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Former Eswatini Parliamentarians Sentenced to Long Prison Terms
This month, a court in Eswatini sentenced two former members of parliament (MPs), Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, to prison terms of 25 and 18 years, respectively. Both were initially arrested in 2021 for participating in and supporting pro-democracy protests.
Mabuza and Dube’s trial concluded in January 2023 and the pair have been kept in custody ever since. In June 2023, they were convicted under the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008 as well as the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act of 1938. They were found guilty of all bogus charges against them, including terrorism, sedition, and murder.
During their detention, the two former MPs were reportedly physically attacked and denied access to medical care and to their lawyers.
Mabuza and Dube were pro-democracy MPs who advocated for reforms to the Eswatini system of governance which affords King Mswati III, who has ruled the country since 1986, absolute power. The two were arrested during the pro-democracy protests that followed King Mswati issuing a decree in 2021 banning petitions to the government calling for democratic reforms. Security forces violently put down these protests, including with the use of live ammunition. At least 46 people died during protests in June 2021, as reports of disproportionate and unnecessary use of force were condemned by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The sentencing of Mabuza and Dube is a stark reminder of the lack of accountability and justice for the serious violations committed by law enforcement in and around the 2021 protests. The jailing of two politically dissenting voices in a country where the judiciary is neither impartial nor independent is another mark against Eswatini’s already deteriorating human rights record.
The government of Eswatini should stop weaponizing the criminal justice system and quash the convictions and sentences of Mabuza and Dube and all those who have been imprisoned simply for exercising their rights to political expression or peaceful assembly.
Deported Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Returned to US
(Washington, DC, July 18, 2024) – The United States government has, since May 2024, approved the return of 27 Cameroonian asylum seekers who experienced serious harm in Cameroon after their deportation from the US in 2020, a coalition of human rights groups said today. While the returns were permitted on humanitarian grounds, in part based on US asylum confidentiality violations that contributed to their harm in Cameroon, the asylum seekers had also experienced abuses in US immigration detention, including the use of excessive force, painful full-body restraints, solitary confinement, racial discrimination, and medical neglect.
In October and November 2020, amid reports of the mistreatment of Cameroonian asylum seekers in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the administration of then-US President Donald Trump deported dozens back to Cameroon, despite the ongoing risks of danger there and the objections of advocates and members of Congress. Prior to the Cameroonians’ deportations, ICE officials prevented many from accessing their luggage, which held sensitive asylum documents, leading to their discovery by Cameroonian authorities.
A 2022 Human Rights Watch report documented that deported Cameroonians experienced abuses by Cameroonian authorities, including rape, torture, and other physical abuse, arbitrary detention, extortion, unfair prosecutions, restrictions on freedom of movement, and the targeting of relatives.
The US Department of Homeland Security granted the 27 Cameroonians humanitarian parole, a mechanism that allows people to enter the US temporarily on humanitarian grounds. Their applications – submitted on their behalf by immigrant rights and legal groups – note that in denying them the ability to remove the documents from their bags, ICE officials violated US federal regulation 8 C.F.R. § 208.6 on asylum confidentiality. They are now permitted to remain in the US for one year. During this time, they may reapply for asylum.
“When I fled my country and made my way to the US border, I thought that America would be a safe haven,” said one of the returned Cameroonian asylum seekers. “But with all the suffering I went through during immigration detention and deportation, I felt betrayed and shocked. Sending us back to Cameroon with our documents exposed was like putting a target on our backs. Now, for the US to finally right this wrong means there’s still hope. I can dream again.”
Cameroon has faced conflict and violence in several of its regions in recent years, leading to humanitarian crises. Respect for human rights has deteriorated, and the government has increasingly cracked down on opposition and dissent. Violence since late 2016 by government forces and armed separatist groups in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions has caused mass displacement, as have intercommunal violence and ongoing conflict with Boko Haram in the Far North region.
In fiscal year 2020, though conditions in Cameroon had not improved, US immigration courts granted asylum or other protection to 24 percent fewer Cameroonians than in 2019, a much larger decrease than the decline for asylum seekers overall. Human Rights Watch documented that due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum denials to many of the Cameroonians deported in 2020, despite their credible claims.
Meanwhile, Cameroonians in ICE detention faced mistreatment that stood out even among all the anti-immigrant actions of the Trump administration. In August 2020, Cameroonians in Louisiana waged a hunger strike to protest their prolonged ICE detention. Guards responded by dousing them with pepper spray, beating them, and putting them in solitary confinement.
Deportations of Cameroonians surged in late 2020 ahead of the change in US presidential administrations. By returning them to face harm, the Trump administration violated the principle of nonrefoulement, the cornerstone of international refugee law, and it compounded the violation by breaching their confidentiality.
“The 27 Cameroonian asylum seekers who have returned to the US suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of both US and Cameroonian authorities,” said Daniel Tse, founder of the Cameroon Advocacy Network. “The US government took a positive step by approving their returns, but it should not have taken four years to remedy its error. This is no arbitrary reversal of deportations – humanitarian parole is a legal return process under US immigration law, used to help those in danger. Though the returns underscore US commitment to human rights, these Cameroonians’ experiences highlight the urgent need for reforms within the US immigration system and the ongoing need to protect Cameroonians from deportation.”
The 27 people granted humanitarian parole are a small fraction of the Cameroonians in need of protection, according to advocates. In 2022, the Biden administration designated Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which protects Cameroonians in the US from deportation for 18 months; this was later extended until June 2025. However, backlogs in processing applications have prevented thousands of Cameroonians from accessing the protection. The US government should increase resources devoted to addressing application backlogs and continue to redesignate Cameroon for TPS, given the ongoing risks.
The groups supporting the returned Cameroonians are Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Human Rights Watch, Cameroon Advocacy Network, Witness at the Border, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Texas A&M School of Law Legal Clinics.
Gaza: US, UK Outliers in Holding Back UNRWA Funding
(New York) – The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have yet to restore critical funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Human Rights Watch said. Both governments should act immediately to reinstate their support to the agency, the largest relief organization in Gaza.
On July 12, 2024, the US and UK endorsed a set of shared commitments alongside 116 other governments acknowledging the “extremely critical financial situation” facing UNRWA and “recognizing the serious humanitarian, political and security risks that would result from any interruption or suspension of its vital work.” But neither country has reversed its January decision to cut off funds.
“The US and UK are now shameful outliers as most donors have resumed funding UNRWA,” said Akshaya Kumar, crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Cutting off aid was disproportionate to the allegations against UNRWA from the start. Palestinians in Gaza are facing catastrophic food insecurity, massive shortages of medical supplies, and repeated displacement, and there’s no substitute for UNRWA’s networks, experience, and capacity to provide relief.”
The aid cutoffs were based on Israeli authorities’ allegations that 19 people, out of UNRWA’s 30,000 staff, had participated in the October 7 attack in Israel, which Human Rights Watch found included war crimes and crimes against humanity. An independent review released on April 20 and a published update on ongoing inquires by the UN’s own internal investigators both stated that they have not found evidence, or been supplied the evidence by Israeli authorities, to support the key allegations.
Ninety percent of Gaza’s population have been displaced or forced to flee their homes, many repeatedly, and 96 percent are projected to face crisis or worse levels of food insecurity by September.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, pregnant women in Gaza are finding it increasingly challenging to access the lifesaving care they need, and some emergency deliveries are taking place in tents without medical support. Comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care are available at only 11 facilities, where dire fuel shortages are hampering the functioning of incubators and other equipment.
In a July 14 statement, an UNRWA official described the conditions at Nasser hospital, where “many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants,” there were “not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting, or scrubs,” and he saw “toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others separated from their parents.”
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told a pledging conference at the UN that UNRWA still faces a financial crisis and “the Agency’s ability to operate beyond September depends on Member States disbursing planned funding and making new contributions to the core budget.” UNRWA relies primarily on donations from individual governments to fund its work in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Contributions by governments to UNRWA are voluntary and discretionary.
In January, UNRWA immediately terminated the contracts of 10 of the staff members allegedly involved in the October 7 assault. Two others had died by the time accusations were made public. The UN’s internal investigator, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, opened investigations into all 12 UNRWA staff members initially identified and later added 7 more, but subsequently suspended inquires in 4 cases for insufficient evidence and closed one case because Israel had not provided any supporting evidence. Inquiries into the other cases are ongoing.
Separately, the UN secretary-general appointed an independent panel headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna to assess UNRWA’s neutrality. The panel publicly released its own report with 50 recommendations in April, and UNRWA has since set up an internal task force to oversee implementation of the recommendations.
In response to Israel’s allegations in January, UNRWA said 16 countries suspended their donations to the agency and others indicated they would set conditions on further funding. The vast majority, including Australia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Sweden, have since resumed payments.
Other donors, including France, Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the European Union, never suspended donations and instead released funds they had previously planned to give to the UNRWA over time, keeping some remainder in tranches subject to certain conditions. The Netherlands had already disbursed its annual contribution to UNRWA before the allegations emerged in January but announced it would pause further funding. In June, the Netherlands earmarked and indicated willingness to release further funding as UNRWA implements the independent panel’s recommendations.
In early March, UNRWA provided the EU with “written confirmation” that it would “deliver on agreed conditions and measures,” including an audit, strengthened internal controls, and screening and vetting of staff.
Governments including Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, and Slovenia never cut off or slowed funding and called on others to keep funds flowing, while others like Iraq, Qatar, and Spain increased their donations as the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsened.
Historically, the US has been the largest donor to UNRWA, accounting for a third of the agency’s budget in 2023. After the Biden administration announced in late January that it was pausing payments, Congress passed a law prohibiting any further funding to UNRWA until at least March 2025. Officials in the Biden administration told Human Rights Watch it diverted the funds intended for UNRWA to other aid agencies for use in Gaza.
The UK’s newly elected Labour government has yet to announce a change in policy, leaving the previous government’s UNRWA suspension in place. While in opposition, David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, and other senior Labour party members publicly criticized the Conservative government for its January decision to cut aid to UNRWA and urged it to restore funding. Lammy indicated on July 15 that he would make a statement to parliament in the “coming days” on UNRWA.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said that the agency has also faced a sustained campaign of reputational, legal, and physical attacks by Israeli authorities. On January 31, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a delegation of UN ambassadors that “UNRWA’s mission has to end,” while Foreign Minister Israel Katz has made clear his intention that UNRWA will “not be part of the day after.” In February, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked the delivery of a US funded shipment of flour to UNRWA, forcing the delivery through the World Food Programme instead.
Israeli authorities are also seeking to rescind the tax exemptions UNRWA receives and have made moves to shut down UNRWA’s offices located on Israeli state property, limit the length of visas for international UNRWA staff, and refuse visas to staff.
Human Rights Watch has documented two strikes that hit UNRWA aid workers who had communicated their precise GPS coordinates to Israel for their presumed protection, one on a guest house in December 2023 and the other on a convoy in February 2024.
“By continuing to withhold funds, the US and UK are exacerbating the effects of the Israeli government’s campaign against UNRWA and the people who depend on the agency,” Kumar said. “These governments say they’re concerned about the starving people of Gaza, but they’re starving the agency best placed to feed them.”
Cameroon First Daughter Calls for Decriminalization of Same-Sex Conduct
On July 9, in an interview with a French newspaper about her relationship with another woman, Brenda Biya, 27, daughter of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, called for the decriminalization of consensual same-sex conduct in her country.
Biya’s coming out is courageous since Cameroon’s penal code punishes same-sex conduct with up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to 200,000 CFA francs (US$330). Arbitrary arrests, physical and verbal assaults, and torture of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or those perceived as such, are commonplace in Cameroon and appear to be on the rise.
Brenda Biya is a problematic human rights advocate.
Numerous rights violations have occurred under her father’s rule, such as the imprisonment of political leaders, murders and disappearances in the country’s Southwest and Northwest regions, as well as corruption, including graft.
Nevertheless, Biya’s statement may help shift the narrative in a notoriously harsh environment for LGBT people. In May 2021, two Cameroonian transgender women were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in a male prison for “attempted homosexuality” and “public indecency.” Upon arrest, gendarmes beat them, threatened to kill them, interrogated them without their lawyers present, and forced them to sign statements.
Despite growing mobilization of LGBT people in Cameroon advocating for their rights, many told Human Rights Watch they continue to live in constant fear of being attacked or arrested. They said that to escape persecution, often the only solution is to flee and seek asylum in other countries. Most of LGBT migrants also experience multiple discriminations, including racism and xenophobic violence and endure racism and xenophobic violence.
Brenda Biya, who lives outside of Cameroon, is in a privileged position and not in immediate danger for coming out. Yet her recent statements on the criminalization of same-sex conduct are valid and should be heard. In the wake of the interview, an anti-LGBT group in Cameroon has filed a criminal complaint against Biya.
Brenda Biya could now consider speaking out on the other serious rights violations that have and continue to occur under her father’s 42-year-long rule. Cameroonian lawmakers should urgently repeal the discriminatory provisions in the penal code and act in accordance with the constitution and international conventions to guarantee equal rights and justice for all people.
Philippines Activists, Educators Convicted in Concerning Case
This week, a Philippine court convicted 2 prominent activists – 1 of them a sitting member of congress – and 11 teachers at an Indigenous school on charges related to child abuse after they allegedly exposed several children to danger during what the defendants called a “rescue mission” in 2018. The case may be one of several involving politically motivated charges against activists as the government fights the longstanding communist insurgency in the country.
In its verdict, the court in Tagum City upheld the prosecution’s argument that the defendants, led by Representative France Castro and former Representative Satur Ocampo, violated the country’s child abuse law when they took 14 students from an Indigenous school in Talaingod town in Davao del Norte province and brought them to the adjacent province of Compostela Valley (now Davao de Oro).
The defendants said they were conducting a “national humanitarian mission” because the children and their educators feared being caught in ongoing military operations in the area against the communist New People’s Army (NPA). The prosecution accused the defendants of failing to coordinate with local officials and failing to get parental consent, thus exposing the children “to harm or risk” during the three-hour trek through the mountains.
Prosecutors originally charged the defendants with child trafficking, kidnapping, and child abuse but later on dropped the other two charges. The defendants are out on bail but could face up to six years’ imprisonment if an appeals court upholds the conviction.
In a statement, the military praised the verdict, saying it would deter groups from “luring youths” to the insurgency. The Philippine National Security Council echoed that view, even as various activist groups denounced the decision.
The military had asserted the school was being used as a “training ground” for rebels. The government has attacked and closed down several Indigenous schools in recent years, with their leaders and educators accused of being communist rebels or sympathizers of the NPA – a practice known as red-tagging – and other forms of harassment, as well as extrajudicial execution.
Any case involving allegations of child abuse should be adequately investigated and prosecuted on its merits, and should not be used for the judicial harassment of activists suspected of being communists. Several of these charges have been proven to be bogus, prompting the Supreme Court to rule in May against red-tagging. The conviction and imprisonment of activists can set a dangerous precedent against advocates and civil society.
France: As Olympics Approach, Human Rights in Spotlight
(Paris) – The Olympic and Paralympic Games in France should usher in reforms to ensure tolerance, nondiscrimination, and the defense of fundamental human rights, Human Rights Watch said today in a new guide published for reporters covering the Games. The Paris 2024 Summer Games will hold its opening ceremony on the Seine River on July 26, 2024.
Human Rights Watch Reporters' Guide for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic and Paralympic GamesThe 35-page “Reporters’ Guide: 2024 Paris Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games” summarizes rights concerns relevant to both the Paris Games and broader human rights concerns in France. The guide also describes the role of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other Olympic committees and their relevance to promoting human rights at the Paris Olympics.
“The Olympic Games are a good moment to shine a light on France’s deteriorating rights record,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “For example, contrary to Olympic values of inclusion and nondiscrimination, racialized minorities, including migrants, face systemic abuse and discrimination in France.”
The upcoming Games take place against the backdrop of the recent snap legislative elections in France called by President Emmanuel Macron following the victory of the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National) party in the June 9 European Parliament elections. The electoral campaign in France was marred by a rise in racist, xenophobic, and discriminatory rhetoric, alongside extreme political polarization. Civil society mobilized massively in favor of tolerance and nondiscrimination, and a majority of voters rejected being governed by the far-right. The new government has not yet been appointed.
The 2024 Games in Paris mark the centennial of the 1924 Paris Olympics and the third time Paris will host the Summer Games. With more than 200 countries competing at the Olympics and Paralympics, an expected 15 million tourists, and a global television audience of 5 billion, these Games are projected to be the most-watched ever.
The slogan for Paris 2024 is “Games Wide Open” or “Ouvrons grand les Jeux” in French. This motto is meant to show these Games will be more inclusive, open, and equal, including with gender parity in athlete participation.
France’s Olympic and Paralympic Games are the first to take place since the IOC adopted a human rights framework in 2022. The IOC has called Paris 2024 “the first edition of the Games that will embed human rights throughout the organisation and delivery of the event.”
But instead of raising the bar for human rights, as the Games open, there is worrying erosion of the rule of law in France and concerning reports of human rights violations.
The Olympic Charter expressly bans “discrimination of any kind” as a “fundamental principle of Olympism.” Headscarf restrictions for women athletes were overturned in global sport starting in 2014 because the ban excluded millions of women and girls from participation in sports like football and basketball.
However, in France, sporting authorities have put in place bans on French athletes wearing headscarves both at Paris 2024 and beyond, across all levels of sport. The country’s discrimination against women and girls wearing the hijab is particularly concerning given the IOC’s celebration of Paris 2024 as the first “Gender Equal Olympics.”
The effect of these bans is that women athletes from the Olympics’ own host nation are discriminated against and prevented from exercising their human rights. French Muslim women and girls who choose to wear hijab will never be able to qualify for these or future Games, since they are excluded from the necessary training and competition opportunities to reach the Olympic level. Muslim women athletes from other nations will compete at the Olympics and Paralympics wearing the hijab without restrictions.
Restrictions on fundamental freedoms are on the rise in France, with increasing limitations on freedom of expression, the right to peaceful protest, and freedom of association. The erosion of civic space is compounded by the expansion and use of invasive mass surveillance technologies, justified under the guise of security measures for events like the Olympics and Paralympics. France’s new “Olympics” surveillance law is the first of its kind in the European Union to explicitly legalize the use of controversial algorithm-driven video surveillance that risks discrimination against racialized minorities at the Games.
“International sports competitions should not have long-term negative policy consequences that reduce freedoms and basic rights for people in France and beyond,” Jeannerod said.
As thousands of national athletes arrive in Paris from all corners of the globe, the guide also covers abuse against athletes worldwide, including sexual and gender-based violence, child abuse in sport, and sex testing of women athletes. In research ranging from Japan and Haiti to Mali and India, Human Rights Watch has worked with athlete whistleblowers and survivors of abuse to report abuse and understand how sport creates systems that allow human rights abuses to flourish. Athletes and survivors are demanding reforms from national and international sport federations to put meaningful systems in place to safely report and investigate abuse.
Human Rights Watch reporters’ guide provides an overview of the human rights context in France and in global sport relevant to covering the Olympics and the Paralympics. It includes background on the Olympics and human rights, athletes who face systemic discrimination in participating in sports, communities whose members face systemic racism by French law enforcement, systemic abuses and reform efforts in the Olympic movement, and recent developments of human rights violations and cases of interest to cover.
“The true legacy of these Summer Games should not be measured only in medals or records but in the French government’s unwavering commitment to establish a lasting respect for human rights,” Jeannerod said.
Yemen: UAE-Backed Group Seizes Women’s Shelter
(Beirut) – Forces linked with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), which governs the southern Yemen city of Aden, seized an independent women’s shelter on May 26, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. The STC and its affiliated Southern Women’s Union threatened the independent Yemen Women’s Union staff and women sheltering there. Yemeni Archive also released an investigation today with similar findings.
“While the Southern Transitional Council rhetorically supports women’s rights, its actions have repeatedly shown that it is restricting civil society, including those working to support women,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Southern Transitional Council should take immediate measures to remove the Southern Women’s Union from the premises of the Yemen Women’s Union, which is one of the few safe spaces that women fleeing abuse can rely on.”
The raid is the latest in a series of STC actions that seek to replace independent institutions with entities it supports. The STC should cease its violations of women’s rights as well as its broader attacks on civil society.
The Yemen Women’s Union is one of the oldest civil society organizations dedicated to serving Yemeni women. It operates shelters throughout the country for survivors of gender-based violence, including women and children. The shelters provide mental, legal, social and economic support for the women. It is a vital resource, particularly in a country in which the law still restricts women’s freedoms, Human Rights Watch said.
For nearly a month, the attackers maintained full control over the Yemen Women’s Union offices and shelter in Aden. They prevented staff from caring for a sick boy in the shelter, and only allowed the Yemen Women’s Union staff to bring those in the shelter some limited food supplies, placing women and children in the shelter at risk. Though the staff were able to re-enter their offices on June 23, the STC demanded that they provide half of the building space to the government-affiliated Southern Women’s Union and remove the word “Yemen” from their name to signify that they only support women in Yemen’s south.
Human Rights Watch interviewed six people, including lawyers and others who are aware of the raid, and verified videos and photographs sent directly to researchers and found on social media platforms showing the raid. Human Rights Watch also reviewed official documents relevant to the seizure.
The STC is part of the internationally recognized Yemeni government’s coalition: the eight-member Presidential Leadership Council, which replaced former President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2022, and includes STC leaders. The STC, on its own, also maintains significant control in Aden as well as in several other governorates in southern Yemen.
Human Rights Watch asked the STC for comment. They replied on June 6 stating that the Southern Women’s Union is an independent organization, and that STC forces were not in control of the building. They added that if STC forces were there, it would be to secure the building as (is the case) with others. They also provided Human Rights Watch with a document from the Social Affairs Ministry stating that the Southern Women’s Union, which was established on January 6, 2024, during a women’s conference in Aden, is the official women’s union recognized by the Yemeni government. However, while the STC established this new women’s union, it rejected renewing the registration of the independent Yemen Women’s Union.
People interviewed said that the STC began harassing the Yemen Women’s Union in early May, refusing to renew its license, even though the Union had fulfilled the necessary requirements for renewal.
On May 12, representatives of the Southern Women’s Union demanded that the Yemen Women’s Union hand over its offices and exclusively serve women from the south and not those from “northern governorates,” even if they were living in Aden.
“We are a civil society organization,” a woman working with the Yemen Women’s Union said that she told the Southern Women’s Union. “We receive all women from everywhere, including some from Somalia and Ethiopia. We cannot turn away those seeking protection no matter where they are from.”
A woman working with the Yemen Women’s Union said that the next day, a building guard called the office to say that a group of women and men had stormed the office and replaced the Yemen Women’s Union sign with the Southern Women Union’s and raised a South Yemen flag, which is also the STC’s flag. Photographs shared on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, on May 14 and verified by Human Rights Watch show a group of men and women carrying the Southern Women’s Union sign.
The Yemen Women’s Union contacted a woman in the office of the STC’s leader, Aidarous Al-Zabidi, asking the STC to recall their forces and order the Southern Women’s Union representatives to vacate the Yemen Women’s Union buildings. The woman they spoke with asked the armed men to withdraw, and they did.
[Photo of the replaced billboard]
However, on May 26, a group of men and women affiliated with the Southern Women’s Union stormed the office again. In one video, directly shared by an interviewee, a group of at least 40 women are seen outside the main gate. At least five women repeatedly pushed at the gate. Several people broke the main door of the office, disabled the cameras, and took over the office, a staff member said.
The people who raided the building were escorted by a military vehicle belonging to the STC’s Storm Brigade, said a person who was there and asked the soldiers herself. Human Rights Watch received two photographs from a witness who said they were taken on June 6 from inside the Yemen Women’s Union office. They show a tan-colored pickup truck with a heavy machine gun mounted in its bed, matching vehicles driven by the STC and the Yemeni military, parked next to a building. Human Rights Watch could not confirm to whom the vehicle belonged, but multiple people interviewed said that the STC is the only authority in Aden with armed forces and military vehicles.
“[The trespassers] insulted the women, questioned their honor, and threatened them with death,” a Yemen Women’s Union staff member said. “[The women] came to the shelter seeking protection, and instead, they were threatened with death and insulted. We are very concerned about them.”
Another video sent by the same source, shows three men using a hammer to try to break the lock on the main building’s door. Researchers could not establish when this video was recorded.
Human Rights Watch reviewed an official document dated May 26 from a public prosecutor in Aden addressed to the police station in Crater, the district of Aden where the Yemen Women’s Union office is located, ordering them to stop the attack, and send the attackers to the site where people are held during investigations. The Yemen Women’s Union lawyer said that she went to hand over the document to the Crater police station, which is under the STC’s authority, but that a police officer threw it on the ground, saying that the police did not recognize or accept these orders.
“We are living through a terrible time,” said a Yemen Women’s Union staff member, describing the conditions of the women and children who were trapped in the shelter. “We can’t sleep or do anything, we can’t go and visit them in the shelter.” She said that while sometimes employees have been able to drop off some food for the women sheltering there, those occupying the building did not allow them to bring medicine to one of the sheltered women’s sons who is sick, or allow the boy to leave for a hospital.
On June 23, the Yemen Women’s Union were able to reenter the building and continue working from their offices. However, staff members told Human Rights Watch that the Southern Women’s Union continues to occupy part of the building, based on STC directives to the Yemen Women’s Union that the building be shared.
This is not the first time the STC has seized the buildings of civil society organizations and other unaffiliated institutions. On February 28, 2023, STC-affiliated forces seized the headquarters of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate. According to the Syndicate, the STC-backed Southern Media and Journalists’ Syndicate removed the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate’s sign from the building and replaced it with their own sign. In June 2021, STC-affiliated armed forces raided and seized control of the offices of Saba News Agency, the official news agency of the government of Yemen.
Other warring parties in Yemen, in particular the Houthis, have also repressed civil society in the country. Most recently, the Houthis have arbitrarily arrested and forcibly disappeared dozens of civil society and UN staff, apparently based on their employment.
“The STC and its controlled security institutions should respect the rule of law, return the Yemen Women Union building, and immediately cease their broader abuses against civil society,” Jafarnia said.
Iran: Labor Activist Sentenced to Death
(Beirut) – Iran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced a labor activist to death on a charge of “armed rebellion against the state,” based on an allegation of membership in an opposition group, Human Rights Watch said today. The court on July 4, 2024, communicated the verdict against Sharifeh Mohammedi to her husband, Sirous Fathi, Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.
HRANA reported on July 4, that intelligence agents arrested Mohammadi at her home in Rasht on December 5, 2023. A source close to Mohammadi’s family told HRANA that she had been a member of the Association of Labor Organizations until 2013. This group has no connection to Komala, a Kurdish social democratic party that had previously engaged in armed conflict in Iran and reportedly still maintains an armed wing, to which she was accused of belonging.
“Iranian authorities’ not only relentlessly target women activists, but they carry out additional attacks and repression on women from ethnic and religious minorities, said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “If incoming President Pezeshkian wants to signal that he represents real change, he should start by halting this ongoing repression, including death sentences.”
Mohammadi was born in East Azerbaijan and was a member of the Coordination Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations. The committee was founded in 2005 by several Kurdish activists to assist and facilitate the creation of independent labor organizations. Iran’s security agencies considered this committee to be affiliated with the Komala group without evidence. Although the founders and members of this committee have been arrested and imprisoned multiple times, none of them have been accused of “armed rebellion against the state.”
Sixteen women political prisoners from Evin prison wrote in a letter on July 9, that they “stand alongside Sharifeh Mohammadi and all those threatened by the death penalty.” The letter stated that “Sharifeh Mohammadi, a labor activist, was sentenced to death after seven months of detention, torture, and interrogation based on baseless accusations.” The Nobel Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was among the signatories.
Since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, Iranian authorities have intensified their crackdown on women activists and human rights defenders, employing harsher measures and issuing severe sentences to suppress dissent and silence opposition voices. This includes sentencing 11 women's rights and political activists to prison terms on March 27.
The targeting of ethnic and religious minorities is apparent in state crackdowns in regions like Kurdistan and Sistan and Baluchistan. Two other Kurdish women political activists, Pakhshan Azizi and Warisha Moradi, are on trial in Tehran on charges of “armed rebellion against the state.”
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported that intelligence agents arrested Moradi, a member of the East Kurdistan Free Woman Society (KJAR) on August 1, 2023, in Kermanshah. She is also accused of “armed rebellion against the state.”
KHRN said that she faced pressure and threats to make forced confessions. On December 26, 2023, after five months in solitary confinement, she was moved to the women's ward of Evin prison. She continues to be denied her right to make phone calls and meet with her family.
KHRN said that intelligence agents arrested Azizi on August 4, 2023, also on charges of “armed rebellion against the state.” She was previously arrested by security forces in 2009 during a protest gathering of Kurdish students at the University of Tehran against political executions in Kurdistan. She was released on bail after being detained for four months. Several members of her family were also detained but released after a few days of interrogation. She has not been allowed to see a lawyer and has faced threats and pressure to confess, according to KHRN.
Jina Modares Gorji, a journalist and women's rights activist from Sanandaj, was sentenced to 21 years in prison and exile by the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj in May 2024. She faced charges of “forming illegal groups with the aim of overthrowing the state,” “collaborating with hostile groups and governments,” and “propaganda against the state.”
“Iranian authorities have demonstrated their disregard for minority and women's rights through the brutal repression of protests and arrests and mistreatment of women’s activists,” Naghshbandi said. “They should release Sharifeh Mohammadi without delay.”
Syria: Mass Unlawful Asset Freezes
(Beirut) – The Syrian Ministry of Finance has targeted, since early 2024, hundreds of people and their families from a town south of Damascus with unlawful asset freezes, Human Rights Watch said today. The en masse asset freezes constitute collective punishment and a violation of the right to property.
These decisions are based on a 2012 decree that empowers the Finance Ministry to freeze assets of individuals pending investigation for suspected terrorism under Syria’s overbroad counterterrorism law, even if they have not been charged with a crime.
“The indiscriminate nature of these mass asset freezes in Zakia appears to reflect a broader strategy of collective punishment against communities in recaptured areas,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Weaponizing counterterrorism laws to justify unlawful asset freezes and seizures is a deliberate policy aimed at maintaining a climate of fear and repression in former opposition areas.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed “precautionary seizure” decisions issued between January and June that targeted hundreds of people from Zakia, a town retaken by government forces from opposition groups in 2016. Human Rights Watch spoke with two people affected by the measures, one of whom remains in Zakia and another who was displaced to the opposition-held northwest in 2017. Those affected include the targeted individuals themselves as well as first-degree relatives, including parents, spouses, children, and siblings. For example, in one of the available decisions, out of 103 people listed, 19 were directly targeted, and 84 were their first-degree relatives.
A detailed report issued today by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) found that out of the 818 individuals listed in the available “precautionary seizure orders” issued in 2024, 287 had previously signed documents permitting them to remain in Zakia following its recapture under the condition that they would refrain from engaging in anti-government activities. Another 196 could not be identified, 187 were internally displaced people, 69 were refugees, 37 had been forcibly disappeared, 22 were missing persons, and 20 were deceased.
One of the men interviewed said that he is among a number of opposition fighters who resisted forced displacement following the recapture of Zakia and initially declined to sign so-called reconciliation agreements with the authorities that allowed fighters to remain with their light arms after a security agency vetting process. He said that they have since verbally agreed three times to give up weapons in exchange for the release of detainees, with the authorities reneging on their promises.
“These decisions are capricious, arbitrary, vindictive, and malicious in nature,” he said, noting that he and his wife were included on the lists, as well as 19 second-degree relatives.
Both people interviewed indicated that they had not been notified of the decision to freeze their movable and immovable properties, in contravention of Syrian law. The man who remained in Zakia said he only became aware of the issue in late March, when another Zakia resident attempted to conduct a transaction involving his property at a land registry office, only to find that he was subject to an asset freeze. The other resident inquired further and found out that the orders affected hundreds of others.
The “precautionary seizure” orders analyzed are all grounded in Syria’s Law of Judicial Police Authority (Legislative Decree 63 of 2012), which empowers the Finance Ministry to freeze people’s assets as a precaution and without a court order based on requests from judicial police authorities pending investigation of “crimes against the internal or external security of the state” and crimes under Syria’s abusive Counterterrorism Law of 2012. If they are tried and convicted, their properties are then automatically confiscated and transferred to the government.
Each of the orders also referenced separate communications from the infamous Damascus-based Branch 285 of the General Intelligence Directorate. They also included a closing statement justifying the action by citing individuals’ involvement in “current events in the country.”
The former resident currently living in the northwest said he found out he had been affected after finding his name on copies of the orders circulated on a Facebook page dedicated to news about Zakia. “It included my name, my parents’ names, my siblings, names of my uncles and my cousins,” he said. “I don’t know the reason.” He said that while some of his relatives included in the order were still in Zakia, others had long been detained, or were in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe.
“I know one of the men included [in the precautionary seizure orders] who has been dead since 1988,” the Zakia resident said.
Asset freezes can severely disrupt people’s financial stability, limiting their ability to access funds, maintain property, and conduct business, thereby exacerbating economic hardships and potentially impeding their livelihoods.
“I have a piece of land, 8 dunums [about 2 acres], that I farm,” the Zakia resident said. “It was included in the asset freeze. Now I can’t sell it or rent it. They could after a while confiscate it, take it for their own. Same for my movable assets, my car, [which] I can’t do anything with now. And if I had any money in the bank, it would be the same thing, I wouldn’t be able to withdraw it.”
Neither men said they had tried to appeal or challenge the decision directly with the government. The current Zakia resident said community leaders and the town mayor sent a letter to the General Intelligence Directorate in April stating that the orders were unjust and arbitrary, but that to his knowledge they had received no response.
Human Rights Watch and the SNHR have both previouslydocumented that the Syrian government uses an arsenal of legislative instruments to unjustly appropriate residents’ private property without due process or compensation. These include Decree 63 of 2012.
Such laws create significant barriers to return for refugees and displaced people wishing to reclaim their properties and rebuild their lives. They also complicate international reconstruction efforts, given that companies involved in demolitions or rehabilitation of structures can run the risk of contributing to human rights abuses and forced displacement if dealing with properties that were unlawfully seized by the government.
Decree 63 violates due process guarantees by not providing a means of appeal or official notification for individuals listed, Human Rights Watch said. It also violates property rights, which are protected under Article 15 of the Syrian constitution and under international human rights law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights guarantee the right to property. The Arab Charter states that no one should “under any circumstances be arbitrarily or unlawfully divested of all or any part of their property.” International courts have found the right to property and possessions protects traditional but undocumented property rights over homes and land, as well as rights documented by formal land title and registration.
Syria’s Counterterrorism Law broadly defines terrorism in a way that allows the government to label almost any act as a terrorist offense, including humanitarian aid or nonviolent protests, and lacks clear procedural standards.
By penalizing people solely based on their familial relationship with an accused person, and not based on their individual criminal responsibility, the Finance Ministry’s implementation of Decree 63 also constitutes collective punishment, which is prohibited under international humanitarian and human rights law in all circumstances.
The Syrian government should provide specific and individual reasons for freezing people’s assets and allow affected people, including relatives, to appeal the decision, Human Rights Watch said. The government should amend the counterterrorism law and other related laws to remove any overbroad definitions of terrorism and incorporate due process and fair trial guarantees.
“For refugees facing increasing pressure to return from neighboring countries and Europe, these arbitrary asset freezes highlight ongoing government retaliation and abuse, making it highly unlikely that they’ll find stability and security upon return,” Coogle said.
Sri Lanka: False Terrorism Cases Enable Repression
(New York) – Sri Lankan authorities continue to use the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to target perceived opponents and minority communities without credible evidence to support the allegations despite repeated pledges to end the practice, Human Rights Watch said today. While some victims have suffered years of arbitrary detention and torture, others are persecuted even after the case against them is dropped.
The law, widely known as the PTA, has provisions allowing for extended administrative detention, limited judicial oversight, and inadequate protections against torture. In a 2022 speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the then foreign minister pledged a moratorium on its use, but under President Ranil Wickremesinghe, detentions under the PTA have continued. Such is the chilling effect of the law that in September 2023 the International Monetary Fund found that “broad application of counter-terrorism rules” restricts civil society scrutiny of official corruption.
“Sri Lanka’s extensive domestic security apparatus routinely uses baseless accusations of terrorism to target innocent people, silencing critics and stigmatizing minority communities,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Previous international pressure has led to modest improvements, and Sri Lanka’s foreign partners should renew their call to repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.”
Following government promises to repeal the PTA since 2015, draft legislation to replace it, known as the Anti-Terrorism Bill (ATB), was published in March 2023. While the new bill contains some improvements, it includes provisions that could facilitate abuse.
Since it first came into force in 1979, the PTA has primarily been used to target members of the Tamil minority during a separatist war led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was defeated in 2009. While many long-term PTA prisoners have been released in recent years, in part due to international pressure by the European Union and others, at least eight who were first detained between 1996 and 2011 remain in prison.
In November 2023, police in the eastern town of Batticaloa arrested nine people under the law for commemorating the war dead. They were released on bail a month later, but one of those detained told Human Rights Watch that he remains under intense surveillance and his family has lost its income because of the case.
A former LTTE child soldier said that she was arrested under the PTA in 2019 and held for three years. Because she was a minor at the end of the war, she had been placed in the care of the Red Cross instead of being sent to government “rehabilitation” with adult combatants. She believes that the ongoing surveillance and harassment is because security agencies regard her as “unrehabilitated.” She said: “I am afraid. I don’t know who is watching me.”
Human Rights Watch also interviewed a man who was among several arrested under the PTA in 2019 after receiving financial support from the Tamil diaspora, which the Sri Lankan authorities sometimes construe as “terrorist financing.” “We don’t know why we were arrested,” he said. “The PTA allows them to keep us without any reason.” He faced abuse in prison, including threats at gunpoint by a government minister. Following his release three years later, he still faces intense police harassment. “My freedom of movement is restricted. People are afraid to give me a job.”
Following the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, when Islamist suicide bombers targeted churches and hotels, killing over 260 people, the authorities detained at least 125 Muslims in the eastern town of Kattankudy under the PTA. Little or no evidence was produced against most of them, a lawyer familiar with the situation told Human Rights Watch. Most spent between one and three years in detention and were then either discharged altogether or released on bail. Twenty-four are facing trial in a proceeding that is expected to continue for years.
Former detainees from this group told Human Rights Watch that they had experienced torture and ill treatment in custody, and that the police had made extortion demands on their families for their release.
Following their release due to lack of evidence, they said they had received frequent threatening home visits or phone calls and are under surveillance by security agencies. They have been unable to access banking services, obtain passports, or operate their businesses. “They can’t go abroad for work,” said an activist who works with the community. “They can’t live freely in peace with their families.” In many cases, children have been forced by hardship to drop out of school.
A man who had been held under the PTA for about a year, then discharged, said that while there is a tradition of charitable giving in the Muslim community, security officials warn others not to help affected families, and people are afraid to do so for fear that they may be accused of supporting terrorism.
Numerous human rights defenders in the Northern and Eastern provinces said that members of police and intelligence agencies routinely warn that they will be accused of terrorism because of their work. “If we talk of Tamil rights, they use the PTA to silence us, saying we are working to reorganize the LTTE,” said an activist in the Northern Province.
Another rights activist, who works on several PTA cases, said in May 2024, “Just yesterday a [police] CID person called me and said, ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’ They oppress us because they want to stop the information we can provide from reaching the international community.”
Like the PTA, the draft law to replace it appears designed to give the president, police, and military broad powers to detain people without evidence, to make vaguely defined forms of speech a criminal offense, and to arbitrarily ban gatherings and organizations without meaningful judicial oversight.
It would expand the definition of terrorism to include crimes such as property damage, and restrict rights to freedom of assembly and speech. It would give the police and military sweeping powers to stop, question, search, and arrest anyone without a warrant, and allow the attorney general to “impose” “voluntary” custodial “rehabilitation” on a person who has not been convicted of any crime.
Recommendations
The government should impose a full moratorium on the PTA and work to repeal it.The authorities should draft rights respecting counterterrorism legislation in consultation with experts and civil society.Foreign partners including the United States, EU, and UK should insist that Sri Lanka abides by commitments to repeal the law.The UN Human Rights Council should renew the mandates of resolution 46/1 for reporting and investigating human rights violations in Sri Lanka.“For many Sri Lankans, baseless allegations of terrorism and sweeping powers provided by the PTA remain the most frightening and unaccountable method of repression,” Ganguly said. “Foreign governments seeking to support improved governance and respect for human rights should prioritize action to end the Sri Lankan government’s misuse of counterterrorism powers.”
Media Freedoms Should Not Be a Target in DR Congo
Last week, the Congolese government’s Communication and Broadcasting Board (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel et de la communication, CSAC) suspended journalist Jessy Kabasele for an indefinite period, following his interview with one of the country’s most famous singers, Koffi Olomide, on Le Panier The Morning Show. During the interview, aired by the state-run broadcasting company, Olomide criticized the army’s response to M23 rebels’ assault as too weak.
Congolese authorities have been fighting the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group since hostilities renewed in 2022 in the North Kivu province.
The CSAC accused Kabasele of failing to reframe Olomide’s speech which, it argued, “undermines the enormous efforts and sacrifices made by the government.” The media regulator summoned both Kabasele and Olomide last week, while Olomide’s lawyers are said to have met with a prosecutor on July 15.
Congo’s media regulator has been stifling reporting on the conflict. In February, the CSAC issued a directive requesting the media not to broadcast debates on Congolese army operations without the presence of at least one “expert on the matter.” It also requested journalists avoid radio phone-ins discussing the topic and interviewing “negative forces,” a vague and unclear term that leaves the door open to arbitrary prohibitions.
In April, the CSAC recommended that media outlets should no longer “broadcast information relating to the rebellion in eastern DRC without referring to official [government] sources.”
While international human rights law allows governments during states of emergency to derogate from some obligations to respect freedom of expression, there are strict standards on what governments can do and how. Those standards, which include restrictions having a clear legal basis, being necessary, and proportionate, ensure that the essence of freedom of expression, including freedom to seek, receive, and impart ideas and information, is safeguarded. CSAC’s inference with freedom of expression and freedom of the press fails to meet the criteria.
The cases of Olomide and Kabassele are reminiscent of other journalists and public figures who have been targeted by the authorities.
The work of Congolese journalists operating in eastern provinces has been fraught with danger and their dedication and commitment should be commended. Instead of punishing journalists and private citizens for expressing views on a crisis that is devastating the country, the authorities should protect journalists’ rights to operate safely and freely.
October 7 Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes by Hamas-led Groups
(Jerusalem) – Hamas’ military wing – the Qassam Brigades – and at least four other Palestinian armed groups committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians during the October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Governments with influence over the armed groups should press for the urgent release of civilian hostages, an ongoing war crime, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The 236-page report, “‘I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind’: Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel,” documents several dozen cases of serious violations of international humanitarian law by Palestinian armed groups at nearly all the civilian attack sites on October 7. These include the war crimes and crimes against humanity of murder, hostage-taking, and other grave offenses. Human Rights Watch also examined the role of various armed groups and their coordination before and during the attacks. Previous Human Rights Watch reports have addressed numerous serious violations by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7.
July 17, 2024 “I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind”“Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The October 7 atrocities should spur a global call to action for an end to all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine.”
Play VideoBetween October 2023 and June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 144 people including 94 Israeli and other nationals who witnessed the October 7 assault, victims’ family members, first responders, and medical experts. Researchers also verified and analyzed over 280 photographs and videos taken during the assault and posted on social media or shared directly with Human Rights Watch.
Time Will Tell: How Human Rights Watch Identifies Time Through Analyzing VideosFor the past nine months, Human Rights Watch has continued to document ongoing atrocity crimes and human rights violations in Palestine and Israel. For this report, we analyzed over 280 videos and photographs that, combined with witness accounts, helped to identify exactly what happened on October 7, where and when and to whom, as well as who was responsible. The purpose of this research was to bring facts to light and support accountability efforts by documenting the abuses committed on October 7 and identifying those responsible.
On the morning of October 7, Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups carried out numerous coordinated attacks including on civilian residential communities and social events and on Israeli military bases in the area of southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip. The armed groups attacked at least 19 kibbutzim and 5 moshavim (cooperative communities), the cities of Sderot and Ofakim, 2 music festivals, and a beach party. The fighting lasted much of the day and in some cases longer.
Across many attack sites, Palestinian fighters fired directly at civilians, often at close range, as they tried to flee, and at people driving through the area. The attackers hurled grenades, shot into shelters, and fired rocket-propelled grenades at homes. They set houses on fire, burning and choking people, and forcing out others whom they shot or captured. They took dozens hostage and summarily killed others.
Nirit Hunwald, a nurse from Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 civilians were killed, described dragging a rapid response team member who had been shot into the kibbutz’s dental clinic to treat his wounds: “There was a blood trail. I cannot erase it from my mind, all the blood.”
Agence France-Presse cross-referenced numerous data sources to determine that 815 of 1,195 people killed on October 7 were civilians. The armed groups took as hostages 251 civilians and Israeli security force personnel and took them to Gaza. As of July 1, 116 remained in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 42 who had been killed, according to AFP. Bodies of another 35 who were killed were returned to Israel.
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian movement that has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007, led the assault. Human Rights Watch confirmed the participation of four other Palestinian armed groups based on headbands the fighters wore to indicate their affiliation and their claims of responsibility posted to their Telegram channels on social media.
The armed groups committed numerous violations of the laws of war that amount to war crimes, including attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of people in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting.
The widespread attack was directed against a civilian population. Killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, not an afterthought, a plan gone awry, or isolated acts. Human Rights Watch concluded that the planned murder of civilians and the hostage-taking were crimes against humanity.
Further investigation is needed into other potential crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said, including persecution against any identifiable group on racial, national, ethnic or religious grounds; rape or other sexual violence of comparable gravity; and extermination, if there was a mass killing calculated to bring about the “destruction” of part of a population. These would amount to crimes against humanity if the crimes were part of the attack against a civilian population, under an organizational policy to commit such an attack.
Questions and Answers: The Hamas-Led Armed Groups' October 7, 2023 Assault on IsraelHuman Rights Watch research found that Palestinian armed groups involved in the assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law – also known as the laws of war – that amount to war crimes.
Hamas authorities responded to questions from Human Rights Watch, stating that its forces were instructed not to target civilians and to abide by international human rights and humanitarian law. In many cases, Human Rights Watch investigations found evidence to the contrary.
Accounts from survivors along with verified photographs and videos show Palestinian fighters seeking out civilians and killing them across the attack sites from the moment the assault began, indicating that the intentional killing and hostage-taking of civilians was planned and highly coordinated.
Within days of the attacks, Israeli authorities cut off essential services to Gaza’s population and blocked the entry of all but a trickle of fuel and humanitarian aid, amounting to collective punishment – which is a war crime – exacerbating the impact of Israel’s more than 17-year illegal closure of Gaza and its crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.
Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel, Israeli forces began an intense aerial bombardment and later a ground incursion, which are ongoing. More than 37,900 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed between October 7 and July 1, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Israeli forces have reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble and left the vast majority of Gaza’s population displaced and in harm’s way.
All parties to the armed conflict in Gaza and Israel should fully abide by international humanitarian law. The Palestinian armed groups in Gaza should immediately and unconditionally release civilians held hostage. They should take appropriate disciplinary measures against members responsible for war crimes and should surrender for prosecution anyone facing an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
“Atrocities do not justify atrocities,” Sawyer said. “To stop the endless cycle of abuses in Israel and Palestine, it’s critical to address root causes and hold violators of grave crimes to account. That’s in the interests of both Palestinians and Israelis.”
UN Body to Examine Türkiye’s Record on Torture
This week, the United Nations Committee against Torture will review Türkiye’s record on preventing torture and ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch is among numerous civil society groups that have submitted evidence to the committee that Turkiye’s record on torture has deteriorated greatly since the committee’s last review in May 2016.
In the aftermath of the 2016 military coup attempt, there was a steep rise in reports of police detaining people en masse and torturing them for allegedly having connections to the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the government accuses of leading the coup attempt.
Eyup Birinci, a former school teacher in the southern town of Antalya, was among those tortured, and Human Rights Watch documented his case at the time. Beaten so badly that he required emergency abdominal surgery, Birinci made numerous complaints of torture that were repeatedly rejected. Only now, after the completion of a new investigation 8 years later, will three police officers and a doctor face trial: two police officers for alleged torture, a third officer and a doctor for ignoring it. Birinci’s case is a rare exception since the Turkish authorities fail to investigate the vast majority of cases of alleged torture, let alone bring them to trial.
Human Rights Watch has also highlighted the Turkish authorities’ failure to investigate a pattern of enforced disappearances including reports of torture. While some of these occurred in Türkiye, other cases occurred overseas and the intelligence services have publicized and celebrated the forced repatriation to Türkiye of individuals they allege are connected with the Gülen movement .
The Committee should also examine Türkiye’s poor record on protecting refugees and migrants against ill-treatment in deportation centers, and the documented cases of torture and shootings of asylum seekers at its borders.
Another urgent and often overlooked issue that the Committee against Torture will need to scrutinize is Turkiye’s responsibility as an occupying power in northern Syria to curb and ensure accountability for torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and other abuses against Kurds and Arabs by its own security personnel and by the Syrian militia groups and police operating under its control.
While the UN Committee is likely to be critical about Türkiye’s progress in stamping out torture, the government of Türkiye shouldn’t require their assessment to realize it is falling well short. It is time it stops ignoring the evidence and takes bold steps to end abuses and punish perpetrators.
El Salvador: Rights Violations Against Children in ‘State of Emergency’
(San Salvador) – El Salvador’s state of emergency, declared in March 2022, has led to severe human rights violations against children of low-income communities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 107-page report, “‘Your Child Does Not Exist Here’: Human Rights Abuses Against Children Under El Salvador’s ‘State of Emergency,’” documents arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment against children under President Nayib Bukele’s “war on gangs.” Detained children have often faced overcrowding, lack of adequate food and health care, and have been denied access to their lawyers and family members. In some cases, children have been held, in the first days after arrest, alongside adults. Many have been convicted on overly broad charges and in unfair trials that deny due process.
“Children from vulnerable communities in El Salvador are bearing the brunt of the government's indiscriminate security policies, suffering egregious human rights violations,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should end its abusive approach and prioritize a rights-respecting and effective policy that dismantles criminal gangs, addresses child recruitment, and provides children with protection and opportunities.”
Since the state of emergency began in March 2022, police officers and soldiers have conducted countless indiscriminate raids, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where gang violence was a constant presence, arresting over 80,000 people, including over 3,000 children. For decades, pervasive poverty, social exclusion, and lack of educational and work opportunities have left few viable paths forward for children, enabling gangs to recruit and exploit them and security forces to stigmatize and harass them.
Between June 2023 and July 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed over 90 people in El Salvador. In September and December 2023, researchers visited neighborhoods throughout the country, conducting interviews and reviewing relevant case files, as well as medical, educational, and criminal records. Interviewees included victims of abuse, their relatives and lawyers, as well as judges, police officers, former government officials, teachers, security experts, journalists, and civil society representatives.
The government's widespread and arbitrary arrest campaign has resulted in the detention—often for prolonged periods pretrial—of numerous children who have no apparent connections to gang-related violence or criminal activities. Frequently, such arrests appear to have been motivated by a child’s physical appearance and socioeconomic status rather than by evidence of wrongdoing. In some instances, authorities have relied on dubious information, such as unverified anonymous tips, to justify detention. Security forces have routinely failed to present search or arrest warrants and have seldom provided detainees or their families with clear reasons for an arrest.
In May 2022, soldiers stopped a 16-year-old high school student from Sensuntepeque, Cabañas state, on his way home from a football match. A relative told Human Rights Watch that soldiers forced him to strip, burned his torso with a cigarette lighter, and ordered him to confess gang affiliations.
Court file documents show that he was charged with unlawful association, on the basis of testimony from an anonymous informant, and sentenced to six years in prison, where he remains in poor living conditions.
The government’s crackdown has overwhelmed El Salvador's already strained juvenile justice system. Over 1,000 children have been convicted during the state of emergency, with sentences of 2 to 12 years in prison, often on such overly broad charges as unlawful association, and frequently on the basis of uncorroborated police testimony. Through mistreatment, including torture, some children have been coerced into confessing to being part of a gang or otherwise providing information about supposed gang affiliation.
Police and soldiers arrested a 17-year-old student from a rural town in Sonsonate state on July 1, 2022, without showing her a warrant. On January 9, 2023, a judge pressured her and seven other children to jointly plead guilty to collaborating with the MS-13 gang in exchange for reduced sentences. Fearing longer sentences, they pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a year in prison. “We didn’t have an option,” she said. “We all wanted to see our mothers.”
Authorities have taken few, if any, steps to protect detained children from violence at the hands of other detainees, including beatings and sexual violence. Dozens of children have been held without contact with their families for weeks or months; many have been allowed to see their lawyer only for a few minutes before hearings.
Juvenile detention facilities in El Salvador have for years been overcrowded, understaffed, unsanitary, and lacking in adequate infrastructure, creating dangerous and dehumanizing environments that fail to prioritize children’s well-being and reintegration.
Children and their family members described being doubly victimized: first, at the hands of gang members who abused them and tried to recruit them, then by security forces who arbitrarily detained and mistreated them. Lifelong consequences of the traumatic detention experiences are likely to be significant.
El Salvador’s historically high homicide rate, which reached a staggering 106 per 100,000 people in 2015, has dramatically declined, according to official figures, to a record low of 2.4 homicides per 100,000 people in 2023. A lack of transparency and reports of data manipulation make it harder to precisely assess the extent of the reduction.
El Salvador’s government should establish a mechanism to review the cases of those detained during the state of emergency, Human Rights Watch said. It should prioritize reviewing cases of children and other vulnerable detainees, with a view to releasing all those detained without evidence and prosecuting, with respect to due process, high-level gang leaders most responsible for serious crimes.
Salvadoran authorities should also take steps to establish and implement a comprehensive security strategy that protects children from gang violence and recruitment, including through violence prevention initiatives, rehabilitation programs for recruited children, and reintegration support for those in conflict with the law. Detention should be a last resort for children, for the shortest appropriate period, in facilities that are safe, humane, and conducive to reintegration into society.
Foreign governments should publicly and privately raise concerns about the human rights situation in El Salvador, including at the United Nations Human Rights Council. Foreign governments and international financial institutions, in particular the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica, BCIE), should suspend and refrain from approving loans benefiting Salvadoran agencies directly involved in abuses, including the National Civil Police, the armed forces, the prison system, and the Attorney General’s Office.
“The government’s harsh targeting of children risks perpetuating the cycle of violence in El Salvador,” Goebertus said. “Foreign governments should urge the Salvadoran government to end its human rights violations and protect the lives and futures of children.”
Kenya/IMF: Align Economic Reform with Rights
(Nairobi) – The Kenyan government and International Monetary Fund should work together to ensure that the IMF program and its implementation align with human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The focus should be on progressive revenue generation and accountability over public funds.
Following the recent nationwide protests, President William Ruto declined to sign Finance Bill 2024, which included regressive tax measures that risked undermining rights. Any alternative measures should relieve economic pressures by addressing the root causes of protesters’ anger.
“The widespread outrage sparked by proposed taxes on goods like sanitary pads and cooking oil in a country where corporate tax evasion is endemic should be a wake-up call to the Kenyan government and the IMF that they cannot sacrifice rights in the name of economic recovery,” said Sarah Saadoun, senior researcher on poverty and inequality at Human Rights Watch. “Economic sustainability can only be achieved with a new social contract that raises revenues fairly, manages them responsibly, and funds services and programs that allow everyone to realize their rights.”
Finance Bill 2024, in the context of an IMF program with Kenya, was expected to raise US$2.7 billion in additional revenues in the upcoming fiscal year, in part to meet IMF targets. The bill included several new tax provisions, such as removing exemptions from certain food items and a mobile money transfer tax, that would increase the cost of essential goods and services and fall heaviest on Kenyans with lower and middle incomes, as well as already marginalized groups such as women.
The IMF program was approved in 2021 to support Kenya’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and global inflation, as well as devastating cycles of droughts and floods made worse by climate change. An increase in interest rates has also forced the government to spend upward of half its tax revenues to service debt.
The Kenyan government has other options to raise revenue progressively and enhance trust in the government, Human Rights Watch said. Kenya’s tax-to-GDP ratio is around 15 percent, which is the minimum threshold according to the World Bank for a viable state and economic stability.
The government could introduce tax reforms to better enforce existing tax rules, tackle mismanagement and corruption, and increase taxation on the wealthiest. Taxes on industries or products that harm the environment should also be designed so that they do not undermine rights, such as by using the revenues raised to compensate for their effects on low and middle-income people.
Under human rights law, governments, and the international financial institutions that support them, are required to respond to economic crises in ways that do everything possible to protect and advance rights. They are expected to conduct and publish human rights impact assessments to ensure that proposed reforms, including to fiscal policy and public spending, best fulfill people’s economic, social, and cultural rights, paying special attention to risks to women and economically marginalized groups. These assessments should be transparent, include public participation, and shape the measures that are ultimately enacted.
The IMF has committed $4.4 billion to Kenya, and the World Bank anticipates $12 billion in support from 2024 to 2026. Yet, the program negotiated with the IMF requires steep spending cuts and increased revenues. A June IMF statement praised the Finance Bill and the upcoming fiscal year’s proposed budget as in line with the required “sizable and upfront fiscal consolidation,” referring to reducing public expenditure or increasing revenues.
Human Rights Watch analysis of such measures shows that they frequently harm human rights. Research has also shown that these measures tend to worsen inequality, and “a large upfront fiscal consolidation can be particularly damaging,” according to the Independent Evaluation Office, an independent IMF entity.
The IMF program in Kenya has already introduced sweeping reforms, some of which exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis. These include doubling the value added tax on fuel without any compensatory measures and other efforts to raise revenues that contributed to financial hardship. Yet, the public has seen little benefit from additional revenues and the government has continued to fall short of IMF targets.
The IMF statement advised strengthening the so-called “social safety net,” referring to social security programs that provide income support, while also expressing support for the approved budget. According to an analysis submitted to the Budget and Appropriations Committee of the National Assembly by Bajeti Hub, a nongovernmental group formerly called International Budget Partnership Kenya that advocates for budget transparency, the budget presented to parliament in April included significant cuts in health, education, social protection, and water and sanitation. In 2022/23, the combined spending on these categories came to only around 6 percent of Kenya’s GDP, or 23 percent of government expenditures. This amount is far below international benchmarks and reflects a continued decrease in social spending in Kenya since 2019.
For health care, the World Health Organization recommends spending a minimum of 5 percent of GDP, and Kenya has agreed to at least 15 precent of government expenditures. Global benchmarks on education recommend spending at least 4 to 6 percent of GDP or 15 to 20 percent of national budgets to meet human rights obligations.
Anger at the bill provoked unprecedented protests across the country and online, which quickly evolved to express broader outrage at the high cost of living, corruption, poor governance, wasteful government spending, and the abysmal state of public services. Protesters said they were particularly incensed that the government would tax sanitary pads, cooking oil, and other basic goods rather than address rampant tax evasion and corruption.
The government responded by brutally cracking down on protesters, killing at least 39 people, according to the Police Reforms Working Group - Kenya. Authorities have continued to target protesters and perceived protest organizers with arbitrary arrests and detentions and, in at least 32 cases, abductions and enforced disappearances. Victims of abductionsreport being tortured by police or suspected state agents, and others have been found dead.
President Ruto sent the bill back to parliament, saying he would instead seek $1.4 billion in expenditure cuts and $1.3 billion in new borrowing. This could be a positive step against regressive tax measures, but protesters have described this as largely inadequate to address the root causes of the country’s problems or to heed public demands for reforms.
In addition, it may create fresh risks to rights, Human Rights Watch said. The president has said he would achieve the cuts by, for example, decreasing travel expenses and eliminating budget lines for the president and deputy president’s spouses, but this is unlikely to be sufficient. To reach $1.4 billion in cuts, the government could further decrease—or, at a minimum, decline to increase—chronically low social spending. A revised budget was published on July 15, but it has yet to be analyzed. At the same time, without the Finance Bill, the IMF’s Executive Board may not approve the release of additional funds.
The IMF should revisit its targets to ensure that it is not impeding the Kenyan government from meeting its human rights obligations and ensure that any policies enacted to achieve program targets do not exacerbate poverty and inequality or undermine rights. To build trust, the IMF and Kenyan government should work together to conduct and publish human rights impact assessments of both the budget and finance bills and amend them to best fulfill their rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said.
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights noted in its 2016 periodic review of Kenya that “there is a large amount of illicit financial flows and tax avoidance” and “cases of corruption, particularly those involving high-level officials, are not thoroughly investigated.”
Further, Tax Justice Network, a nongovernmental group, ranks Kenya as highly complicit in helping multinational corporations underpay corporate income tax and says that Kenya loses $190 million annually in global tax abuse, largely committed by multinational corporations. This figure is equivalent to 9.5 percent of Kenya’s budget for health and 4 percent of education. Corporations had a tax compliance rate of 70 percent in 2023, according to data from the Kenya Revenue Authority.
Human rights law also obligates other states and public institutions to set a global environment and provide support to Kenya to best fulfill everyone’s economic, social, and cultural rights in the country. This applies, for instance, to global tax rules and the treatment of debt.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for a “human rights economy.” This concept is rooted in the shared vision of reforming domestic economies and the international financial architecture to enable everyone to realize their economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as the rights to development and to a healthy and sustainable environment.
“Kenyans are expressing the anger of billions of people across the world who are being squeezed dry by an economic system that leaves even well-intentioned governments with little margin to meet their human rights obligations,” Saadoun said. “Only by aligning economic policies with human rights on every level, domestic and international, can we address the root of the problem.”
US Supreme Court Decision Undermines Right to Housing
The United States Supreme Court decision last month in Grants Pass v. Johnson gives local governments across the country the authority to ticket, arrest, and punish unhoused people for simply existing in public spaces. The ruling undermines the right to adequate housing in the US; it is also profoundly cruel and risks an increase in ineffective criminalization.
In its ruling, the Court overturned decisions by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in this case and in Martin v. Boise, which limited punishment if there was no other place for a person legally to go or if there was no shelter available. The Court said that criminalizing a person for their unhoused status does not violate the prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments” in the 8th amendment to the US Constitution.
The Supreme Court had previously held that authorities may not punish a person based solely on their status, as opposed to their conduct. The Grants Pass majority did not explicitly overrule that precedent, but said the 8th Amendment only applies to the form of punishment--not the outlawed conduct or status --and that state governments may choose to criminalize whatever they want without violating the Constitution. This ruling opens the door to further punishment of poverty and other statuses.
This decision gives local and state governments a green light to enact and enforce laws banning unhoused people from public spaces, regardless of whether adequate housing or shelter is available to them. States across the country, including Georgia, Texas, Florida and others, have already passed such laws. A recent study found that the majority of cities examined already had such laws in place.
In Los Angeles, previously limited by the 9th Circuit precedent, city councilmembers have already begun to explore options to further criminalize unhoused people in light of the Supreme Court decision. Other jurisdictions will likely race to take similar steps, not wanting to be the only areas in their region where unhoused people can safely stay.
Criminalization is not, as the majority opinion claims, a legitimate tool to combat houselessness as it subjects people to cruel treatment and arbitrary arrest, punishing them for simply existing in public space because they lack housing. Criminalization is also proven to be ineffective. It forces unhoused people to hide from view, separating them from helpful services. Criminalization causes suffering, but does nothing to house people. This ruling allows authorities to ignore real solutions, especially providing and preserving affordable housing, because they can simply chase unhoused people away with the threat of criminal enforcement.
Iran: New President Should End Abuse of Border Couriers
(Beirut) – Iranian authorities under the new president should halt their use of excessive and lethal force at the Iran-Iraq border against predominantly Kurdish kulbars (border couriers), who come from marginalized communities, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Supporters of Human Rights (CSHR) said today.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the newly elected president of Iran, said during his presidential campaign in Sanandaj in June 2024: “It is shameful that our youth have to engage in kulbari [transporting goods across border] for a piece of bread. We must establish a border that facilitates trade, not kulbari.” Just three days after Pezeshkian’s election, five border couriers were shot at the border in Nowsud, in Kermanshah province, which led to the death of one of them, according to Kurdistan Human Rights Network.
“Marginalized Kurdish communities often turn to bringing goods over the border, legally or not, for lack of other economic opportunities,” said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Incoming President Pezeshkian should prioritize improving the state’s treatment of minorities, including the Kurdish border communities.”
On July 8, 2024, Human Rights Watch released an investigation into Iranian authorities’ serious violations against border couriers. On the same day, CSHR released a report that investigated the socioeconomic, legal, and human rights factors that shape the lives of Kurdish border couriers.
The research by CSHR and Human Rights Watch illustrates how Kurdish border couriers reflect broader systemic government failures in Iran’s underdeveloped border regions, the groups said. Driven by poverty, border couriers confront constant dangers from harsh terrain and lethal force used by Iranian security forces.
In June 2023, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission announced the completion of a review of pending legislation, with proposed amendments that not only would broaden security forces’ ability to use firearms against border couriers but also the conditions under which they can do so. If passed into law, the amendments would put border couriers at even greater risk.
“Incoming President Pezeshkian should collaborate with the judiciary and legislative branches of the government to ensure that the pending legislation on the use of firearms prevents security forces from indiscriminately injuring and killing individuals, particularly at the border,” said Shabnam Moinipour, program director of CSHR. “It is essential that legal amendments be instituted to recognize and preserve the rights of kulbars, ensuring that perpetrators do not receive impunity.”
Iranian authorities’ use of excessive and lethal force against border couriers has had devastating consequences. Reports from the Kurdistan Press Agency (Kurdpa) state that in the first half of 2024, 33 Kurdish border couriers died and 254 were injured, including 14 children, most of them shot by security forces. Since 2011, Kurdpa has documented 2,463 deaths and injuries among couriers in Iranian Kurdish regions.
“When article 28 of the Iranian Constitution mandates the government to create jobs in all regions of Iran, it is unacceptable that this region has been neglected to the point where individuals, particularly men, must risk their lives to feed their families,” Moinipour said. “At the very least, these individuals should not be subjected to violence, driven by deeply rooted prejudice, from their fellow countryfolk.”
Many border couriers have been severely injured by landmines, including loss of limbs. While many landmines were placed in border areas during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, some border couriers believe that Iranian security forces have used mines more recently along their routes. Iran is not among the 164 countries that have joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which comprehensively prohibits antipersonnel landmines and requires mine clearance, stockpile destruction, and victim assistance. Injuries often lead to lost livelihoods.
Access to justice for border couriers remains limited, exacerbating their social and economic marginalization. Iran’s legal system prioritizes national security over individual rights, leaving the victims with little protection under the law. Efforts to seek justice are often thwarted by systemic biases, lack of transparency, and the broad discretionary powers granted to security forces. Without social or unemployment benefits in Iran, the injured cross-border couriers’ only hope is to be recognized as disabled veterans and receive disability benefits.
Iran should reassess its socioeconomic strategies for marginalized communities, including in predominantly Kurdish areas from where border couriers originate, and commit to upholding the rule of law. Measures should include stimulating economic growth in border areas, implementing labor protections, and ensuring robust social safety nets. Investment in education and vocational training is crucial to provide viable alternatives to high-risk jobs.
The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials state that law enforcement officials shall not use firearms except in self-defense or defense of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent their escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable to protect life.
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran and the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran should monitor and report on the treatment of Kurdish border couriers in Iran.
“Incoming President Pezeshkian should work closely with Iran’s parliament to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty, facilitating Iran’s membership in this crucial international agreement,” Moinipour said. “By joining the treaty, Iran can demonstrate its commitment to protecting civilians, particularly in border regions where landmines pose a severe threat.”
US: Drug-Linked Deportations Soar Despite State Reforms
(Washington, DC, July 15, 2024) – Thousands of people in the United States are being deported every year for drug offenses that in many cases no longer exist under state laws, harming and separating immigrant families, Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance said today.
The 91-page report, “Disrupt and Vilify,” shows that the failure to reform disproportionately harsh federal immigration law has resulted in enormous numbers of deportations, splitting families apart, disrupting communities, and destabilizing people well-established in the US. For example, federal immigration law that treats some types of marijuana use as a deportable offense is at odds with many states’ recreational marijuana laws, penalizing immigrants and non-citizens for activities that are legal for citizens at the state level. The groups found that 500,000 people whose most serious offense was for drugs were deported between 2002 and 2020.
“The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession,” said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize non-citizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available. It’s imperative that the US government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war.”
Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance interviewed 42 people affected by the deportations, including immigrants, families, and attorneys. The groups also analyzed new federal government data from 2002 to 2020 and found that 500,000 people have been deported whose most serious offense was drug-related. A previous Human Rights Watch report showed that from 2002 to 2012, 260,000 people were deported for drug-related offenses. This report updates that figure with an additional 240,000 people deported between 2013 and 2020, amounting to about one of every five deportations of immigrants with a criminal conviction during this period.
Overdose numbers have drastically increased, even as the US has engaged in massive numbers of deportations over this period, underscoring the ineffectiveness of such policies and of approaches that vilify immigrants in connection with drugs.
Convictions for even the most minor drug offenses—for example, possessing a small amount of a controlled substance, including marijuana—carry devastating consequences that far outstrip the criminal sentence imposed. The groups found that between 2002 and 2020, the federal government deported at least 156,000 people whose most serious criminal offense was for drug use or possession, including over 47,000 for marijuana use or possession, even though marijuana has been legalized or decriminalized in most states. Often, the offenses that lead to deportation are decades-old or so minor they resulted in little or no prison time. Some would not be criminal offenses if committed today.
“Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today?” said Vicki Gaubeca, associate US director for immigration and border policy at Human Rights Watch. “If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable.”
The report focuses on deportations from states with large immigrant populations that have advanced drug policy reforms, including California, Illinois, New York, and Texas, and includes cases of:
Refugees and US military veterans separated from their homes and families due to deportations for drug offenses;Immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood, but have been deported for drug offenses, sometimes for marijuana offenses that would be legal in their states today;Immigrant women who were sexually abused by corrections officers during their imprisonment for drug offenses, in part because their abusers knew they would soon be deported;Immigrants deported due to drug offenses to countries with dangerous human rights conditions, including one man returned to Haiti.Many of those interviewed faced automatic deportation because immigration law defines their offenses as “drug trafficking aggravated felonies,” which bars them from almost all forms of immigration relief; these include several people whose convictions were for low-level offenses. In such cases, the judge is barred from considering individual factors, like evidence of US family ties, rehabilitation, military service, and other factors, and instead must order the immigrant deported. Some of those interviewed are legal permanent residents who have not been able to become citizens because they have engaged in drug conduct, including conduct that is legal in their states like working in the marijuana industry.
“I’m not able to live and operate without fear because I’m not a citizen,” said a lawful permanent resident in California, who was convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession. “I’ve lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I’m making every effort to do that. But it seems like that’s not going to be possible.”
There are significant racial disparities in the imposition of immigration penalties. Overall, the majority of people deported from the United States for criminal offenses are Black and Brown. Even within the category of non-citizens, Black immigrants are disproportionately impacted. More than one out of every five non-citizens facing deportation on criminal grounds before US immigration courts are Black. Black immigrants are more likely to be held in immigration detention longer and are less likely to be granted release.
As the overdose crisis and immigration reform increasingly become a central focus of political debates and campaigns, the Drug Policy Alliance and Human Rights Watch emphasize the need for elected officials to show leadership by heeding the research and embracing evidence-based policies grounded in public health, safety, and human rights.
“Deportation tears families apart, and the evidence is clear that despite the US deporting 2,400 people per month for a drug offense, overdose deaths have risen,” said Perez Medina. “Our lawmakers must ensure that drug policy reforms prioritize public health policies to address the overdose crisis and problematic drug use. The exclusion and vilification of our immigrant neighbors is inhumane and fails to solve the issues our communities care about.”
The US Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to “one-size-fits-all” deportations. Instead, immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives.
States, meanwhile, should ensure that reforms to reduce criminal penalties for drug offenses and facilitate treatment and health services for those struggling with substance use are designed to allow non-citizens to benefit as well.
“Current and past administrations have recognized the disproportionate impact of harshly punitive drug policies on Black and Brown communities,” Gaubeca said. “But through their immigration policies, Congress and the executive branch are perpetuating these harms and devastating many of these same communities.”
Iran: New President Should Confront Rights Abuses
(Beirut) – Incoming Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian should confront widespread rights violations by government agencies, including Iran’s security forces and the judiciary, Human Rights Watch said today. On July 5, 2024, Pezeshkian defeated Saeed Jalili in the second round of Iran’s presidential elections.
“Incoming Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian should confront Iran’s egregious human rights abuses, including alarming rates of executions, systemic oppression of women, and brutal repression of ethnic and religious minorities,” said Nahid Naghshbandi, acting Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Ending impunity for these injustices is essential for Pezeshkian to show Iranians that the government can address their legitimate, widespread grievances and demands for fundamental change.”
A significant number of people and civil society groups boycotted the election. According to Shargh daily, the voter turnout in the election’s first round was 39.96 percent, the lowest turnout in Iran’s presidential election history, although the second round participation rate increased to 49.8 percent.
Nine women political prisoners and 55 political and civil activists inside and outside Iran, including the 2023 Nobel Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, also emphasized in separate statements that liberation cannot be achieved through ballot boxes and the dire situation of the country will not improve with “vote therapy.” Signatories of these statements included prominent Iranian activists.
The elections were neither free nor fair. Before the election, the Guardian Council, a body of 12 male religious jurists and legal experts responsible for vetting candidates, disqualified many candidates without providing a reason, including several prominent government officials. Ali Larijani, the former speaker of parliament, and Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice president from 2013 until 2021 in Hassan Rouhani's government, were among them. Notably, the Guardian Council has never approved a female presidential candidate.
Pezeshkian will start his presidency in August facing significant challenges. Considerable social discontent, reflected in low election participation and repeated protests along with a weak economy, are major domestic issues. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and the government's brutal response have highlighted the dire state of human rights.
According to a recent Amnesty International report, Iran executed 853 people in 2023, the highest in eight years, including 481 for drug-related offenses. By March 20, at least 95 executions had been recorded during 2024. The Baluch ethnic minority, five percent of Iran's population, constituted 20 percent of people executed in 2023, with at least 172 Baluch individuals executed. A 2023 report by Iran Human Rights revealed increased executions targeting ethnic minorities in provinces such as West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Sistan and Baluchistan, and Kurdistan, with 130 executions in 2022 compared with 62 such executions in 2021 and 60 in 2020.
Pezeshkian indirectly referenced the government’s alarming use of executions in a televised debate response to Saeed Jalili, the other candidate in the runoff election. During the debate, broadcast by an Iran state television channel on July 1, Pezeshkian said: “I will withdraw from the elections if Mr. Jalili commits that if he fails to achieve eight percent economic growth in his government, they should execute him.”
Pezeshkian should also address the extensive legal and social barriers that curtail women’s lives and their access to economic opportunities, perpetuating significant gender disparities. Iran ranks poorly in global gender equality assessments, particularly in economic participation. These challenges are compounded by systematic violations of women’s rights, including Article 638 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, which criminalizes not wearing a “proper” hijab. The law imposes up to two months in prison and fines for the women accused of violations, in violation of their rights to privacy and nondiscrimination.
On June 21, during the third debate among the presidential candidates, Pezeshkian said: “Regarding hijab, we should not enforce it in a way that leads to dissatisfaction. Even with coercion, we cannot force our children and grandchildren into something.”
This pledge came two years after the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in custody by morality police, which sparked the 2022 nationwide protests. Iran has introduced a revamped morality police, known as “Plan Noor,” and passed a “Chastity and Hijab Bill” in parliament.
Iranian authorities’ repression of ethnic and religious minorities has also been brutal over the past several years. Human Rights Watch has documented the use of excessive and lethal force against protesters in areas with large Kurdish and Baluch populations, as well as the use of rape and torture in detention facilities in Kurdish, Baluch, and Azeri areas. In April 2024, Human Rights Watch released a report in which researchers found that decades-long systematic repression of the Baha’i minority amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution.
On June 22, during a gathering in Sanandaj, in Kurdistan province, Pezeshkian outlined the urgent need to address underdeveloped regions, particularly those near borders. “I will definitely put an end to regional injustices,” he said. The effectiveness of his plans remains to be seen given previous administrations’ failures in addressing these inequalities, Human Rights Watch said. Under both Hassan Rouhani and Ebrahim Raeesi’s presidential administrations, oppression against religious and ethnic minorities continued undiminished.
In foreign policy, the Iranian president and foreign minister face limitations on their decision-making, as decisions by the executive branch and Foreign Ministry are overseen not only by the supreme leader but also by powerful actors like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Rebuilding trust with people in Iran requires more than promises that have been unmet for years,” Naghshbandi said. “It demands immediate, tangible action to improve the human rights of people across the country. A meaningful first step would be for Pezeshkian to order the release of all detained activists, peaceful protesters, and human rights defenders, who never should have been jailed in the first place.”
In Guinea, Fears of Torture of Forcibly Disappeared Opponents
On the evening of July 9, three members of the opposition coalition, National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (Front national pour la défense de la Constitution, FNDC), Oumar Sylla, (known as Foniké Menguè), Mamadou Billo Bah, and Mohamed Cissé, were watching football at Menguè’s home in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, when security forces forced their way in, arbitrarily detained the men, and transferred them to an unknown location. The authorities have yet to acknowledge their detention or disclose their whereabouts, despite being asked by lawyers representing the men. This amounts to enforced disappearance under international law.
Based on media reports and information shared with Human Rights Watch by members of the FNDC, dozens of soldiers, some of whom are believed to be special forces, gendarmes, and armed men in plain clothes, arbitrarily detained and repeatedly beat the three men before taking them first to the gendarmerie headquarters in Conakry and then to an army camp on Kassa island, off Conakry’s coast. An FNDC statement suggested the three men were being tortured during extrajudicial interrogations.
The FNDC, a prominent coalition of Guinean civil society groups and opposition parties, has been calling for the restoration of democratic rule following the military coup in September 2021. On the morning of his disappearance, Menguè, who is the FNDC coordinator, called on his supporters to protest on July 11 against media shutdowns by the authorities and the high cost of living.
In August 2022, Guinea’s government dissolved the FNDC on politically motivated grounds, but the coalition has continued its activities.
Menguè was one of a number of people arrested in 2022 on charges of “illegal protest and destruction of public and private buildings” following violent demonstrations in Conakry in which at least five people were killed. He was released in May 2023 and cleared of all charges. Bah, who is the FNDC outreach coordinator, was previously arrested in January 2023 on charges of “complicity in the destruction of public and private property, assault, and battery” for taking part in protests. Bah was released in May 2023 and freed from all charges.
Forcibly disappeared people are held without any legal protections and are much more vulnerable to torture and other abuses. Guinea’s military authorities should immediately confirm the detention and location of the three men, release them without delay, and launch a credible investigation into the allegations of torture.