Human Rights Watch

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(New York) – Bangladesh's interim government should seek expertise and technical assistance from the United Nations for its new commission of inquiry investigating all cases of enforced disappearances during the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina, Human Rights Watch said today. The interim administration, led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has announced a five-member team headed by a retired judge, which includes another former judge, a university teacher, and two human rights activists.

The government has also made a commitment to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, a landmark move after years of refusals by the previous government to recognize enforced disappearances. It has also agreed to support a UN fact-finding team in investigating abuses during recent protests, which earlier in August 2024 led Sheikh Hasina to resign as prime minister and flee the country.

“With this commission of inquiry, Bangladesh has an opportunity to pursue justice for the victims of enforced disappearances and their families, many of whom have desperately sought answers, only to be dismissed, threatened, and humiliated by officials,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should seize the opportunity to create a robust process with international expertise, including forensics, to investigate these abuses and identify avenues for reparations in collaboration with victims and their families.”

Odhikar, a prominent Bangladeshi human rights organization, estimates that 708 people were forcibly disappeared under Hasina’s rule. While some people were later released, produced in court, or said to have died during an armed exchange with security forces, nearly 100 people remain missing.

The commission of inquiry should investigate every case, regardless of whether the person was returned, killed, or remains missing. It should be additionally mandated with identifying all clandestine detention centers, and the interim government should immediately shut them down and release anyone still being held in incommunicado custody. The commission should have the authority to make recommendations regarding the prosecution of suspects, reparations to victims and their families, the enactment of specific legislation, and institutional and other reforms that would prevent repetition of past violations.

The newly formed commission has said it would submit a report within 45 days. To effectively carry out its mandate, the commission should be adequately resourced and authorized to obtain all information necessary, including to compel the attendance and cooperation of state officials and law enforcement as witnesses and to order the government, police, and other officials to produce records. The commission should establish a variety of means through which to submit evidence so that the process is accessible and all interested parties have an opportunity to participate.

Given the entrenched impunity for security force abuses in Bangladesh, the interim government should request the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN human rights experts to provide technical support and monitoring of the investigation. The investigators should also work closely with Maayer Daak (“Mothers’Call”) and other organizations representing victims and their families.

Throughout the inquiry, the commission should collect views from victims about what forms of reparation would serve to meaningfully recognize the harm suffered, in addition to bringing those responsible to justice. The commission should recommend the full range of reparations required by international standards, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition.

The interim government should make a commitment to ensuring effective reparations, including carrying out Maayer Daak’s call for the creation of a memorial to commemorate victims of enforced disappearances and the suffering of their families, and to stand against the commission of disappearances in the future.

The report’s conclusions and recommendations should be made public and accessible and should require periodic updates on implementation. Evidence collected by the commission should be preserved and made available for judicial and other official investigations in Bangladesh and elsewhere, and the commission should identify an independent entity to safely hold the records following the completion of investigations.

Three victims of enforced disappearances – Michael Chakma, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, and Abdullahil Amaan Azmi – were released shortly after Hasina fled the country. In all three cases, authorities had for years denied having them in custody.

Speaking to the media, Chakma described severe torture while he was detained underground in a secret detention site called Aynaghar (house of mirrors) run by the military intelligence agency. Since he was released, he has had difficulties walking and reading and suffers from nightmares. Both Quasem and Chakma said they were confined alone in near-constant darkness but could hear others being tortured, indicating that others may still be held in the secret detention center.

“The only sounds were the incessant whirring of fans and the muffled cries of fellow detainees from nearby cells. I couldn’t see how many of us there were, but the sounds of weeping and despair gave me a sense of the numbers,” Chakma said.

“I could hear people crying, I could hear people being tortured, I could hear people screaming,” Quasem told Agence France-Presse.

The commission’s mandate should include investigations into the torture and other ill-treatment that victims experienced, Human Rights Watch said. The government should ensure that individuals found in the commisssion’s investigation as having participated in violations are investigated and brought to justice. Yunus should facilitate a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and seek their recommendations and input.

On August 16, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, called on the government to open a “comprehensive, impartial and transparent investigation into all human rights violations and abuses that have occurred” and to release all victims of enforced disappearances. The commissioner also identified the need for an independent investigation into abuses, including enforced disappearances, in a report it released following the recent protests.

Under Hasina, the government consistently denied that security forces had committed enforced disappearances, insisting that those missing had gone into hiding of their own volition. Relatives of victims of enforced disappearance have suffered harassment and reprisals at the hands of the authorities, with some forced to sign false statements that they had been intentionally misleading the police and the public.

Bangladesh has no witness protection law or system. The interim government should move forward with the proposed legislation drafted by the law commission nearly 15 years ago and donor governments should financially support the implementation of a witness protection program. In the meantime, the commission of inquiry should take special precaution to ensure all witnesses are protected from harassment, threats, intimidation, and retaliation.

As part of efforts to ensure abuses are not repeated, the interim government should reform institutions to enable civilian oversight over security forces and immediately disband the Rapid Action Battalion, a notoriously abusive paramilitary unit that was sanctioned by the United States government in 2021 for human right abuses, particularly enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

“Pursuing accountability for enforced disappearances in Bangladesh and informing the families of victims of what happened to their loved ones is an important first step in building toward a rights-respecting future,” Ganguly said. “Yunus should call on the UN to ensure that Bangladesh’s new commission is well-resourced and has the power to gather all the information required to bring answers and justice to victims of enforced disappearances, their families, and their communities.”

Click to expand Image Activists protest the use of pesticides outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, on October 4, 2023. © 2024 Eraldo Peres/AP Photo

A few meters from the public door of Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA), is a separate private door. To better understand who has access to one of Brazil’s most powerful ministries, the investigative group, Reporter Brasil, obtained a private log of those who entered through this second door between January and November 2023. Human Rights Watch helped digitize and turn the handwritten 381-page list of names into a searchable database.

Reporter Brasil identified the ministry’s top 10 visitors. Among them is João Henrique Hummel Vieira, instrumental in founding the Agriculture Parliamentary Front (FPA), the largest group representing interests of industrial agriculture, and Pensar Agro (Agriculture Thought Institute), a powerful think tank known for lobbying. The logs show Vieira made 12 visits. What precisely was on the agenda each time he and others met with officials at MAPA remains unknown.

Similarly, investigative group O Joio e O Trigo recently reviewed 752 meetings between federal government representatives and agribusiness and chemical lobbyists from October 2022 through July 2024 and found that the descriptions of these meeting were often blank or generic.

These new investigations underscore the opaqueness around lobbying in Brazil and the urgent need for robust regulations requiring transparency about what is discussed and with whom, made available to the public through searchable registries. 

The lack of transparency is especially concerning since the agriculture ministry’s powers over pesticides dramatically increased in May with the adoption of the “poison package,” overruling President Lula da Silva’s vetoes. Notably, O Joio e O Trigo’s investigation found that agribusiness, chemical lobbyists, and companies increasingly visited the federal offices, during April and May 2024, as Congress was deciding whether to overrule President Lula’s vetoes in the “poison package.”

Widely criticized by local organizations, the “poison package” granted MAPA primary authority over pesticide regulation and opened the floodgates for regulatory approval of harmful pesticides in Brazil, which is already one of the world’s largest users of “highly hazardous” pesticides.

Mandatory lobbying disclosures and searchable public registries are central to good governance. While insufficient alone to curb corporate influence over public offices, they introduce transparency. The European Union, Canada, and US, have publicly searchable registries.

Global conglomerates manufacturing, importing, or exporting pesticides, and companies sourcing from Brazil’s farms should be aware of the heightened human rights risks of operating in environments where stringent pesticide approvals are downgraded, and corporate lobbying is carried out behind closed doors.

Click to expand Image Chairs are placed on classroom tables at a closed public school in Beirut, Lebanon September 22, 2022. © 2022 Mohamed Azakir/Reuters

Ahead of the upcoming school year, local authorities and politicians in Lebanon are seeking to impose discriminatory restrictions that could result in tens of thousands of refugee children being denied their right to education.

On July 8, Lebanese Forces party leader Samir Geagea wrote on social media that the Education Ministry must require all students to provide identification papers to register for the 2024-25 school year, for both public and private schools. Foreign students, including Syrians, he insisted, must have valid residency permits to register.

In July and August, at least two municipalities in Lebanon issued their own statements requiring valid Lebanese residency permits for Syrian children to enroll in school.

But due to the red tape and stringent criteria for renewal of Lebanese residency permits, only around 20 percent of Syrian refugees have valid residency status in Lebanon. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees also halted formal registration of Syrian refugees in 2015 in compliance with a government order.

Through no fault of their own, the children of the approximately 80 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are unregistered and undocumented risk losing their access to school.

For years, Lebanon’s refugee population has endured toxic anti-refugee rhetoric blaming them for the country’s overlapping crises. Much of that scapegoating is directed at Lebanon’s Syrian refugee community, estimated to be around 1.5 million people, and has resulted in discrimination, violence, and summary deportations.

But now, such anti-refugee policies are targeting one of the most basic needs of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugee children: education.

In an interview with L’Orient le Jour on August 13, 2024, Lebanese Minister of Education Abbas Halabi reiterated that his ministry is committed to the core principle of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that all children, regardless of nationality or status, will be registered for school in Lebanon.

As the new school year begins, foreign donors that have given substantial sums to education in Lebanon should press the government to follow through on Halabi’s words. The Lebanese government should ensure all children, regardless of nationality or status, can register for school and are not denied the right to an education.

Click to expand Image An undated photograph of Heidi Pérez. © Cristina Pérez

(Mexico City) – The Mexican Attorney General’s Office has failed to properly investigate allegations that soldiers shot and killed a 4-year-old girl in August 2022, Human Rights Watch said in a report, including visual evidence, published today.

The report, “Who Killed Heidi Pérez?” details the serious omissions and errors committed by prosecutors leading the investigation. The Attorney General’s Office failed to take basic steps to corroborate the military’s version of events, despite irregularities in the evidence presented by soldiers and inconsistencies between the military’s timeline and video evidence from the night of the shooting, Human Rights Watch found. The authorities also failed to follow up on a ballistics test result that showed a possible but inconclusive match between the bullet that killed the young girl and one of the weapons carried by a soldier that night. 

Who Killed Heidi Pérez?

“Nearly two years after Heidi Pérez’s killing, the Attorney General’s Office has done next to nothing to examine the serious inconsistencies in the military’s story about what happened on the night of August 31, 2022,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The Attorney General’s Office should not just passively accept the Defense Ministry’s claims that soldiers had nothing to do with Pérez’s death. That is a recipe for impunity.”

Heidi Pérez was killed by shots fired into the rear windshield of her family’s car as they drove through downtown Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, on the night of August 31, 2022. Her family has said that soldiers fired at the car, causing the young girl’s death. 

Human Rights Watch reviewed thousands of pages from the criminal investigation file, interviewed Heidi’s family and their lawyers, visited the scene of the shooting, and examined the car in which Heidi was riding. Researchers also consulted with independent forensic and ballistics experts and reviewed satellite and open-source imagery and security camera footage from the night Heidi was killed. The evidence reviewed in the case file includes witness statements, forensic studies, and photographs of the crime scene, vehicles, ammunition, and of the wounds. 

The Defense Ministry has claimed Pérez was killed by unidentified members of a criminal group who allegedly opened fire on soldiers nearby. Human Rights Watch reviewed this claim but found it is not supported by any reliable evidence. 

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero on August 1, describing the findings and urging him to take steps to rectify omissions in the investigation. He has not replied. 

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Defense Ministry in February, asking for information about the events of the night of August 31, 2022, including a list of the soldiers and military vehicles in the area. The Directorate General for Human Rights replied in May, saying an internal investigation had determined that “military personnel did not violate human rights.”

Heidi’s mother, Cristina Pérez, said that in September 2022, a Defense Ministry official approached her to offer “support” if the family agreed to stop speaking publicly about the killing. She interpreted this to mean an offer of money, she told Human Rights Watch. She refused. “The only thing I want right now is the truth” she told Human Rights Watch. “I want the Attorney General’s Office to do their job.”

The military harassed the family after she refused the offer. She said that soldiers followed her family around Nuevo Laredo and began appearing outside their home at night. Eventually, she left Nuevo Laredo to protect her family from harassment. 

Mexico’s Defense Ministry often offers financial compensation to families of people killed or injured by soldiers. From 2010 to 2022, journalists found more than 230 such agreements between the Defense Ministry and victims’ families. The Defense Ministry refused a Human Rights Watch request for information on 2023 agreements.

(Bangkok) – Cambodian authorities have arbitrarily arrested at least 94 people since late July 2024 for publicly criticizing the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. At least 59 of those arrested, which include environmental, human rights, and other activists, as well as several children, remain unlawfully detained and charged for peacefully expressing their views. The authorities should immediately drop all charges for which no internationally recognized charge is brought. 

The CLV is a development plan among the governments of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam established in 2004 to facilitate cooperation on trade and migration. Concerns about the agreement resurfaced on social media in July particularly regarding land concessions, and whether the CLV benefitted foreign interests above Cambodians. Many of those arrested have been charged with plotting and incitement merely for expressing their views on the CLV, or organizing peaceful protests. 

“The mass arrests of CLV Development Triangle Area activists are a deliberate, coordinated effort by Cambodian authorities to intimidate critics and prevent them from demonstrating in Phnom Penh or sharing their views on social media,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These wrongful detentions and charges show Prime Minister Hun Manet’s disrespect for the rights of Cambodians and the country’s international human rights obligations.”

Following the first arrests of three activists in July, Telegram groups with thousands of members formed and began organizing public gatherings and peaceful marches to protest the agreement. Cambodians also held demonstrations in early August in South Korea, Japan, and Australia about the CLV.

As public criticism grew, Cambodian authorities tightened security measures and travel restrictions. Local human rights groups alleged that government officials across the country were putting land rights and civil society activists under surveillance, including ordering several not to travel outside of their communities and threatening their family members. The authorities also have imposed roadblocks on highways entering Phnom Penh, and have been arbitrarily searching vans and taxis entering the capital.

Former prime minister and current Senate president Hun Sen’s official Telegram channel has aired videos of school children across Cambodia chanting in unison their support for the development agreement.

Senior officials have endorsed the crackdown through various public statements. 

Hun Sen publicly called for the aforementioned arrest and sentencing of three activists in July who criticized the agreement on a broadcast on Facebook. He also threatened critics of the CLV in Cambodia as well as the families of opposition activists who live abroad with surveillance tactics that violate the right to privacy and the right to family life, stating that, “I urge the [Cambodian] government to search and find out all the groups that created this problem and live in the country. And compile all the cases of individuals outside the country, and study their family history, where their family are, if they are outside the country.”

The National Police stated on August 11 that, “We are committed to making sacrifices in order to safeguard the legitimate Royal Government and implement stringent measures to prevent and suppress treacherous acts without exception, at all costs.” On August 16, the Cambodian gendarmerie leader, Sao Sokha, also released a video of a speech to his subordinates ordering them to be ready to face protesters armed with guns and to shoot if necessary. 

The National Defense Ministry spokesperson, Chhum Socheat, told CamboJA News on August 12 that the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) supports the CLV, and in a post on Facebook, the RCAF High Command stated that it “... will suppress and destroy all incited tactics that destroy the nation and peace, and other attempts to sabotage and overthrow the legitimate Royal Government in any form.” Government officials from the national and provincial levels, including from the armed forces, have issued a petition supporting the CLV.

Hun Sen continued to make public threats against CLV critics in an August 12 speech, including against Hay Vanna, an opposition activist living in Japan: “[Y]ou all tried to incite others.… [W]e have heard what Hay Vanna said outside of the country.… You need to think about it carefully. If you make mistakes, you might be in danger.… You need to think about this carefully before you travel to join the protest.” 

On August 16, Cambodian authorities arrested Hay Vannith, Vanna’s brother, a Health Ministry civil servant, and did not provide information about his whereabouts until August 20, raising concerns that he had been forcibly disappeared. His family only learned he was in custody after an audio recording of a “confession” by Vannith to overthrow the government was posted on August 21 on the Cambodia government spokesperson’s Facebook page. 

The government-aligned media outlet, Fresh News, broadcast on August 19 a “confession” from Lach Tina, a youth activist, accusing fellow activists protesting the CLV of organizing a plot against the government.

These supposed “confessions” by detainees and claims of plots against the government heighten concerns for their safety and others in custody, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said.

Of the 94 people arrested, at least 59 have been charged and remain under arrest or in pretrial detention. Cambodian authorities have charged at least 21 people with incitement to commit a felony, a charge often spuriously brought against human rights activists. In 2021, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia expressed concern about the improper use of incitement charges. Incitement carries a penalty of up to two years in prison, while “plotting” carries a punishment of up to ten years. 

At least 33 people face charges of plotting against the state, including 4 young adult members from the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association. This charge was recently brought against members of the environmental group Mother Nature, after which the UN Human Rights Office spokesperson, Thameen Al-Kheetan, “call[ed] on Cambodia to hold broad-based public consultations to amend relevant articles of the Cambodian Criminal Code to bring them into conformity with international human rights law.” At least four children have also been charged with plotting, punishable by up to five years in prison, rather than ten, because they are children. 

All four children charged remain in pretrial detention. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Cambodia ratified in 1992, states that the arrest and detention of a child should be used only as a last resort and for the shortest period of time. The convention also upholds the rights of children to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

“The arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement, peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression are not justified under international law. The harassment of activists and their families is never acceptable. Alarmingly, the heavy-handed response by the Cambodian government has seen young people, including some children, unlawfully detained and charged with serious crimes against the State,” said Kate Schuetze, deputy regional director for Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office at Amnesty International. “Cambodia’s partners should publicly and jointly call for this assault on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to end.”

Click to expand Image United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, November 16, 2023. © 2023 Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP Photo

(New York) – The Chinese government persists in committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang while denying repression there, Human Rights Watch said today.

Ahead of the two-year anniversary from August 31, 2022, when the United Nations human rights office’s damning report on Xinjiang was released, the UN high commissioner for human rights and UN member countries should intensify pressure on the Chinese government to end its abuses.

“Beijing’s brazen refusal to meaningfully address well-documented crimes in Xinjiang is no surprise, but shows the need for a robust follow-up by the UN human rights chief and UN member states,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Contrary to the Chinese government’s claims, its punitive campaign against millions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang continues to inflict great pain.”

Over the past two years, the Chinese government has dismissed all calls to end its severe repression in Xinjiang, which includes mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.

Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims remain wrongfully imprisoned. Those abroad have little to no contact with their families in China. Many live with the uncertainty about whether their loved ones – sometimes dozens of their family and relatives – remain detained, imprisoned, or forcibly disappeared. Some families do not know if their relatives who have been taken into custody are even still alive. While a number have been released, they remain subjected to strict police surveillance and further restrictions on their rights.

On August 27, 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, acknowledged that in Xinjiang “many problematic laws and policies remain in place,” and reported that his office continues to press the Chinese authorities to free those being held in arbitrary detention, and clarify the status and whereabouts of those missing.

He expressed hope that, through continued “engagement” with the government, his office could work toward “tangible progress in the protection of human rights for all in China.” He said that his office was “continuing to advocate for implementation” of its recommendations, even though the Chinese delegation has continued to reject all recommendations from the 2022 Xinjiang report. Chinese authorities have dismissed the report as “illegal and void” as recently as during the conclusion of the UN Universal Periodic Review of China’s human rights record in July.

China’s high-profile rejection of the UN Human Rights Office report and recommendations, and repeated pleas from Uyghur victims and families, have not led Türk to issue a comprehensive public update on the situation or on the implementation of the recommendations made in the office’s 2022 report.

“The UN human rights commissioner has recognized that many of the ‘problematic laws and policies’ that led to the abusive crackdown against Uyghurs remain in place,” Wang said. “Two years since the UN Human Rights Office report concluded that abuses in Xinjiang ‘may constitute crimes against humanity,’ the office needs to issue an update on the current situation in Xinjiang and present a concrete action plan for holding those responsible to account.”

UN member states also have a responsibility to follow-up on the report’s grave conclusions, Human Rights Watch said. Since a narrowly defeated attempt to put the situation in Xinjiang on the UN Human Rights Council’s agenda in 2022, UN member states have engaged in little collective action against the crimes being committed against Uyghurs and others.

At the upcoming Human Rights Council session, starting on September 9, countries from all regions should issue a joint statement asking the UN High Commissioner for an update on Xinjiang and concrete recommendations for holding accountable those responsible for serious abuses. Ultimately, they should take long-overdue action to open a China-specific inquiry into the serious abuses throughout the country, as over 50 UN experts and hundreds of rights groups around the world have recommended.

The UN Human Rights Office and governments from around the globe should work together to challenge the Chinese government’s impunity,” Wang said. “The UN Human Rights Commissioner should make clear that no government, however powerful, can get away with such serious international crimes.”

Click to expand Image United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speaks at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, November 16, 2023. © 2023 Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP Photo

(New York) – The Chinese government persists in committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang while denying repression there, Human Rights Watch said today.

Ahead of the two-year anniversary on August 31, 2022, of the United Nations human rights office’s damning report on Xinjiang, the UN high commissioner for human rights and UN member countries should intensify pressure on the Chinese government to end its abuses.

“Beijing’s brazen refusal to meaningfully address well-documented crimes in Xinjiang is no surprise, but shows the need for a robust follow-up by the UN human rights chief and UN member states,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Contrary to the Chinese government’s claims, its punitive campaign against millions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang continues to inflict great pain.”

Over the past two years, the Chinese government has dismissed all calls to end its severe repression in Xinjiang, which includes mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.

Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims remain wrongfully imprisoned. Those abroad have little to no contact with their families in China. Many live with the uncertainty about whether their loved ones – sometimes dozens of their family and relatives – remain detained, imprisoned, or forcibly disappeared. Some families do not know if their relatives who have been taken into custody are even still alive. While a number have been released, they remain subjected to strict police surveillance and further restrictions on their rights.

On August 27, 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, acknowledged that in Xinjiang “many problematic laws and policies remain in place,” and reported that his office continues to press the Chinese authorities to free those being held in arbitrary detention, and clarify the status and whereabouts of those missing.

He expressed hope that, through continued “engagement” with the government, his office could work toward “tangible progress in the protection of human rights for all in China.” He said that his office was “continuing to advocate for implementation” of its recommendations, even though the Chinese delegation has continued to reject all recommendations from the 2022 Xinjiang report. Chinese authorities have dismissed the report as “illegal and void” as recently as during the conclusion of the UN Universal Periodic Review of China’s human rights record in July.

China’s high-profile rejection of the UN Human Rights Office report and recommendations, and repeated pleas from Uyghur victims and families, have not led Türk to issue a comprehensive public update on the situation or on the implementation of the recommendations made in the office’s 2022 report.

“The UN human rights commissioner has recognized that many of the ‘problematic laws and policies’ that led to the abusive crackdown against Uyghurs remain in place,” Wang said. “Two years since the UN Human Rights Office report concluded that abuses in Xinjiang ‘may constitute crimes against humanity,’ the office needs to issue an update on the current situation in Xinjiang and present a concrete action plan for holding those responsible to account.”

UN member states also have a responsibility to follow-up on the report’s grave conclusions, Human Rights Watch said. Since a narrowly defeated attempt to put the situation in Xinjiang on the UN Human Rights Council’s agenda in 2022, UN member states have engaged in little collective action against the crimes being committed against Uyghurs and others.

At the upcoming Human Rights Council session, starting on September 9, countries from all regions should issue a joint statement asking the UN High Commissioner for an update on Xinjiang and concrete recommendations for holding accountable those responsible for serious abuses. Ultimately, they should take long-overdue action to open a China-specific inquiry into the serious abuses throughout the country, as over 50 UN experts and hundreds of rights groups around the world have recommended.

The UN Human Rights Office and governments from around the globe should work together to challenge the Chinese government’s impunity,” Wang said. “The UN Human Rights Commissioner should make clear that no government, however powerful, can get away with such serious international crimes.”

Click to expand Image A 15-year-old girl, barred from attending secondary school since 2021, reads a notebook in Afghanistan, March 20, 2024. © 2024 Fariba Akbari/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

Last week, the Taliban in Afghanistan published outrageous new laws on “vice and virtue” that require women to completely cover their bodies, including their faces, in public at all times.

In issuing the law, the Taliban claimed that women's voices could lead to vice, referring to their voices as aurat (a term in Sharia, or Islamic law, that signifies a man or woman’s intimate parts, which must be covered).

Reducing their voices and bodies to things and sources of sin is an egregious act of sexualizing and objectifying women. These laws attack women’s personhood and autonomy, contributing to their further erasure from society. The Taliban have also announced that women should not be heard speaking, singing, or reciting aloud in public.

When the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan three years ago, some were optimistic that “version 2.0” would be different and more open to women’s rights and human rights, as if their initial rule from 1996 to 2001 was not already defined by oppression and misery for the people of Afghanistan, particularly women and girls. For much of the international community, it seemed the Taliban’s past record, marked by unrelenting repression, flogging, stoning, and public executions, was easily forgotten. Many diplomats seemed quick to overlook the civilian lives lost due to Taliban attacks throughout the previous republic era.

Since 2021, the Taliban have persistently attacked women's autonomy, oppressing them from every angle. They have banned girls and women from education beyond sixth grade, many forms of employment, and from public life. Having reduced women and girls to the status of non-humans, they severely restrict their movement, denying them any sense of agency or autonomy.

After the new laws were announced, many Afghan women bravely defied the ban. Some women inside Afghanistan posted videos of them singing. Others gathered in parks outside the country, singing about freedom and women’s resistance, chanting that no one and nothing can silence the women of Afghanistan.

Click to expand Image Ukrainian Parliament during a session in Kyiv, Ukraine, August 21, 2024. © 2024 Andrii Nesterenko/AP Photo

Ukraine is taking key steps toward becoming a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a milestone in advancing global justice. This comes after years of campaigning by national and international human rights groups. The Ukrainian government should ensure that membership moves forward, while dropping a limitation in the law that risks shielding war criminals.

On August 21, 2024, Ukraine’s parliament approved a law, which was then signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky on August 24, providing for ratification of the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. But the law invokes the use of the treaty’s article 124, which allows governments to limit the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes for seven years following ratification.

“Zelensky’s endorsement of the parliament’s will to become a full member of the ICC is a positive step in building a global system for accountability for the worst crimes,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “Limitations in the law, however, risk shielding perpetrators from justice and fall short of what should be expected of a full commitment to ICC membership.”

Ukraine needs to take several more steps to join the court. The ratification law will only enter into force once the parliament passes a related bill, also submitted by President Zelensky, which addresses the implementation of the Rome Statute into Ukraine’s national legislation. Ukraine’s government will then need to formally deposit a ratification instrument with the United Nations in New York. After 60 days pass, the Rome Statute will enter into force for Ukraine on the first day of the following month.

The ratification law comes 10 years after Ukraine accepted the court’s jurisdiction, on an ad hoc basis, through two declarations. Ukraine’s earlier acceptance of jurisdiction is the basis for the court’s ongoing investigations, which have so far yielded arrest warrants against six individuals, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ukraine would become the ICC’s 125th member country, following Armenia’s ratification in 2023. It would mark another significant step forward in making the court’s treaty and reach universal, key to building out a global system to end impunity for international crimes, Human Rights Watch said. As a full member of the court, Ukraine would belong to the court’s Assembly of States Parties, being able to participate in the election of the ICC prosecutor and judges, setting the court’s budget, and engaging in efforts aimed at enhancing the court’s effective implementation of its mandate, including by bolstering state support. Ratification is also a requirement for progress in Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

The reference to article 124 in the law raises concerns about Ukraine’s commitment to ensuring that all victims have access to justice, Human Rights Watch said. The law seeks to avoid the court’s jurisdiction for seven years concerning war crimes when these crimes are alleged to have been committed by Ukrainian nationals. Such a limitation could come about if the government submits what is known as an article 124 declaration after ratification.

Only two other ICC member countries, France and Colombia, have used this article and in both cases, the restriction has since been withdrawn or lapsed. In 2015, the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties adopted an amendment to delete article 124 from the Rome Statute, but the amendment has yet to be ratified by a sufficient number of member states to enter into force.

While the text of the bill seeks to exclude only Ukrainian nationals from the court’s jurisdiction, article 124 refers to war crimes “committed by [a state party’s] nationals or on its territory.” No other state has attempted to use article 124 in this way. The court has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed by nationals of states parties or other states accepting the court’s mandate and within their territories.

Ukraine’s attempt to shield its own nationals – while preserving the court’s jurisdiction over others – is at the very least inconsistent with the spirit of the Rome Statute which seeks to apply the rule of law equally. A selective approach to accountability reinforces growing criticism of states’ double standards toward international law and risks discrediting the system globally, Human Rights Watch said.

ICC member countries should call on Ukraine to move forward with the steps required for ratification without article 124. The European Union should insist that, in the context of Ukraine’s accession to the EU, ratification without an article 124 declaration is required. ICC member countries should also act swiftly to ratify the 2015 amendment that would permanently delete article 124 from the treaty.

Even with these limits, Ukraine’s decision to actively work toward joining the court sends a powerful signal about the importance of the ICC at a time when the court and those working with it face multiple threats and attacks, Human Rights Watch said. In 2023, Russian authorities issued arrest warrants against the court’s prosecutor and six ICC judges after the ICC issued an arrest warrant against President Putin. Russian lawmakers also enacted a law criminalizing cooperation with the ICC.

More recently, after the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants against two senior Israeli officials and three Hamas leaders, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would impose sanctions on court officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on governments to prevent the court from issuing warrants. Ninety-four member countries of the ICC have declared their “unwavering support” for the court in the face of these threats.

Under what is known as the “principle of complementarity,” the ICC may only exercise its jurisdiction when a country is either unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate and prosecute these grave crimes. Ensuring justice for serious violations is, in the first instance, the responsibility of the state whose nationals are implicated in the violations.

Instead of limiting the ICC’s jurisdiction, Ukraine should prioritize efforts to fully align its national legislation with the Rome Statute and international law, including by incorporating provisions to investigate and prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes effectively before its national courts and to ensure that the country’s domestic criminal system works in complementarity with the ICC. The Ukrainian parliament should move swiftly to examine, strengthen, and pass the implementation legislation, to ensure that the ratification process moves forward.

“While this long-awaited ratification should be cause for celebration, the limitation introduced in the law send the worrying message that Ukraine wants to pick and choose who gets to see justice for serious crimes,” Evenson said. “There’s still time for Ukraine to stand for equal justice and ratify the statute without limitation.”

Click to expand Image Protesters hold placards during an opposition rally in Almaty, Kazakhstan on February 28, 2021.  © 2021 RUSLAN PRYANIKOV/AFP via Getty Images Authorities in Kazakhstan are misusing extremism and terrorism legislation to target peaceful government critics and others, in violation of international human rights law.People convicted on overbroad extremism and terrorism charges – even those who have not participated in, instigated, or financed violence – are automatically subject to wide-ranging financial restrictions that interfere with their economic and social rights.The Kazakhstan government should amend extremism and terrorism-related legislation to comply with international human rights standards and remove people convicted of nonviolent crimes from the list.

(Berlin) – Peaceful opposition activists and others in Kazakhstan face unjustified state-imposed financial restrictions as a consequence of being prosecuted on overbroad extremist or terrorism-related criminal charges, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. These financial restrictions can violate internationally protected economic, social, and cultural rights.

The 29-page report, “Politically Targeted, Economically Isolated: How Kazakhstan’s Financing Terrorism List Compounds Human Rights Harms,” documents that people on Kazakhstan’s Financing Terrorism List face financial restrictions that cause them significant hardship. The restrictions lead to violations of rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to which Kazakhstan is a state party, including the rights to an adequate standard of living and access to work and social security benefits. This is particularly egregious when the prosecutions are for alleged nonviolent “extremist” or “terrorist” crimes, that should not be considered crimes in the first place.

“If you participate in peaceful anti-government protests in Kazakhstan, not only can the government prosecute you as an ‘extremist,’ but it can cut you off financially,” said Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Kazakhstan should immediately end its pernicious use of extremism and terrorism laws against peaceful critics and others and remove anyone currently on the Financing Terrorism List who has been convicted of nonviolent crimes.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 people, 15 of whom had been prosecuted on extremism- or terrorism-related charges and 3 whose adult children had been prosecuted on such charges. Human Rights Watch also interviewed two human rights lawyers and reviewed relevant court documents and media articles pertaining to several of the cases documented in this report.

Kazakhstan’s legislation does not distinguish between violent and nonviolent extremism and multiple articles in the criminal code relating to extremism and terrorism are vaguely worded and overbroad. Kazakhstan authorities have used these provisions to criminalize activities and speech that are protected under international human rights law.

Anyone prosecuted in Kazakhstan on criminal charges that authorities qualify as “extremist” or “terrorist” is automatically placed on the state’s “list of people and organizations associated with financing terrorism and extremism” regardless of whether the individual instigated, participated in, or funded violence. Under Kazakhstan’s 2009 money laundering law, people on the Financing Terrorism List are blocked from accessing their bank accounts and cannot use credit or debit cards. They are also banned from conducting certain financial transactions at notaries or post offices, for example.

A majority of people interviewed for the report were prosecuted for alleged “participation in a banned extremist organization,” an overbroad criminal charge that authorities have long used to harass and silences peaceful opposition activists.

Human Rights Watch found that state-imposed financial restrictions are unjustified and inappropriate when applied to people who have not engaged in, instigated, or financed violence. Not only do the authorities fail to uphold due process when subjecting people to financial restrictions, but people interviewed also reported significant barriers in getting jobs and interference with getting social security and other benefits. Together, these restrictions have led to people being unable to fully experience other economic and social rights guaranteed under international human rights law, including, but not limited to, the right to an adequate standard of living.

Being included on the Financing Terrorism List has serious consequences for the individual’s well-being and that of their family, and violates their right to be protected from arbitrary interference with their personal and family lives, Human Rights Watch said.

Abaibek Sultanov, a civic activist from a town outside Almaty who was prosecuted on extremism-related charges in 2021 and is currently subject to financial restrictions tied to his prosecution, described it to Human Rights Watch as being under an “economic blockade.”

Kazakhstan should exclude crimes qualified as “extremist” from automatic inclusion on the Financing Terrorism List, and immediately lift financial restrictions on anyone currently on the list who was convicted of nonviolent “extremist” or “terrorism” crimes.

The Kazakhstan authorities should revise the criminal code’s provisions on extremism and terrorism so that they have sufficient precision to guarantee legal certainty. Kazakhstan also should not criminalize legitimate exercise of freedoms of speech, expression, and association, or violate other rights protected by international law.

“It is bad enough that people in Kazakhstan can be wrongfully prosecuted on “extremism” or “terrorism”-related charges simply for exercising their rights to free speech, religion, or peaceful assembly; they are forced to endure unjustified financial restrictions as well,” Rittmann said. "The government urgently needs to amend extremism and terrorism-related legislation to ensure it complies with international human rights standards.”

Click to expand Image Ramon Cotta (right), born Yves Kibouy Bershu, and also known as Steve Akam, with his lawyer Hippolyte Tiakouang Meli, on August 20, 2024, in military court in Yaoundé, Cameroon. © 2024 Private

(Nairobi) – Cameroon’s authorities and security forces forcibly disappeared Ramon Cotta, a social media activist, and apparently tortured him, Human Rights Watch said today. Cotta, born Yves Kibouy Bershu, has been living in Gabon for the past 10 years, where he also went by the name of Steve Akam. He is known for his TikTok videos in which he criticizes the Cameroonian authorities.

On August 20, 2024, lawyers representing Cotta told Human Rights Watch that they had located him in a security cell of the military court in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, paralyzed on his left side and with “severe visual impairments,” following torture in detention. The last time Cotta had been seen was in a video circulated on social media on July 21, where he stood handcuffed and surrounded by members of the Cameroonian police at a border post between Gabon and Cameroon, in the Cameroonian town of Kye-Ossi. The authorities should immediately release Cotta, ensure that he urgently has access to adequate and appropriate medical care, and investigate his apparent torture and inhuman and degrading treatment in detention.

“There are worrying reports that Cotta may already have lost his sight and ability to walk properly as a result of torture, so prompt action is immediately needed,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Cameroonian authorities should ensure that he urgently gets access to appropriate and adequate medical care, and thoroughly investigate Cotta’s apparent torture.”

Cotta’s lawyers said the Gabonese police arrested their client in Libreville, Gabon’s capital, on July 19 at about 10 a.m., and held him incommunicado in an unidentified location until July 21, when they handed him over to the Cameroonian authorities. The authorities then took him to the Directorate General for External Research (Direction Générale de la Recherche Extérieure, or DGRE), the headquarters of Cameroon’s intelligence services in Yaoundé. His lawyers said that on July 24, Cotta was transferred to the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’Etat à la défense), the headquarters of the National Gendarmerie, also in Yaoundé, where he is still being held.

Cotta’s lawyers said DGRE members interrogated Cotta twice, and tortured him, including with serious beatings during one of the interrogations, and subjected him to other inhuman and degrading treatment.

“Cotta told us that DGRE agents tied his hands and feet and walked over him repeatedly, and that they beat him multiple times,” said Hippolyte Tiakouang Meli, one of Cotta’s lawyers. “He also reported that he was held in a room where he was exposed to very bright lights through a projector, which caused him serious eye issues.”

Cotta’s lawyers said their client has been charged with acts of terrorism, insurrection, financing of terrorism, arms trafficking, and insulting the head of state and members of the government. They said he was not taken before a judge, but instead before the military prosecutor twice. “The first time, we were not informed,” said Meli. “The second time, on August 20, we were informed and could speak with our client.” Cameroonian law gives the military judicial system jurisdiction over civilians charged with terrorism offences, even though this is incompatible with international norms. The UN Human Rights Committee has long called on Cameroon to reform this aspect of its laws, which violates fair trial guarantees.

On August 7, lawyers representing Cotta had sent requests for information to various Cameroonian authorities about their client’s situation and whereabouts, to no avail. They had also expressed concerns that Cameroonian authorities extrajudicially returned Cotta to Cameroon from Gabon, and that he was a victim of an enforced disappearance.

The Central Africa Human Rights Defenders Network, a prominent Cameroonian human rights group, and Maurice Kamto, the head of the main opposition party Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon, had both called on authorities to immediately reveal Cotta’s whereabouts.

The Cameroonian government has for years cracked down on opposition and free speech, jailing political activists, journalists, and dissidents. Ahead of the general elections in 2025, it has increasingly restricted freedoms of expression and association.

In March, the territorial administration minister banned two opposition coalitions, describing them as “clandestine movements.” In June, gendarmes in N’Gaoundéré, Adamawa region, arbitrarily rearrested a prominent artist, Aboubacar Siddiki, known as Babadjo, for “insulting” a governor.

In July, the head of the Mfoundi administrative division issued a decree threatening to ban anyone insulting state institutions from the division. Also in July, members of the intelligence services in Douala, Littoral region, arrested Junior Ngombe, a social media activist, for his TikTok videos advocating democratic change. Ngombe was released on bail on July 31.

In an August 7 statement following a visit to Cameroon, Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the process leading up to the elections will be “a key opportunity … to ensure the free expression of political opinions.”

Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups have previously documented the widespread use of torture and incommunicado detention in Cameroon’s detention centers, including ungazetted detention facilities, such as military barracks.

Under human rights law, all forms of torture, as well as inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment of detainees, are strictly prohibited, and Cameroonian law provides that detainees shall not be subjected to any physical or mental constraints, or to torture, and that their counsel and families should be able to visit them at any time.

“Instead of respecting the work of social media activists, Cameroon’s authorities and security forces forcibly disappeared and apparently tortured Cotta,” Allegrozzi said. “They should release him as a matter of urgency and ensure that his rights are respected.”

Click to expand Image Sri Lankan police disperse anti-government protesters with tear gas and water cannons during a protest demanding the resignation of President Rani Wickremesinghe’s government in Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 24, 2022. © 2022 Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via AP Photo

The Sri Lankan government has been trying to persuade international partners of its achievements in reforming the economy and protecting human rights. 

However, a new report by the United Nations high commissioner for human rights warns that Sri Lanka is facing renewed threats to fundamental freedoms. It finds that authorities have sought new repressive laws and engaged in intimidation and violence against victims of past abuses, civil society activists, journalists, and government critics.

The government denies responsibility for grave abuses during Sri Lanka’s 1983-2006 civil war. “This entrenched impunity has also manifested itself in the corruption, abuse of power and governance failures that were among the root causes of the country’s recent economic crisis,” the report says.

The economic crisis, which escalated in 2022, has doubled the poverty rate. The UN estimates that a quarter of households are suffering food insecurity, yet “democratic reforms and accountability for corruption and economic mismanagement remain largely unfulfilled.”

The report finds that “ill-treatment by police and security forces remain prevalent.” Between January 2023 and March 2024, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka recorded 21 alleged extrajudicial killings, 26 deaths in custody, and 1,342 arbitrary arrests and detentions. The UN examined recent allegations of “abduction, arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence perpetrated against individuals of Tamil ethnicity by Sri Lankan security forces.”

Since ending a moratorium on the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2022, the government has used the law dozens of times against perceived critics, especially Tamils. The families of victims of enforced disappearance face reprisals for engaging with the UN or foreign diplomats. Authorities have detained 121,957 people in a brutal anti-drugs campaign, sending thousands to military-run “rehabilitation” centers.

Meanwhile, new laws “have profound implications for … fundamental freedoms and the rule of law,” the report says. The Online Safety Act contains powers to restrict freedom of expression, and proposed legislation curtailing nongovernment organizations would severely affect groups already suffering from “surveillance, intimidation and harassment.”  

The high commissioner calls upon members of the UN Human Rights Council to renew UN mandates for monitoring and evidence collection and for “the international community ... to help break the cycle of systematic impunity… [by] using all potential forms of jurisdiction.” Human Rights Watch echoes this call and urges UN member states to ensure the Human Rights Council, at its upcoming September session, adopts a resolution renewing those mandates.

Click to expand Image Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, right, takes the oath of office as the head of Bangladesh's interim government in Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 8, 2024. © 2024 Rajib Dhar/AP Photo

(Geneva) – The Bangladesh interim government should seek a resolution at the upcoming session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish an independent mechanism to investigate and pursue accountability for recent grave abuses in Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to chief advisor Muhammad Yunus and other interim government officials that was released today. The council should also ensure ongoing monitoring of Bangladesh’s human rights situation by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and establish regular reporting back to the council. The 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council begins on September 9, 2024.

The interim government should also work with OHCHR and relevant UN experts to set up an independent domestic inquiry into enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings during former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year administration, Human Rights Watch said. This domestic mechanism should operate with UN support and oversight to ensure its independence and adherence to international human rights standards.

“Following Sheikh Hasina’s resignation amid mass protests, Bangladesh’s interim government has the heavy responsibility of accounting for the past to steer the country toward a rights-respecting future,” said Lucy McKernan, deputy UN Geneva director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should support a Human Rights Council-backed investigation into recent abuses while also seeking UN backing for an independent domestic inquiry into the former government’s 15 years of rights violations.”

The interim government should urgently implement measures to bring civilian oversight over security forces, disband the notorious Rapid Action Battalion, reform institutions in line with international human rights standards, and revise abusive laws.

The crackdown on protests leading to Sheikh Hasina’s departure was the deadliest in Bangladesh’s recent history. At least 440 people were killed and thousands were injured between July 15 and August 5, with most deaths and injuries attributed to excessive force by law enforcement and violence by student and youth groups affiliated with the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina’s political party. An estimated additional 250 people died after August 5, mostly in violent reprisals against Sheikh Hasina’s supporters.

Since taking office, the interim government has replaced officials who had allegedly engaged in political partisanship. The Supreme Court chief justice stepped down after protests demanding his resignation. Law enforcement had collapsed after the Hasina government’s fall, leaving Hindus and other minority communities at risk of violence, but the interim government has said that most police stations are now functioning. However, activists fear that the authorities are replicating the abuses of the previous government by arbitrarily arresting Awami League officials and supporters, including journalists, and denying due process and proper access to legal counsel.

The Yunus administration has publicly urged calm, acted to quell the violence, and committed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for unnecessary and excessive use of force to crush the protests. The interim government also swiftly released political prisoners detained during the protests, dropped charges against activists, committed to signing the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and pledged to investigate the over 700 cases of enforced disappearances committed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule.

To effectively follow through on its commitments to justice and accountability amid a highly divisive political environment, the interim government should ask the Human Rights Council to establish an independent mechanism with a comprehensive mandate to investigate, collect, store, and analyze evidence and cooperate with credible and independent national and international judicial bodies toward accountability for the July and August violence and its root causes. A Human Rights Council-mandated investigation would have the greatest independence and credibility for Bangladeshis, who distrust domestic institutions and could avoid the political interference that could undermine purely domestic measures.

The council resolution should also mandate OHCHR to monitor the human rights situation in Bangladesh through the transition period until there are free and fair elections, and report back regularly.

The recent protests reflect the frustration that Bangladesh’s economic progress has been unevenly shared. Social protection should be reformed to guarantee an adequate level of protection for all, and to ensure that no one is excluded from public benefits because of their inability to pay bribes or because they lack social or political connections.

The interim government needs to reform institutions, the security sector, and its justice and legal system, all of which have been deeply eroded under the previous government and earlier administrations, to bring about lasting, human rights changes, Human Right Watch said. The interim government should welcome the technical assistance of OHCHR to ensure the full independence of legal and judicial bodies.

In addition to disbanding the Rapid Action Battalion, the interim government should implement robust human rights training protocols across all security forces and remove laws that enable impunity for security force abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

“Without deep institutional reform and UN support to ensure independence and transparency, the hard-won advancements in Bangladesh could be easily lost,” McKernan said. “The UN and member states should demonstrate their support for all Bangladeshis by backing fact-finding and accountability measures and by investing in rights-based institutional and security sector reform.”

Click to expand Image Edita Burgos (R) holds a portrait of her missing son, Jonas Burgos, while posing with her younger son JL Burgos, who directed the film “Alipato at Muog," a documentary about Jonas’ forced disappearance, Cinemalaya Film Festival, Pasay, Philippines, August 1, 2024. © 2024 Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images

Last week, Philippine government censors put an X rating on a documentary film about the enforced disappearance of a peasant activist, effectively banning the movie from public showing. The filmmakers said that the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board ruled that their film, “Alipato at Muog” (Flying Embers and a Fortress), “tends to undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their government and/or duly-constituted authorities.”

The film is about the 2007 abduction of Jonas Burgos, a farmer and peasant organizer from Bulacan province, north of Manila, and his family’s search to find him. Burgos was inside a mall in Quezon City on April 28, 2007, when men believed to be military intelligence agents forcibly abducted him. He remains missing, one of many unresolved disappearnaces of activists in the Philippines. 

Among the military officials implicated in Burgos’ disappearance was Col. Eduardo Año, the intelligence chief of the Philippine army at the time and current national security advisor to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He has denied involvement in the Burgos case. 

JL Burgos, younger brother of Jonas, wrote and directed the documentary, which was among the entries in this year’s Cinemalaya, the Philippines’ independent film festival. The director said he would appeal the movie board’s ruling and X rating. Under Philippine law, an X-rated movie cannot be shown legally. “Alipato at Muog” is being shown in such venues as the University of the Philippines Film Center, which is not covered by the movie board. 

The Marcos administration should not wait for the formal appeals process but instead should overturn the movie board’s rating and allow the screening of the documentary. This banning follows the cancellation of the public showing of a movie weeks before about people involved in cockfighting who went missing. The banning of “Alipato at Muog” is not merely about classifying movies, but about freedom of expression, which the administration claims to be committed to. Foreign leaders who have praised President Marcos for his reforms should recognize that banning movies have broader human rights implications and should denounce such censorship.

Click to expand Image United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addresses a press conference outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on April 19, 2022. © John Lamparski/NurPhoto via Associated Press

(New York, August 26, 2024) – Governments should heed United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ call to open negotiations on a new international treaty on lethal autonomous weapons systems Human Rights Watch said today. These “killer robots” select and attack targets based on sensor processing rather than human inputs, a dangerous development for humanity.

In a report released on August 6, 2024, the secretary-general reiterated his call for states to conclude by 2026 a new international treaty “to prohibit weapons systems that function without human control or oversight and that cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.” This treaty should regulate all other types of autonomous weapons systems, the secretary-general said.

“The UN secretary-general emphasizes the enormous detrimental effects removing human control over weapons systems would have on humanity,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “The already broad international support for tackling this concern should spur governments to start negotiations without delay.”

Autonomy has been incorporated into weapons systems for years, but the duration of operation, geographical scope, and environment in which autonomous weapons systems operate have been limited. Technological advances are driving the development of weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The machine rather than the human operator would determine where, when, or against what force is applied.

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The UN report was mandated by a December 2023 UN resolution that asked the secretary-general to seek the views of countries and other stakeholders on ways to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems “from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives,” and reflect those views in a report. General Assembly Resolution 78/241 also added an agenda item on lethal autonomous weapons systems to the provisional agenda of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which opens on September 10.

The new UN report reflects 58 submissions from more than 73 countries, and another 33 submissions from the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society groups including Human Rights Watch. A review by the Automated Decision Research project of the Stop Killer Robots campaign found that 47 of the 58 submissions expressed support for some form of prohibitions or regulations on autonomous weapons systems. 

Many submissions for the UN report express concern and regret at the inability of talks at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) held since 2014 to make progress and adopt new international law on this issue. States should move their discussions to another international forum to begin negotiations. In his report, the secretary-general called the UN General Assembly “a venue for inclusive discussions” on autonomous weapons systems given its “near universal membership and wide substantive scope,” as well as its ability to consider “international peace and security” concerns. 

Tackling the killer robots challenge under the auspices of the General Assembly would allow greater consideration of concerns that have been overlooked in previous discussions, Human Rights Watch said. These include ethical perspectives, international human rights law, proliferation, and impacts on global security and regional and international stability.

In the report, the secretary-general reiterates that “time is running out for the international community to take preventative action on this issue,” and reaffirms “the need to act urgently to preserve human control over the use of force.”

Interest in negotiating an international treaty on autonomous weapons systems continues to grow. In April, more than 1,000 representatives from 144 countries attended a high-level international conference in Vienna on the problems raised by autonomous weapons systems. The conference followed a series of regional meetings on autonomous weapons systems concerns held over 14 months in Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago, Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Most issued regional communiques calling for the urgent negotiation of a legally binding instrument containing prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems.

At the secretary-general’s initiative, world leaders will convene at UN headquarters on September 22-23 for a Summit of the Future. They are expected to endorse a “Pact for the Future” covering a wide array of initiatives, including killer robots. The current draft of the Pact recommends that countries act “with urgency” to develop an instrument to address the risks posed by autonomous weapons systems.

“The Summit of the Future provides an important opportunity for states to express high-level support for opening negotiations to ban and restrict autonomous weapons systems,” Wareham said. “Without explicit legal rules, the world faces a grim future of automated killing that will place civilians everywhere in grave danger.” 

Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of Stop Killer Robots, the coalition of more than 260 nongovernmental organizations across 70 countries that is working for new international law on autonomy in weapons systems.

Click to expand Image Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive walk next to sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis in Gaza, July 4, 2024. © 2024 Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo

(New York) – Israeli military attacks on healthcare infrastructure and water supplies and ongoing aid obstruction are contributing to a potentially catastrophic polio outbreak in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. Polio, which is entirely preventable but spreads fast, particularly among children under 5, can cause disabilities, including paralysis, and death among unvaccinated children.

On August 16, 2024, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month old child in Gaza. On the same date, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that three children were showing symptoms of acute flaccid paralysis, raising concern that the virus could be spreading among children in Gaza. On August 23, WHO confirmed that the 10-month old child is now paralyzed. The cases are emerging one month after WHO raised the alarm that vaccine-derived poliovirus had been found in Gaza’s wastewater.

“If the Israeli government continues to block urgent aid and destroy water and waste management infrastructure, it will facilitate the spread of a disease that has been nearly eradicated globally,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s partners should press the government to lift the blockade immediately and ensure unfettered humanitarian access in Gaza to enable the timely distribution of vaccines to contain the unfolding polio outbreak.”

Before the case was confirmed on August 16, Palestine had been polio-free for more than 25 years, thanks to a successful childhood vaccination program. However, Israel’s ongoing decimation of healthcare, water, and sanitation facilities in Gaza and its obstruction of aid and humanitarian access have created “the perfect environment for diseases like polio to spread,” according to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The spread of the polio virus poses significant risk for the hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza who may have missed routine vaccinations since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023, Human Rights Watch said. In 2022, polio vaccination rates in Gaza were “optimal,” at around 99 percent. By early 2024, those rates had dropped to below 90 percent. 

When vaccine-derived polio had previously been detected in wastewater, authorities intervened with targeted vaccine campaigns to protect children. But Dr. Hamid Jafari, WHO’s polio eradication director for the eastern Mediterranean region, told Human Rights Watch on July 27 that “[t]he impact on [the] health system, insecurity, inaccessibility, population displacement, and shortages of medical supplies have contributed to reduced routine immunization rates.” 

WHO is planning to initiate two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, starting at the end of August. Humanitarian actors are raising the alarm that it will be impossible to reach the more than 640,000 children who need polio vaccines if Israel continues its ongoing bombardments on civilians and civilian infrastructure and obstruction of humanitarian access.

In addition to security risks, Gaza’s severely weakened public health system makes it difficult for humanitarian workers to ensure that these vaccines reach the children who need them, a problem exacerbated by the Israeli military’s repeated displacement of virtually the entire population. The Israeli military has obstructed humanitarian missions inside Gaza and attacked medical and other aid workers who shared their precise coordinates. 

Furthermore, the Israeli military has obstructed aid entering Gaza, first by banning it outright and later by imposing onerous restrictions. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, humanitarian aid entering Gaza has dropped by over 50 percent since April and about a third of humanitarian aid missions were denied access to Gaza by Israeli authorities since August 1. 

International humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for. In addition, all parties to the conflict are obligated to “allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need.” This is a positive obligation that requires Israel to ensure that the civilian population can access medical supplies, including vaccines. 

Preventable diseases tend to emerge alongside systemic rights abuses. Violations of the right to clean drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene and obstruction of access to vaccines and health care services create the conditions for otherwise preventable disease to spread through vulnerable populations, Human Rights Watch said.

Israeli military strikes have destroyed key civilian infrastructure in Gaza required to prevent and respond to disease outbreak, including hospitals, drinking water sources, and waste management infrastructure. Israeli forces have also destroyed the main water quality testing laboratories in Gaza, making epidemiological surveillance of the poliovirus and other waterborne diseases extremely difficult. 

The Israeli military has used starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, blocking access to food and water-related supplies, which is a war crime. People in Gaza have only had an average of 1.5 to 9 liters of water per day since November, less than the 15 liters per day that is the minimum needed for survival, according to WHO. Intentionally depriving civilians of clean water is a war crime. 

An Oxfam report published in July found that Israeli forces have destroyed 70 percent of sewage pumps and all wastewater treatment plants in Gaza, leading to the accumulation of 340,000 tons of solid waste near populated areas. According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, the poliovirus was found in sewage that runs between overcrowded tents of people displaced by Israeli air strikes. 

Waterborne diseases are already spiking in Gaza. More than a quarter of the population is sick with preventable water and sanitation-related diseases, such as acute diarrhea, skin diseases, and hepatitis A. Human Rights Watch has documented the Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful, attacks on medical facilities, which should be investigated as war crimes, severely hindering capacity to respond to outbreaks of disease. Only 16 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are even partially functional, and even fewer are accessible. 

The International Criminal Court is considering issuing arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials for depriving the civilian population in Gaza of “objects indispensable to human survival,” including “clean water.” Israel is contravening the International Court of Justice’s legally binding orders by obstructing the entry of lifesaving aid and services into Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since January, the court has three times ordered provisional measures requiring Israel to ensure the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance as part of South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

The Israeli government should immediately end its blockade of Gaza and ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access, including access to vaccines and medicines, Human Rights Watch said. Countries should use leverage such as targeted sanctions and embargoes to press the Israeli government to comply with the court’s binding orders. 

“Children in Gaza are already suffering from starvation and rampant infectious disease as a result of Israel’s blockade and attacks on civilian infrastructure and are now facing an unprecedented polio outbreak without vaccines to protect them,” Bleckner said. “Israel’s allies should unequivocally press for an end to the siege of Gaza.”

Click to expand Image A leaked photograph of the detention facility at the Sde Teiman military base shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Interviewed healthcare workers described this image as punishment imposed by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian detainees if they speak or move. © 2024 Private

(Jerusalem) – Israeli forces have arbitrarily detained Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since hostilities began in October 2023, deported them to detention facilities in Israel, and allegedly tortured and ill-treated them, Human Rights Watch said today. The detention of healthcare workers in the context of the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza has contributed to the catastrophic degradation of the besieged territory’s healthcare system.

Released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population. 

“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

From March to June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight Palestinian healthcare workers who were taken by the Israeli military from Gaza between November and December 2023 and detained without charge for between seven days and five months. Six were detained at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations that they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military. None of the healthcare workers said they were ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense. Human Rights Watch also spoke with seven people who witnessed Israeli soldiers detaining healthcare workers carrying out their duties. 

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Israeli military and Israeli Prison Services with the preliminary findings on August 13 but has not received a response.

Click to expand Image Israeli prison guards at the entrance of Ofer prison, in the occupied West Bank, awaiting Palestinian prisoners' arrival from another Israeli prison, November 24, 2023. © 2023 Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo  

All the healthcare workers interviewed provided similar accounts of mistreatment in Israeli custody. After being in Gaza, they were deported to detention facilities in Israel, including the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert and Ashkelon prison, or, forcibly transferred to the Anatot military base near East Jerusalem and the Ofer detention facility, in the occupied West Bank. All said that they were stripped, beaten, and blindfolded and handcuffed, for many weeks on end, and pressured to confess to being members of the Hamas movement with various threats of indefinite detention, rape, and killing their families in Gaza. 

A surgeon said he was “wearing scrubs and Crocs” when Israeli forces detained him during their siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza, in December. “We were 50 healthcare workers, including nurses and doctors,” he said. “The soldier on the microphone ordered men and boys over 15 years old to evacuate the hospital.... When they took us out of the hospital, they told us to undress and stay in our underwear.” 

One paramedic said that at the Sde Teiman detention facility he was suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations. “It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.” 

Healthcare workers also reported being punished in detention for moving or speaking, and collectively punished if other detainees spoke. “Sometimes if one spoke, they [soldiers] punished the whole warehouse [at Naqab prison], collectively,” one healthcare worker said.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces have detained at least 310 Palestinian healthcare workers since October 7. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine, a nongovernmental organization, documented 259 detentions of healthcare workers and collected 31 accounts describing torture and other abuses by Israeli authorities, including the use of stress positions, deprivation of adequate food and water, threats of sexual violence and rape, and degrading treatment. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine helped Human Rights Watch interview released healthcare workers. 

The prolonged arbitrary detention and mistreatment of healthcare workers has exacerbated the health crisis in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since October, over 92,000 people in Gaza have been wounded, functional hospitals have fewer than 1,500 inpatient beds, and yet the Israeli authorities have allowed only 35 percent of nearly 14,000 people who requested medical evacuations to leave Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on August 5. 

The healthcare workers’ accounts are consistent with independent reports, including by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Israeli news media, and rights groups, documenting dozens of detainee accounts of incommunicado detention, beatings, sexual violence, forced confessions, electrocution, and other torture and abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on June 3 that the Israeli military was conducting criminal investigations into the deaths of 48 Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities since October 7. These include Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, a surgeon and head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital, and Dr. Eyad al-Rantisi, the director of a women’s health center at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.  

Common article 3 to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, applicable to hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian armed groups, provides that “[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.” “Cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” are prohibited at all times. Those wounded and sick “shall be … cared for.” 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable to occupied territories, prohibits individual forcible transfers within the occupied territory as well as deportations of civilians from occupied territory to the occupying power’s territory, regardless of the motive. Serious violations of Common article 3 and article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed with criminal intent are war crimes. 

Human Rights Watch has found that Israeli authorities for decades have failed to provide credible accountability for torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees. According to official Israeli statistics, between 2019 and 2022, 1,830 complaints of abuse were opened against Israeli Prison Services officers, with none resulting in a criminal conviction. Israeli authorities have not allowed independent humanitarian agencies access to Palestinian detainees since the start of hostilities. 

Governments should support international justice efforts to address Israeli abuses against Palestinian detainees and hold those responsible to account. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries should press Israel to end its abusive detention practices, which form one aspect of systematic oppression underlying Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.

The ICC is considering arrest warrant applications against senior Israeli officials for grave international crimes and should ensure that its investigation addresses abuses against Palestinian detainees. Israel’s allies should press the government to urgently allow independent monitoring of detention facilities.

“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” Jarrah said. “Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians.”

Humiliation, Ill-treatment, and Torture

The healthcare workers interviewed all reported humiliation, ill-treatment, and torture, including being stripped and beaten, with prolonged painful stress positions, near-constant cuffing, and blindfolding. Some said they were threatened with sexual violence and by attack dogs. 

Abuses During Deportation, Detention

All eight men reported being forced to strip publicly immediately after being taken into custody and remain kneeling for extended periods, exposed to the cold, and at various times throughout their detention. Photographs and videos that Israeli soldiers shared online and that Reuters verified show Palestinian detainees unclothed or in underwear. Publishing such images online is an outrage on personal dignity and posted sexualized images are a form of sexual violence, which are war crimes.

“We were forced to strip in the street and remain in our boxers, one by one,” said Osama Tashtash, 28, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia who was arrested in early December at his home nearby. “For an hour and a half, we were on our knees.” He said that during that period, he and other detainees were exposed to danger from Israeli military operations in the area. He said shrapnel fell on them as Israeli soldiers threw grenades at nearby houses and set them on fire.

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, 34, was arrested on the morning of December 12 at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia. A photograph circulated late that evening by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 shows Dr. Hamoudeh shirtless alongside four other men he identified as fellow healthcare workers. The photograph shows the men standing in a row in front of an Israeli soldier holding a light panel, illuminating the detainees. 

Click to expand Image Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh (far left in the front) and Dr. Wadee Qasem (far right in the front) are detained along with other healthcare workers, internally displaced civilians, and patient’s families near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, 2023.  © 2023 Channel 12 via journalist Nir Debori/Telegram

Dr. Hamoudeh said they were photographed, then designated for release or detention. Behind them the photograph shows hundreds of men sitting in a large pit with at least 18 Israeli soldiers guarding them. A detailed analysis by the investigative TechJournalist identified several detainees with their hands tied behind their back, including Dr. Hamoudeh.

The image, whose site was identified first by the open-source researcher FDov on X, formerly known as Twitter, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch, was taken approximately half a kilometer northeast of the hospital. Dr. Hamoudeh said that about 50 healthcare workers sitting together separately from internally displaced people. He said he was told to undress and stay in his underwear and was then blindfolded. 

The healthcare workers described beatings and physical abuse after being detained, including being punched, kicked with steel-toed boots, slapped, and beaten with assault-rifle butts by Israeli soldiers. 

Eyad Abed, 50, a surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital who was detained during a coordinated evacuation of the hospital in November, said:

Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.

Abed said that he had broken ribs and a broken tailbone as a result of the physical assault by Israeli soldiers during his arrest and detention, which two months later still had not healed. 

An ambulance driver who asked not to be named said while he was being held with dozens of other men in large a metal “cage” near the Israel-Gaza border fence, he saw guards beat to death two men, one of whom he recognized, with metal bars.

The healthcare workers all described ill-treatment during their deportation from Gaza to detention facilities in Israel, including beatings, sitting in prolonged painful stress positions while blindfolded and cuffed by the hands and feet, being “stacked above each other like sheep,”  pepper sprayed, and denied water. 

Abuses in Detention Facilities

The healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities abused detainees at detention facilities inside Israel. Four said that when they arrived at detention facilities, the authorities forced them to wear adult diapers and denied them access to toilets.

The ambulance driver, who was detained for five months, was first transferred to a prison in Ashkelon, where guards interrogated him daily for a week, during which time they bound him in his underwear to a chair for between 10 and 15 hours a day in a room with a blasting air conditioner. He said he had been badly beaten and that sitting caused extreme pain in his spine. He said the authorities denied him access to a toilet, forcing him to urinate on himself, and refused to provide him any food or water. He was then transferred to the Ofer military detention facility in the Occupied West Bank, where at night, the guards threw cold water on him and on his mattress. 

A Palestinian Paramedic’s Ordeal in Israeli Detention

A paramedic, Walid Khalili, 36, said that when soldiers removed his blindfold at the Sde Teiman facility, he saw he was in a large building “like a warehouse,” with chains hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of detainees in diapers were suspended from the ceiling, with the chains attached to their square metal handcuffs. He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity. 

Two doctors held at Sde Teiman said that other detainees came to them to seek care for wounds inflicted by Israeli authorities. When detainees “lifted their shirts, I saw signs of abuse and physical beatings,” one doctor said. The other said, “I saw [men] who had cigarette burns on their arms, it was very clear. One had a dog bite on his stomach.” 

As punishment for moving or speaking, detainees would be forced to stand, sometimes for hours, with their cuffed hands held above their head or fixed to a fence, detainees said. Detainees could hear the screams of other detainees being beaten nearby. One said that after he asked a question, an Israeli officer forced his fingers through a chain-link fence, he “told me to shut up and not say a word,” and pressed downward on the detainee’s fingers for several minutes, causing severe pain until the detainee could no longer feel his fingers. 

Three healthcare workers reported soldiers using military dogs to intimidate detainees. “They would threaten to shoot us and start loading their weapons,” one doctor said. “This felt like horror. They brought in military dogs. I screamed, that was the worst moment in my life, because I was still cuffed and blindfolded, not seeing where the dogs are coming from.” Another doctor said dogs were brought in late at night to wake and terrify detainees. 

Threats and Acts of Sexual Abuse

Three healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities threatened them with sexual assault. Khader Abu Nada, 30, a nurse at Beit Hanoun hospital in northern Gaza, said that when he denied any Hamas affiliation during his first interrogation at a military base in Gaza, the commander threatened to rape him with an “electric stick.” When Abu Nada continued to deny any Hamas affiliation, soldiers beat him until he was bleeding from his nose, hands, and mouth. 

Abu Nada said the commander then asked him where his mother was and threatened to bring her from the checkpoint where he was arrested and strip her in front of everyone. “When I heard this, I was psychologically broken. I felt humiliated,” he said. He said he was threatened with rape again prior to his release.

A detained paramedic who was transferred to al-Naqab prison after 20 days in Sde Teiman, said that a man who was visibly “bleeding from his bottom” was brought in and placed next to him. The man told the paramedic that before he was placed in detention, “three soldiers took turns raping him with an M16 [assault rifle]. No one else knew, but he told me as a paramedic. He was terrified.” In addition, a doctor said while he was detained in a military base, a detainee, “in his late 30s, crying hard … told me he was sexually assaulted during the strip search.”

Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Conditions

All the healthcare workers described horrific conditions in detention. Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the non-flushable toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage.  We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice,” Abed said.

For detainees’ meals at Sde Teiman, soldiers “emptied tuna cans into a garbage bag and gave it to me,” said Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, whom soldiers ordered to distribute food to detainees. “One time I saw a soldier spit in the bag. Many [detainees] were starving and telling me they were hungry.” A nurse detained at Anatot said, “We got two meals [a day]. It was terrible food. I would just drink water, there were no fruits, not even apples. They gave us food just to survive the day.”

Khalili, the paramedic, said that at one point when he was detained in Sde Teiman, an Israeli news crew arrived, and a detainee who understood Hebrew told him that a prison official told the journalists, falsely, that the detainees were members of a unit of Hamas’s armed wing responsible for the October 7 attacks. The next day, the paramedic said, soldiers brought food and set it in front of the detainees, ordered them not to eat it, took photographs, then took the food away.

Prolonged Cuffing and Blindfolding

The healthcare workers said that they were cuffed almost constantly throughout their detention. They said Israeli authorities often ignored detainees who complained about the tightness of their cuffs or tightened their cuffs as punishment for complaining. In a public letter, an Israeli doctor working in the military field hospital at Sde Teiman wrote that in a single week, “two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event.” 

Click to expand Image Palestinian men who had been detained by Israeli forces arrive after their release for a checkup at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, July 1, 2024. © 2024 Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images

Abu Nada, the nurse, said he was arrested at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza on November 22 while evacuating from the north with his family. Soldiers ordered him to strip, cuffed and blindfolded him, then took him for questioning. He said his first interrogation ended with an Israeli military commander punching him in the face and kicking him all over his body, then ordering another soldier to tighten his cuffs and drag him to an open field, where he waited on his knees for an hour.

“My wrists hurt so much, they felt paralyzed and numb. I cried so much, I couldn’t take the pain,” Abu Nada said. When he asked a soldier to loosen his cuffs, he said the soldier repeatedly kicked his head instead. “I told him, ‘Kill me I can’t take it anymore, kill me already.’” Israeli soldiers ignored or beat him in response to his multiple requests to loosen his handcuffs.

Abu Nada said his wrists later turned black, and he feared his mistreatment may have caused permanent damage: “I still feel pain in my hands. My hands are weak, and I have no strength to hold or carry anything. Also, there’s still pain from my shoulders all the way to my fingertips. I have severe neck pain from the pressure on my head when they kept pushing our heads down.”

As Physicians for Human Rights Israel has reported, prolonged physical restraint causes intense pain and can result in permanent nerve damage that interferes with using the hands and in extreme cases can lead to death. 

The healthcare workers also all reported prolonged, near-constant blindfolding. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, “blindfolding can, even with short-term use, induce visual hallucinations in healthy individuals. Over extended periods, prolonged use of blindfolds can contribute to the onset of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in the medium to long term.”

Medical Neglect

The healthcare workers described medical neglect despite the detainees’ numerous requests and clear, urgent need for treatment for preexisting health conditions, or for injuries sustained during the hostilities in Gaza or from abuses in custody. 

A nurse at Awda hospital in northern Gaza, who asked not to be named, said that on November 21 he was injured when an Israeli airstrike hit his hospital. He had emergency surgery at Awda hospital to stabilize broken fingers and a torn tendon in his right hand, which was then placed in a cast, and an open wound on his left hand was wrapped in gauze. 

The next day, the nurse left the hospital in an ambulance along with 15 other people, including patients, their companions, and hospital staff, in an evacuation arranged by the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). “The hospital shared our car license plate number, IDs, and names [with the Israeli military], and everything was approved,” he said.

Shortly after their departure, Israeli soldiers at the Kuwaiti Roundabout stopped the ambulance and ordered all passengers to exit. The nurse and another doctor were taken aside and ordered to strip. “My right hand had a cast and titanium [implants]; I couldn’t use it. I couldn’t even pee alone. The doctor detained with me helped me take off my clothes, even my shoes,” the nurse said.

Cuffed and blindfolded, the nurse was taken to Anatot military base. He said that on intake, soldiers introduced a man as a doctor who examined his wounds but did nothing else. He said despite repeated requests, the dressing was only changed for the first time on the third or fourth day of his detention and rarely after that. “They only changed the gauze on the injuries – no scans, no proper medication, nothing. My injury, the skin was open, [but I was given] nothing to treat possible bacteria,” he said. The nurse also said that after a week of detention he was released and needed surgery to treat hemorrhoids due to constant sitting and being kicked in detention. 

Dr. Hamoudeh said that during his detention at Sde Teiman in late December, he saw another detainee with apparent “trauma from beatings, and I was terrified he would die.” He alerted authorities who said they were paramedics – he never saw an Israeli doctor at the facility – and “they took pictures [of the injuries] and sent it to someone. The soldier then told them enough, and not to do any more medical care.” He said when he told soldiers about people in need of medical care, they would reply to him saying they did not care if they died. 

Dr. Hamoudeh said that one day in December, soldiers brought in five detained doctors, including Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, who was declared dead by Israeli Prison authorities in Ofer prison in April. “Dr. Adnan was in pain from the beatings. He was also punished. He had visible blunt trauma, and he had trouble breathing,” Dr. Hamoudeh said. “What happened to him, happened to many. There’s clear medical neglect.”

Dr. Osama Tushtash, 28, fell ill with a severe fever after a week in detention at what he believed was al-Naqab prison, but Israeli authorities refused to let him see a doctor or even to give him a painkiller. “They just told me to drink water,” he said.

Khalili, the paramedic, said he suffered broken ribs and a lung injury as a result of beatings, but received no medical treatment at Sde Teiman. He said he saw a detainee die from what he believes was cardiac arrest. When a soldier brought in a doctor, who confirmed the detainee was dead, the detainees shouted “Allahu akbar,” prompting a violent raid by an Israeli special unit tasked with prison raids.

Autopsies of Palestinians who died in Israeli detention facilities indicated medical neglect and signs of physical abuse, including bruising and broken bones, Haaretz reported in March. A report released by Physicians for Human Rights Israel documented treatment without consent, surgery performed without an anesthesiologist, and political interference in medical decisions in detention facilities. 

In a letter to senior Israeli officials, an Israeli doctor at Sde Teiman field hospital described practices that endangered detainees’ health, including the lack of trained medical staff, and transferring patients back to the detention facility after only an hour of observation following “major [surgical] operations,” Haaretz reported. 

Article 91 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires facilities detaining civilians to “have an adequate infirmary, under the direction of a qualified doctor,” where those detained may receive “the attention they require, as well as an appropriate diet.” Under international human rights law, medical care for detainees should be at least equivalent to that available to the general population. Current conditions of detention violate the Israeli Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which provides for detainees’ right to medical treatment, hygienic conditions, healthy and dignified sleeping arrangements, and daily outside exercise. 

Use of Prisoner Functionaries 

Two healthcare workers detained in different facilities said Israeli military commanders tasked them to act as prisoner functionaries or Shawish (an Arabic slang term for “servant” or “subordinate”). The men said that shawish, who act as intermediaries between the guards and detainees, are the only detainees not constantly blindfolded, though their hands remain cuffed. The men prepared and distributed food, assisted detainees with eating or using the toilet, cleaned rooms, transferred detainees to interrogation, and provided basic medical care.

Whistleblowers who spoke to CNN alleged that Israeli authorities appointed detainees as shawish only after they were cleared of suspected links to Hamas, and thus had no reason to detain them. In a statement to CNN, the Israeli military denied holding detainees unnecessarily.

Dr. Hamoudeh said that soldiers at Sde Teiman told him to act as a shawish because he spoke English, warning, “If you do anything, you’ll be punished worse than the rest.” He was interrogated only once, for about 10 minutes, on the tenth day of his detention, and was released without charge after 22 days. 

Abu Nada, the nurse, said authorities at the Anatot military base told him to work as a shawish. On the fifth day of his detention, a soldier speaking in Arabic told him that if he wanted a lawyer, he had to provide the lawyer’s phone number, which he could not. He said the soldier told him, “We didn’t find anything on you. But we will continue investigating.” He was released without charge after about eight days, on December 1. 

With his blindfold removed, Dr. Hamoudeh saw 10 to 20 detainees with medical conditions at Sde Teiman, some of whom needed immediate medical care. “They [the soldiers] threw this responsibility at me, but [left me] without proper medical equipment and facilities,” Hamoudeh said. “I was terrified some would die. […] The shawish before me told me [before being released] that three detainees died during his time.” 

Abu Nada accompanied cuffed, blindfolded detainees from the “warehouse” to the interrogation room. “All the way to interrogation, soldiers would be kicking and assaulting [the detainees],” he said. “I used to cry when transferring them, because I’m the one bringing them to this torture. Soldiers told me to turn my face not to look as they continued to kick and beat the detainees.”

Click to expand Image A health worker attends to an mpox patient at a treatment center in Munigi, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, August 19, 2024. © 2024 Moses Sawasawa/AP Photo

On August 14, following the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (Africa CDC) declaration of mpox as a public health emergency of continental security, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized it as a public health emergency of international concern.

Mpox, a highly contagious disease transmitted primarily through close contact with infected individuals, has seen a significant rise in cases this year, with more than 17,000 reported cases and more than 500 deaths, predominantly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Symptoms include a blistering rash, swollen lymph nodes, fever, and muscle aches. Experts told Human Rights Watch the current variant of the virus seems to differ from previous outbreaks, with increased transmission occurring heterosexually and spreading to children through close interactions within families.

The Africa CDC has emphasized the need for global solidarity in combating this outbreak. Dr. Jean Kaseya, the Africa CDC’s director-general, has called on the international community to avoid punitive measures such as travel bans against African countries. There is a critical need for support, particularly access to vaccines, from countries with substantial stockpiles that are not experiencing any active outbreaks. “Don’t punish Africa,” Kaseya urged, pointing to the unfair treatment the continent endured during the Covid-19 pandemic and stressing the importance of a fair and equitable global response.

Global health experts have warned that the African continent is “always last in line for access to lifesaving tools.” The continent’s delayed access to HIV/AIDS treatments, Ebola response resources, Covid-19 vaccines, and now mpox interventions, underscores the persistent inequities in global health access. The response to the 2022 mpox outbreak, which primarily affected men who have sex with men, highlighted the risks of stigmatizing gay men. Human Rights Watch has previously warned that some actors exploit public health crises to marginalize vulnerable groups and stressed the need to place human rights at the center of any response.

As the current mpox outbreak continues, it is essential that human rights principles are applied to this public health challenge. Ensuring all people, regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic status, have access to necessary healthcare resources is not only a legal and moral imperative, but a critical component in controlling the spread of this and future infectious diseases.

 

Click to expand Image Rohingya refugees heading toward a camp at Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 13, 2017. © 2017 Md. Mehedi Hasan/Pacific Press/Sipa USA via AP Photo

(Bangkok) – Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are facing the gravest threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military carried out a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today. August 25, 2024, marks the seventh anniversary since the start of the military’s crimes against humanity and acts of genocide that forced more than 750,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

In recent months, the Myanmar military and the ethnic Arakan Army have committed mass killings, arson, and unlawful recruitment against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State. On August 5, nearly 200 people were reportedly killed following drone strikes and shelling on civilians fleeing fighting in Maungdaw town near the Bangladesh border, according to Rohingya witnesses. About 630,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar under a system of apartheid that leaves them exceptionally vulnerable to renewed fighting.

“Rohingya in Rakhine State are enduring abuses tragically reminiscent of the military’s atrocities in 2017,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Once again, armed forces are driving thousands of Rohingya from their homes with killings and arson, leaving them nowhere safe to turn.”

Rohingya have been caught in the middle of the fighting since hostilities resumed in November 2023, ending a year-long unofficial ceasefire. As the Arakan Army has rapidly expanded its control across Rakhine State, the military has responded with indiscriminate attacks on civilians using helicopter gunships, artillery, and ground assaults. In late April, Arakan Army forces began attacking Rohingya villages in Buthidaung, culminating in their May 17 capture of the town, during which they shelled, looted, and burned Rohingya neighborhoods.

Armed clashes have since moved west to Maungdaw, spurring further abuses and displacement, including arson and looting. Four videos from the August 5 attacks shared on X, formerly Twitter, on August 6 show dozens of bodies of men, women, and children. Geoconfirmed identified the location, which Human Rights Watch corroborated, at the western edge of Maungdaw town. Rohingya witnesses told Human Rights Watch they believed the Arakan Army was responsible. The junta and Arakan Army have blamed each other for the attacks.

“Over the last two months, there was serious fighting between the Arakan Army and Myanmar military, with artillery shells and drones,” said a 24-year-old Rohingya man from Myo Ma Ka Nyin Tan, Maungdaw, in August. “Many Rohingya villagers were killed and injured every day. I went to several funerals.” He fled on August 5 when fighting descended on his neighborhood. “We made our way to the riverbank to cross, where thousands of people were making the journey. Suddenly, drones appeared and started dropping bombs on the crowd. In our group of 70 to 80, close to 20 were killed, and 10 others, including myself, were injured.”

“The Naf River was full of dead Rohingya bodies as we fled,” said another villager, 18, who told Human Rights Watch that his father was killed in a drone attack. “I saw many dead bodies in the paddy fields and on the riverbank.” His boat capsized in the river while crossing into Bangladesh, drowning two dozen people. He and his brother found a plastic barrel which they floated on to the shore. The Border Guard Bangladesh arrested his mother while she attempted to cross the border and have detained her since, he said. Border guards have increased pushbacks of asylum seekers along the Rakhine border since January.

The conflict has displaced more than 320,000 people in Rakhine State and southern Chin State since November 2023. Meanwhile, the junta has ramped up its deadly blockages of humanitarian aid as a form of collective punishment, which is in violation of international humanitarian law and contrary to the 2022 United Nations Security Council resolution and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) five-point consensus.

Rohingya are being pressured from all sides in Myanmar and Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said. In recent months, the junta has unlawfully recruited thousands of Rohingya men and boys from Rakhine State and the refugee camps in Bangladesh, with support from Rohingya armed groups, inflaming tensions between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities.

In Bangladesh, about one million Rohingya refugees are facing increasingly dire conditions in the Cox’s Bazar camps amid surging violence by armed groups and criminal gangs. In August alone, there have been reports of members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army carrying out killings, abductions, forced recruitment, extortion, and robbery. Bangladesh authorities have failed to ensure refugees access to protection, education, livelihoods, and movement.

“My heart aches for the safety of our Rohingya students and the entire community in the area,” a Rohingya teacher in the camps wrote in a note to Human Rights Watch. His students have been increasingly absent from classes, he said, either abducted for ransom, unlawfully recruited, or kept home by their parents out of fear. “Brutal gang activity has created a climate of terror. The fear is palpable, a suffocating weight.”

Bangladesh’s interim prime minister, Muhammad Yunus, said he will “continue to support the million-plus Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh,” although his foreign adviser told Reuters that they are not in a position to accept more refugees. Bangladesh is bound by the customary international law prohibition on refoulement, not to forcibly return anyone to a place where they would face a threat to life or a real risk of persecution, torture, or other ill-treatment.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have consistently said they want to go home but only when their safety, access to land and livelihoods, freedom of movement, and citizenship rights can be ensured. Since January 2023, more than 5,000 Rohingya have attempted dangerous boat journeys to Indonesia and Malaysia in the hope of a better life. An estimated 520 of them have died or gone missing.

While the international response to the 2017 violence was meager and no one has yet been held to account for the crimes against the Rohingya, there have been some important steps toward justice, Human Rights Watch said. In June, an Argentine prosecutor requested arrest warrants for 25 individuals within the Myanmar political and military authorities. The case was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows national authorities to prosecute suspects of grave crimes regardless of nationality or where the crimes were committed.

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted the interventions of seven governments in Gambia’s case against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Hearings on the merits of the case will most likely take place in 2025. At the same time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has an ongoing investigation into the situation, although its jurisdiction is limited to alleged crimes committed at least in part in Bangladesh, an ICC member country.

The UN Security Council should expand the ICC’s jurisdiction in the case by referring the situation in Myanmar to the court, Human Rights Watch said. Council members have so far not followed up on the December 2022 resolution with tangible measures, fearing vetoes by China and Russia.

Security Council members should support holding an open meeting to address the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State and build momentum for a follow-up resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The council should also play a role in enforcing the binding provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in the genocide case, which the military has blatantly disregarded.

“Over the past seven years, UN bodies and governments haven’t done enough to end the system of apartheid and persecution that has exposed Rohingya to further suffering,” Pearson said. “Ending the ongoing cycles of abuses, destruction, and displacement requires international efforts to hold those responsible to account.”

Click to expand Image Heavily armed police drive through Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on September 4, 2019. © 2019 Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images

(Nairobi) – Two human rights defenders who held a news conference to criticize the Democratic Republic of Congo’s “state of siege” in eastern provinces have been held without charge since August 1, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.

Jack Sinzahera, 35, one of those held, a member of the citizens’ movement Amka Congo (Wake up Congo), is a longtime activist and campaigner who advocates lifting the “state of siege” imposed in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Gloire Saasita, 27, also held, is a member of the Génération Positive citizens’ movement, which fights for the defense of human rights in Congo. Neither has been taken before a judge, which Congolese law requires within 48 hours of an arrest. The government should immediately release them.

“Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned for the safety of activists Jack Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Congolese authorities should release them and stop using the ‘state of siege’ to crack down on the rights to free expression and association.”

These arrests occurred at a time when armed conflict in eastern Congo has intensified as Rwandan-backed M23 continue to seize territory around the eastern city of Goma. In May 2021, President Félix Tshisekedi, who was re-elected in December 2023, declared martial law – a “state of siege” – in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The military has taken over civilian authority in both provinces since then, and martial law has remained in effect. Armed groups continue to attack civilians with little protection from the Congolese army despite the “state of siege.”

Activists who were at the August 1 news conference told Human Rights Watch that at about 10:45 a.m., Sinzahera and Saasita were in the basketball stadium of Goma's Institut Supérieur de Commerce (Higher Institute of Commerce) giving interviews to journalists when men in civilian clothes approached them. The activists interviewed said they recognized the men as being from the Goma intelligence police, known as P2.

They said one of the men told Sinzahera that they had come to arrest him and another told Saasita: “As you're covering yourself with the country's flag and you're a patriot, you too can come and explain yourself afterwards.” The men put the two activists into a private car and drove away.

A family member and a human rights defender based in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, told Human Rights Watch that on August 10, the two activists were transferred to the General Directorate of Intelligence (Direction Générale des Renseignements) in Kinshasa. The families said the authorities have not told them the reason for the arrests.

An activist from Goma said he was able to visit once the two activists in custody after paying a bribe. He said that Sinzahera and Saasita told friends when they visited them that they were arrested for criticizing the “state of siege.”

Human Rights Watch previously reported that the military and police have used martial law to curtail freedom of expression, put down peaceful demonstrations with lethal force, and arbitrarily detain and prosecute activists, journalists, and political opposition members.

On April 2, 2022, Mwamisiyo Ndungo, an activist with Lucha, an organization which fights for the protection of rights and freedoms in Congo, was arrested and later convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the “state of siege” on his X, formerly Twitter, account. These latest arrests further highlight the government’s growing intolerance toward voices critical of the “state of siege” in North Kivu, Human Rights Watch said.

Under martial law orders, military authorities are able to ban meetings deemed against public order and arrest anyone for disrupting public order. Civilians are prosecuted before military courts, which violates Congo’s obligations under international human rights law to ensure due process and fair trial rights.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Congo is a party, certain rights may be suspended under a state of emergency but must be tailored to the “exigencies of the situation” and be lawful, necessary, and proportionate, including when martial law is in effect. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Congo has ratified, does not allow for suspending any of its provisions under any circumstances.

“The arrests of Jack Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita appear to be aimed at their criticism of the ‘state of siege,’” Kaneza Nantulya said. “The Congolese government should ensure that martial rule is not used as a pretext to curtail people’s fundamental rights and find effective measures to address security issues in North Kivu.”