum wage, unsafe working conditions, and the use of opaque and unaccountable algorithms to evade employer responsibilities.
Human Rights Watch recommends that the treaty treat platform workers as employees unless a company can prove genuine independence, ensuring workers are not wrongly classified as self-employed and denied labor rights protections. At the same time, it should make clear that all individuals working for these companies, regardless of contractual status, are entitled to the treaty’s protections.
The treaty should guarantee workers’ rights to safe and healthy working conditions by requiring companies to mitigate work-related risks and algorithm-driven pressure that pushes workers to work faster or longer. It should also ensure fair wages for all working time, including waiting periods, and require companies to cover the work-related expenses and social security contributions that traditional employers pay.
Stronger safeguards are also needed for algorithmic management. The treaty should require transparency about how automated systems affect all aspects of work, including pay and access to jobs, and ensure meaningful human review and appeal for automated decisions. Finally, it should explicitly protect gig workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively without retaliation or digital surveillance, ensuring that workers can safely join together to improve their conditions.
Governments should use this moment to champion a treaty that brings platform work in line with international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said.
“Gig workers have the same rights as everyone else,” Simet said. “They should not be paid poverty wages or abused through the use of blackbox and unfair algorithms. This ILO treaty can help correct the violations many gig workers face worldwide and show that human rights can be enforced in the digital age.”
Tunisia: Overturn Unjust ‘Conspiracy’ Trial Convictions
(Beirut) – A Tunisian Court on November 17, 2025, is scheduled to hear the appeal of 37 people unjustly sentenced to heavy prison terms in a politically motivated “Conspiracy Case” from April, Human Rights Watch said today. Four of those detained are on hunger strike, including one who, according to his lawyers, was subjected to physical violence in prison on November 11.
The defendants were charged under numerous articles of Tunisia’s Penal Code and the 2015 Counterterrorism Law with plotting to destabilize the country. Human Rights Watch reviewed judicial documents in the case and found the charges to be unfounded and not based on credible evidence. The court should immediately overturn the abusive convictions and release all detainees, Human Rights Watch said.
“This entire case has been a masquerade, from the baseless accusations to a judicial process devoid of fair trial guarantees,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should end this judicial farce, which is part of a wider crackdown on any form of criticism or dissent.”
On April 19, the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced the 37 people, including opponents of President Kais Saied, activists, lawyers, and researchers, to prison terms ranging from 4 to 66 years for “conspiracy against state security,” and terrorism offenses. They were convicted after only three hearings without due process protections. Three more defendants have not yet been tried and are in proceedings before the Court of Cassation.
On October 24, defense lawyers learned that the first appeal hearing would be held remotely via videoconference on October 27. The detained defendants were only notified on the day of the hearing, and the other defendants did not receive a summons, a lawyer told Human Rights Watch. On October 27, the hearing was adjourned to November 17.
Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, a political activist sentenced in April to 18 years in prison, began a hunger strike on October 29 to protest his arbitrary detention. He has not received adequate medical care in detention, his lawyer and sister Dalila Msaddek said. The Tunisian League for Human Rights and several lawyers have raised concerns about his health, which prison authorities rejected. In a video posted on Facebook, Msaddek said that on November 11, her brother was taken to an area in Belli prison without surveillance cameras and violently beaten by six other inmates and five prison guards. He has bruises on his body and a broken rib, she said.
Politician Issam Chebbi and lawyer Ridha Belhaj, who were handed the same sentence as Ben Mbarek, began a hunger strike on November 7 and 8, respectively. Political activist Abdelhamid Jelassi, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison also started a hunger strike on November 10.
The April trial was held without the main defendants, depriving them of a real opportunity to present their defense. The Tunis Court of First Instance and the public prosecutor claimed “a real danger” and tried some defendants by videoconference. Most of the detained defendants refused to attend by video.
Judicial authorities also plan to conduct the appeal by videoconference, said the defense committee. The practice of remote hearings is inherently abusive, as it violates the right of detainees to be physically present before a judge who can assess the legality and conditions of their detention as well as their health. International human rights law, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, states that everyone has the right to be present at their trial.
Twelve defendants are in detention. Some remain at liberty in Tunisia, and others abroad have been sentenced in absentia. Many of those convicted were initially arrested in February 2023 and held in abusive pretrial detention for more than two years, well beyond the maximum 14 months allowed under Tunisian law. A majority were taken before an investigative judge only once during that time.
The government has retaliated against defense lawyers in the case, further undermining defendants’ due process rights, Human Rights Watch said. On April 21, Ahmed Souad, a defense lawyer for some defendants, was arrested and charged with terrorism and “spreading false information” under the counterterrorism and cybercrime laws for questioning the independence of the judiciary following the trial. His trial was held without him, lasting just minutes, and the judge deliberated without hearing his lawyers’ pleadings. On October 31, he was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of administrative supervision.
Msaddek is set to appear before a Tunis court on November 25 for having spoken in a radio interview in 2023 in defense of her clients. She is accused of spreading “false information” and processing personal data under the cybercrime and protection of personal data laws.
In May 2023, Ayachi Hammami, previously a defense lawyer in the case, was added as a defendant, and sentenced in April to eight years in prison.
Following President Saied’s takeover of Tunisia’s state institutions on July 25, 2021, the authorities have dramatically intensified their repression of dissent.
Since early 2023, they have stepped up arbitrary arrests and detention of people across the political spectrum perceived as critical of the government. The authorities’ repeated attacks on the judiciary, including Saied’s dismantling of the High Judicial Council, have severely undermined its independence and jeopardized Tunisians’ right to a fair trial.
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 right to freedom of expression and assembly, to a fair trial, and to not be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention.
“Tunisia’s international partners should speak up against this flagrant injustice and assault on the rule of law,” Khawaja said. “They should urge Tunisian authorities to cease their crackdown, overturn these convictions, and guarantee fair trials.”
Thailand: Vietnamese Refugees at Risk from Hanoi
(Bangkok) – Increased cooperation between Thai and Vietnamese authorities is putting Vietnamese refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand at heightened risk of forcible return to Vietnam, Human Rights Watch said today. By facilitating Vietnamese cross-border abuses, known as transnational repression, Thai authorities are violating international refugee law protections.
Thai police have carried out several large-scale operations in 2025 detaining scores of Vietnamese nationals, many of whom are recognized by the United Nations as refugees and asylum seekers. Many of those arrested have reported encountering Vietnamese officials inside jails or immigration detention facilities and during check-in meetings with Thai immigration authorities.
“Vietnamese exiles are facing increased insecurity in Thailand,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Thai authorities should immediately stop detaining refugees and stop cooperating with Vietnamese police seeking their return.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 34 Vietnamese refugees and asylum seekers in Bangkok from July through October 2025, including 7 people previously involved in human rights activism in Vietnam, 3 relatives of current political prisoners, as well as over 20 ethnic Montagnards and Hmong facing persecution in Vietnam for their religious beliefs or involvement in protests. Nearly all have been recognized as refugees by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) or are registered with the UN as asylum seekers and are awaiting interviews to determine their status.
Most of the exiled Vietnamese interviewed said fears of arrest, abduction, or extradition to Vietnam have grown in the past two years due to increased visits by Vietnamese authorities to Thai immigration detention centers. They also cited the April 2023 abduction of dissident journalist Duong Van Thai, 42, a UNHCR-registered refugee who had fled Vietnam in 2019 and was awaiting resettlement to a third country. Unidentified men forcibly took him to Vietnam, and in late October 2024, after a closed one-day trial, a Vietnamese court sentenced him to 12 years in prison for publishing information “aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Exiles’ apprehension increased further after Thai authorities, assisted by Vietnamese security personnel, arrested the dissident Y Quynh Bdap in June 2024. The Vietnamese government has labeled Bdap’s human rights group, Montagnards Stand for Justice, as a “terrorist” group.
In 2025, Thai police have carried out multiple operations targeting Vietnamese exiles, including in February, March, April, July, and October. Many of those arrested are ethnic Montagnards or Hmong from Vietnam’s Central Highlands, most of whom are recognized by UNHCR as refugees or asylum seekers with applications in process. Several Montagnards and Hmong detained in February through April gave consistent accounts after their release of Vietnamese police in Thai facilities pressing them to agree to return to Vietnam and later harassing them during check-in sessions with Thai immigration authorities.
Many refugees said Vietnamese police had visited their relatives in Vietnam in the last year, telling them that the police had located their relatives in Thailand and were arranging to have them returned.
Several human rights groups in Thailand have interviewed detainees and released exiles who corroborate these findings and have sent private reports to UN officials with allegations about cases of abuse.
Thai police regularly detain UNHCR-recognized refugees—including from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar—and hold them until they pay a bail bond, which most refugees and immigration advocates consider to be bribes. Human Rights Watch reported in July that Thai police routinely arrest and solicit bribes from Myanmar asylum seekers and migrants. Another Human Rights Watch report documented Thai authorities assisting foreign governments to target refugees.
The Thai government is obligated to respect the international law principle of nonrefoulement, or non-return, which prohibits countries from returning anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other serious ill-treatment, a threat to life, or other comparable serious human rights violations. Refoulement is prohibited by the UN Convention Against Torture, to which Thailand is a party, as well as customary international law. The prohibition on refoulement is incorporated in Thailand’s 2023 Act on Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearances.
Vietnam and Thailand appear to have agreed to cooperate more closely and exchange information about Vietnamese refugees, especially those in detention, since early 2024 when the two countries began negotiating an extradition treaty. In May 2025, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Thailand’s then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra signed a Comprehensive Agreement in which they “agreed to enhance legislative and judicial cooperation and committed to effectively implementing signed agreements between the two countries on preventing and combating crime, transferring sentenced persons, and cooperating in the enforcement of penal sentences.”
In July, several UN human rights experts sent letters to the governments of Vietnam and Thailand requesting information about many of these cases. The UN experts stated that “[t]here are concerns that the Government of Viet Nam may be exchanging information with the Government of Thailand to identify Vietnamese Montagnard refugees in Thailand for their possible forced repatriation to Viet Nam, including those recognized as refugees by the UNHCR and being considered for resettlement in third countries.”
The experts also expressed alarm about the reported incidents of “reprisals and intimidation” against exile human rights defenders in Thailand and “the undue restrictions” imposed on diaspora organizations, which they determined were “designed to further discourage cooperation with the United Nations” and prevent people from providing information to the UN.
Countries that have previously resettled Vietnamese refugees, such as Australia, Canada, Germany, and other European states, should consider increasing their resettlement of those at serious risk, Human Rights Watch said. The US has all but suspended refugee resettlement programs, including for refugees in Thailand.
“Thailand is now cooperating and is complicit in Vietnam’s transnational repression of exiles in Thailand,” Sifton said. “Outside governments need to expedite resettlement of refugees at risk in Thailand and urge the government to prevent Vietnam’s interference in refugee cases.”
Thailand-Vietnam Cooperation, Pressure on Refugees
Immigration Raids
Thai authorities for years have carried out sweeps to detain migrants and immigrants, many of them refugees or asylum seekers from Myanmar, Vietnam, and elsewhere in the region. Those arrested are typically charged for entering Thailand illegally or working without a valid visa. Asylum seekers and refugees registered with UNHCR are generally not authorized to work under Thai law.
Those arrested are usually held short term in Thai jails. Some obtain release after paying what authorities call fines, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 Thai baht (US$30 to $150) each. Detainees unable to pay or otherwise obtain release from jail are then usually transferred to immigration detention centers, where they are held until they can post a bond, typically 50,000 baht (US$1,500), and demonstrate that they have obtained a Thai guarantor. In some other cases, they are deported or later resettled as refugees to third countries.
On February 23, 2025, in Nonthaburi province, just outside Bangkok, Thai police detained over 60 Montagnard people, including several UNHCR-recognized refugees, according to witnesses and UN reporting. Most were convicted of “illegal entry and stay” and sent to jail. Detainees subsequently were placed in immigration detention centers, women with children were transferred to an immigration detention center in Bang Khen in Bangkok, while others were sent to the Suan Phlu center. Police in May also detained several other Montagnard refugees and asylum seekers in and around Bangkok.
In other raids in March, April, and July, Thai police arrested dozens of Hmong refugees and asylum seekers. Some were able to pay fines or post bail to be released, but many Hmong people detained from early 2025 remained in detention as of early November.
In a more recent operation in Nonthaburi on October 29, Thai police detained 70 Montagnards in an early morning raid. According to local sources, those detained included 42 people whom UNHCR had determined were refugees or who were awaiting processing of their asylum claims. Several had been detained in the earlier raids.
The authorities soon released 20 of them, who had previously been released on bail, and took the rest to the Suan Phlu immigration detention facility. A member of the Montagnard community in Nonthaburi said that the next day, the Thai authorities fined the remaining detainees 5,000 Thai baht (US$150) each, indicating that they would be released on payment of the fine.
Threats to Families in Vietnam
Human Rights Watch interviewed over a dozen men and two women in Thailand from the Montagnard community in Bangkok who had fled Vietnam at various times from 2015 to 2023. Several said that government officials had regularly visited the exiles’ relatives in their home districts in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in recent months and urged them to tell their exiled family members to return. A Montagnard man in his 30s said police went to his village in February and told his parents that they knew where her son was and that they should tell him to come home, saying that if he returned, “there will be less trouble.”
Some refugees said that relatives arrested during the immigration raid in Nonthaburi province in April and May told them by telephone that Thai authorities had allowed two Vietnamese police officials to interrogate them in detention soon after their arrest. The police, their relatives said, threatened several of them with forced repatriation, demanding that they sign documents in which they would agree to be returned. Some said that while they were detained, Vietnamese police visited their families in Vietnam and attempted to coerce them to convince their relatives to return.
Several Hmong refugees reported similar incidents and trends. A Hmong woman, whose husband was a leader of an unregistered Christian church and who had fled with him and the rest of their family in 2022, said the police now regularly visit her parents and parents-in-law in Vietnam.
“They came on August 1 [2025] and told them, ‘We have an agreement with the Thai police to bring him back,’” referring to her husband, who had been in Thai immigration detention. They told them, “We’re going to put him in jail for his anti-state activities.” The woman said she believed the police were suggesting that if his parents and parents-in-law helped convince her husband to return voluntarily, he would be rewarded with some leniency.
Nguyen Viet Dung, a former political prisoner convicted in 2018 for conducting “propaganda against the state,” who fled Vietnam after his release in late 2024, said that his relatives in Vietnam had faced growing intimidation. He provided multiple examples of Vietnamese police visiting his parents and sister in 2025. He expressed concern that Vietnamese authorities would seek his arrest in Thailand because he was on still on parole from his 2018 conviction when he fled Vietnam, making his departure illegal.
An asylum seeker who fled in 2023, Hoang Hao, whose brother Hoang Duc Binh is a political prisoner in Vietnam, said the authorities have frequently harassed his sister in Vietnam. He said they press her to speak with him by telephone and urge him to return, while suggesting that they will otherwise compel Thailand to have him returned. Two other Vietnamese refugees gave similar accounts.
Vietnamese Authorities Harassing Refugees in Thailand
Several Hmong and Montagnard refugees who were held in Thai immigration detention in February through May, as well as refugees who spoke with detainees held there through August, said that Thai authorities allow Vietnamese police to visit detainees. With the involvement of Thai officials, they have repeatedly sought to convince or compel detainees to sign documents agreeing to return to Vietnam, which detainees have refused. And in March 2024, several Montagnards said Vietnamese police visited their community near Bangkok accompanied by Thai police, pressured them to return to Vietnam, and questioned them about other Montagnards who they said were wanted for arrest in Vietnam.
Several Montagnards described their interactions with Vietnamese police in detention or during check ins. “First they say they’ll be more lenient if you agree to return,” one said. “Of course we don’t believe them. They have been harassing our community for a long time.” Another said a Vietnamese police officer pulled him aside from the others when he had his monthly check-in with Thai immigration officials: “‘You’ve been here [in Thailand] for a long time, and still not been resettled to the United States. When are you ever going to get to go?’ They said, ‘If you stay here and the government here makes problems for you, then you can call us, and we’ll help you.’ The meaning to me was a threat. They’ll tell the Thai police to arrest us.”
In April, Vietnamese police pulled aside some Montagnard men during their check-in sessions with Thai immigration authorities. “They took some of us aside and yelled at us,” said a Montagnard Christian. He said that the police officer threatened them: “All Montagnards here are terrorists. We’ll tell them [Thai police] that you’re terrorists, and if you worship together [in church], the Thai police are to arrest you.”
After the arrests of scores of Montagnards in February, immigration lawyers successfully posted bail for most detainees, but Thai authorities rejected bail for two of them, Y Phuong Enuol and Y Duong Bkrong, reportedly because of warrants for their arrest in Vietnam, said advocates familiar with their case. UN rights experts noted in their July letter to the Thai government that Vietnamese officials in March visited these detainees, who, the experts said, “have expressed a fear of persecution by the Vietnamese authorities.”
Separately, Thai authorities in February through April arrested over a dozen Hmong men registered as refugees with UNHCR. Family members and rights advocates said most were affiliated with the Hmong Human Rights Coalition, a civil society group that monitors and reports on human rights violations against Hmong people in Vietnam. Vietnamese officials visited these detainees on multiple occasions in late April and early May at the Suan Phlu immigration detention center. They encouraged detainees to voluntarily return to Vietnam and to sign forms to facilitate their repatriation. None agreed. Most of the men remain in detention as of November 2025.
Thai authorities have detained Giang A Au, a Hmong Christian pastor who fled Vietnam with his family 10 years ago, with his wife and daughters several times, including as recently as April. His son, Giang A Nanh, 25, told Human Rights Watch in August that his father called him from immigration detention in early May and told him that he had been visited by a Vietnamese official, who identified himself as “Mr. Hung,” who had the father’s Vietnamese passport and national ID card, confiscated by Thai authorities during his arrest.
Giang A Nanh said that Hung told his father: “You and your family have been in Thailand for nearly 10 years. Vietnam has changed a lot. The United States has also closed its doors to refugees. There is no place left for you to go. Now you must return to Vietnam.” Giang A Au refused, and Hung said: “Remember, you have children waiting for you outside. You also have relatives in Vietnam, we know them all.” Hung then said that even if Giang A Au obtained bail, Thai police would rearrest him and that he would not be able to work in Thailand. If he tried to work, Hung said, Thai police would arrest him again.
Human Rights Watch learned in November that Thai authorities in late September had arrested the son, Giang A Nanh, and sent him to a Thai jail. After a month, the authorities transferred him to Thai immigration detention, where he has been held with his father and mother along with other Vietnamese detainees. His younger sisters, 18 and 21, are now the only adult caregivers of his younger brothers, ages 11 and 14.
The wives of five other detained Hmong activists said that their husbands had told them by telephone in April through July that Vietnamese security officials had visited them in detention and attempted to compel them to sign papers agreeing to be repatriated to Vietnam. The men refused, aware that the government considers them to be dissidents who have broken the law.
Vietnam state-run media have repeatedly broadcast reports that Hmong dissidents who left Vietnam without permission and criticized the government were criminals. A June 2024 broadcast on the government ANTV State Security Television featured a report on some of the 13 Hmong men arrested in March 2025, including Ma Seo Chang, Ma A Dinh, and Ma A Sinh.
The report said they had “illegally emigrated” to Thailand and claimed that the men were “defaming the policies of the [Communist] Party and Vietnamese State, fabricating false accusations about democracy, human rights, or religious freedom is the way these expatriates make a living.” Ma A Dinh and Ma A Sinh, who later obtained bail, said that the government considers them and other Hmong men arrested in March “enemies of the state.” ANTV again focused on the three men in April 2025, just after their arrest in Thailand, and in July 2025, and mocked their views.
Another Hmong activist, Lu A Da, a coordinator with the Hmong Human Rights Coalition in Thailand who fled Vietnam in 2020, said that he also encountered Vietnamese authorities twice after he was arrested and placed in Thai immigration detention in December 2023. His arrest had occurred just two weeks after he had spoken virtually on a UN human rights panel addressing discrimination against Indigenous groups in Vietnam.
Lu A Da said a Vietnam police official visited him in detention and that the official’s attempts to pressure him suggested to him that the Vietnamese government had sought his arrest. The official attempted to convince him to return to Vietnam, saying he would quickly process paperwork before the upcoming Lunar New Year. Lu A Da said, “When I refused his offer, he threatened me, warning, ‘You may do whatever you want in Thailand, but think about your family in Vietnam,’ This was intended to intimidate me into stopping my human rights work.”
Immigration Detention as Possible Vietnamese Proxy Detention
Several refugees and immigration and human rights advocates in Bangkok expressed concern that the Vietnamese authorities effectively made use of Thailand’s immigration detention system to incarcerate and punish prominent Montagnard and Hmong exiles, as well as to exert pressure on them and their communities to return to Vietnam.
Some former detainees said that during visits to Thai detention, Vietnamese officials said that they had requested that Thai immigration authorities continue their detention until they agreed to return to Vietnam.
In at least one case, the Thai authorities rebuffed a Vietnamese government request after the UN intervened. Lu A Da, of the Hmong Human Rights Coalition in Thailand, said that Vietnamese authorities, after pressing him to return when he was in Thai detention in late 2023, were subsequently unable to have his detention extended, after the UN officials secured his release. The Vietnamese government then ramped up their public campaign against him and other Hmong exiles, labeling them criminals.
US Food Assistance Cuts Undermined Rights
The US government suspended funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the first time on November 1, amid what became the longest-ever US government shutdown. While Congress has voted to reopen the government and restore SNAP funding, those who rely on the program have faced fear and uncertainty.
Continued failures by the US government to adequately fund food assistance forced families into difficult decisions to make ends meet and posed serious threats to the human rights of tens of millions of people in the Unites States.
The harms caused by these cuts were disproportionately borne by children, Black families, and adults with disabilities. In fiscal year 2023, 39 percent of SNAP recipients were children under 18. Families of color—including Black, Indigenous, and Latino households—are twice as likely to participate in SNAP as white households. Adults with disabilities are similarly overrepresented. Participation in SNAP reduces both racial and geographic disparities in food insecurity.
Jataya Greathouse is a single mother of four young children who is currently unable to work while battling breast cancer. Greathouse, who is Black, told Human Rights Watch she relies on SNAP to help feed her family and that she has resorted to “stretching” meals with the groceries she obtains. “Some people cannot work ... so by cutting [benefits], it hurts us.”
Yet even at their previous levels, SNAP benefits were often insufficient to allow families to access enough food. In 2021, when funding was at an all-time high, over a quarter of beneficiaries were still skipping meals and eligibility criteria left millions of struggling people without benefits. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act further reduced federal funding for SNAP and other social protection programs, partly to help pay for tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy.
Absent adequate social protection programs, communities often rely on each other for support; Greathouse’s aunt connected her to her local food bank. “I’m relying on SNAP to help feed my family,” she said. “If I don’t get it, it puts a hard rock on my back because now I’m not only going through something with my health, but I also have to figure out how to feed my kids.”
As the shutdown ends, the US government should immediately restore SNAP funding in full and as quickly as possible. It should refrain from further cutting funds and imposing unnecessarily burdensome eligibility requirements that make it more difficult for families to put food on the table.
Australia: Afghanistan’s Taliban May Face New Sanctions
The Australian government’s proposed amendments to its sanctions regulations are an important step toward accountability for Taliban officials and others responsible for serious abuses in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said in a recent submission to the Australian government.
The amended Autonomous Sanctions Regulations introduce new listing criteria that are specific to Afghanistan and will enable the Australian government to impose targeted sanctions and travel bans on individuals and entities in Afghanistan who are engaging in, responsible for, or complicit in the oppression of women, girls, and minority groups, or oppression in general. It will also permit sanctions against anyone undermining good governance and the rule of law in Afghanistan.
“It’s crucial for the Australian government to take action against Taliban leaders responsible for the assault on women and girls’ rights and other egregious abuses in Afghanistan,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “The amended sanctions regulations will allow Australia to join with other countries already taking steps to oppose the Taliban’s widespread and systematic oppression.”
The Taliban, since taking over the country in August 2021, have deepened their attack on the rights of women and girls, which amounts to the crime against humanity of gender persecution. UN human rights experts and Afghan women’s rights activists have described the Taliban’s systematic and structural violations on women and girls as “gender apartheid.”
Taliban authorities have also increasingly restricted civic space, carried out broad censorship, and detained and tortured journalists and activists. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Afghans, and people who do not conform to rigid gender norms in Afghanistan have faced an increasingly desperate situation and grave threats to their safety and lives under the Taliban. In addition, groups affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) have carried out bombings targeting ethnic Hazara Shia and others, killing and injuring hundreds of people.
“The Australian government should use targeted sanctions as an important foreign policy tool against the Taliban to press for accountability for serious abuses,” Gavshon said. “Imposing sanctions on abusive leaders is one of several measures that can raise the cost of committing human rights violations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.”
Türkiye: ‘Restriction Codes’ Harm Uyghurs Seeking Safety
(Istanbul) – Turkish authorities are increasingly restricting the legal residency of Uyghurs seeking safety from the Chinese government, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 51-page report, “Protected No More: Uyghurs in Türkiye,” finds that Uyghurs’ previous access to international protection status, and indeed preferential treatment under the Turkish immigration system, is being nullified as authorities arbitrarily mark their police and immigration records with “restriction codes,” denoting them a “public security threat.” The government detains some Uyghurs in inhumane and degrading conditions, and coerces them to sign voluntary return forms, putting them at risk of removal to third countries that have extradition agreements with China.
“Until recently, Uyghurs who escaped repression at home felt safe in Türkiye, but as China-Türkiye relations warm, and the Erdoğan government cracks down on refugees and migrants, many are growing fearful,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Some Uyghurs say they don’t dare leave their homes for fear of arrests and being sent to deportation centers, while others are undertaking perilous journeys elsewhere in search of safety.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 13 Uyghurs, 6 lawyers, and a Turkish government official knowledgeable about the situation, and reviewed Turkish government policies and documents, such as deportation decisions, case records, and circular orders. Human Rights Watch also reviewed publicly available cases of 33 Uyghurs who were held in deportation centers between December 2018 and October 2025.
“Now, because I don’t have any legal documents, I cannot even go outside because of fear, even for groceries because I don't want to end up in the deportation center again.” said a Uyghur whose residence permit was arbitrarily canceled by Turkish authorities.
Under the immigration crackdown, Uyghurs, like other refugees and migrants in Türkiye, are often assigned “restriction codes” (typically code “G87”) that can lead to a cascade of negative and often devastating consequences. These include rejection of international protection applications or another status entitling an individual to residency, as well as denial of citizenship. Uyghurs have effectively become “irregular migrants” and some eventually are ordered deported. When they interact with a police or immigration officers for any reason, they can be sent to a deportation center.
The Uyghurs and their lawyers that were interviewed said that Uyghurs are subjected to ill-treatment in detention centers and often pressured to sign voluntary return forms, allowing them to be repatriated or sent to another country. At least three of the Uyghurs interviewed had signed the form, and one of them was deported to the United Arab Emirates, which has an extradition treaty with China.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the Migration Management President seeking comments on the report findings and information about Uyghurs in Türkiye on September 23, and again on October 27, 2025, and received no answer.
The assignment of restriction codes is linked to the implementation of Türkiye’s Law 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection. How and why restriction codes are assigned is unclear and in practice their use seems to reach far beyond what was intended under the law. They are often imposed without reasonable justification, concrete evidence, or a clear causal link to wrongdoing.
Under Turkish law, individuals can appeal deportation decisions.Human Rights Watch reviewed five court decisions from 2024 and 2025 concerning deportation order appeals by Uyghurs. In each case, the court upheld the deportation order without saying what the individuals had done that constituted the alleged threat to public security and order. Worryingly, in each case the court ruled that the prohibition of refoulement did not apply, contending that the applicant Uyghur had not established they would be at risk of ill-treatment and torture if sent to China. A lawyer who has lodged many such appeals said that judges can often issue “a negative decision [dismissing an appeal] when they see restriction codes, just to be safe.”
The Turkish government is obligated to respect the international law principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits countries from returning anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other serious ill-treatment, a threat to life, or other comparable serious human rights violations.
A simple complaint from a neighbor or being ensnared in a criminal case—even though later acquitted—can result in decisions to apply the restriction codes. Turkish authorities also base these codes on intelligence provided by other governments. In some cases, the Chinese government submitted lists of people it brands as “terrorists,” a term it conflates with peaceful activism or expression of Uyghur identity in Xinjiang.
Since 2017, the Chinese government has subjected Uyghurs to severe human rights abuses that Human Rights Watch and independent legal experts have concluded amount to crimes against humanity. If returned to China, especially from a country such as Türkiye that the Chinese government deems “sensitive,” Uyghurs may face detention, interrogation, torture, and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.
“The Turkish government should respect the principle of nonrefoulement, immediately stop all deportations of Uyghurs to third countries, and recognize Uyghurs as refugees on a prima facie basis,” Pearson said. “Other governments should halt transferring Uyghurs to Türkiye, as it can no longer be considered a safe third country for Uyghurs, and should consider resettling Uyghur refugees from Türkiye.”
Selected Quotes:
“I was treated as if I was guilty. I spent one year in detention.... I tried several times to renew my residence permit but failed. The immigration office told me I had 10 days to leave the country, after telling me that my latest residence permit application was rejected. Then, I decided to leave the country. I had my Chinese passport, so I booked a flight to a third country that would be a path for me to go to safety in Europe. Turkish authorities detained me at the airport and put me on a two-year entry ban.”
- A Uyghur who was arbitrarily detained by Turkish authorities because of a restriction code and left Türkiye afterwards, June 2025.
“The conditions were very poor. In one instance, the facility did not provide proper food for nine days straight. In one deportation center, I slept on the cement floor for a week where I shared a single blanket with two other people. There were 20 people in a small cell where there was no sense of hygiene. I witnessed people who got infested with lice.”
- A Uyghur who spent several months at various deportation centers, May 2025.
“In some instances, people who had a call with someone suspicious can get assigned a code. For example, there was a Uyghur who was detained on suspicion of “terrorism” but then released unconditionally, as there was a lack of evidence. However, during the investigation, everyone who had a phone call with this person got a G87 code.”
- A lawyer who works on cases of Uyghurs, July 2025.
“There are many cases where the government cancelled the long-term residence permits of Uyghurs and gave them a humanitarian residence permit [instead]. The decision is arbitrary. And some of my clients’ humanitarian residence permits are also cancelled or denied renewal. In such situations, people can be held in those centers for up to one year. Then they will be released without legal status. Then, after a couple of days, another police checkpoint can lead them to detention once again. It is … a horrible vicious cycle for those who don’t have proper documents. Türkiye has increasingly become an unlivable place for Uyghurs.”
- A lawyer who works on cases of Uyghurs, June 2025.