Secondary menu
Feed aggregator
UK: Manchester Mayoral Candidates Should Condemn UAE Abuses
(London) – Candidates in the upcoming Greater Manchester mayoral by-election should publicly commit to engaging with the Emirati government on its egregious human rights record if elected, Human Rights Watch and FairSquare said today in a joint letter to the candidates.
The UAE has invested billions of pounds into both Manchester and its football club, Manchester City.
July 24, 2026 Joint Letter to Greater Manchester Mayoral Candidates on the United Arab Emirates and Human Rights Concerns“Manchester City Council’s ties to Emirati officials have given the UAE’s government valuable reputational cover while it backs forces committing atrocities in Sudan,” said Joey Shea, senior Saudi Arabia and UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Mayoral candidates should not stay silent about the UAE’s record despite the money flowing through Manchester.”
Manchester City Council has a close financial relationship with senior figures in the Emirati government, in particular through its stake in the Manchester Life Development Company (MLDC), a joint venture ultimately controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice president and deputy prime minister of the UAE. The joint venture has offered the Emirati government valuable reputational benefits in the city of Manchester.
A May 2026 Human Rights Watch report adds to mounting evidence that the UAE has provided military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, which is engaged in a conflict with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) for control of the country. The RSF is responsible for widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities, including as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region.
Human Rights Watch found that Colombian private military contractors passed through Emirati military bases before being deployed to Sudan to support the RSF. This is further evidence indicating that the UAE is assisting or otherwise substantially contributing to the RSF’s capacity to commit war crimes.
Human Rights Watch located Colombian fighters at the site of abuses by the RSF during their takeover in October 2025 of North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher, a city they had besieged for 18 months. Foreign fighters, most likely Colombian military contractors, stood by while RSF fighters massacred men and women, including people with disabilities, and abducted many for ransom.
In February 2026, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added three Colombian nationals to the UK Sanctions List for their involvement in enlisting mercenaries from Colombia “to fight alongside the RSF in areas of Sudan, including El Fasher.”
The UAE hosts high-profile sporting, entertainment, and cultural events to promote a public image of openness that is at odds with the government’s efforts to prevent scrutiny of its rampant systemic human rights violations, at home and abroad. The UAE uses these events to burnish its image, despite suppressing dissent domestically and fueling rights abuses abroad.
Human Rights Watch has previously sought to engage with civic leaders in Manchester on issues relating to the UAE’s human rights record. In 2016, HRW requested that a then-senior figure in Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese, co-sign a letter calling on the UAE to release political prisoners and investigate torture allegations. Leese declined, stating that the Emirati government were “exemplary business partners” and the “alleged” abuses detailed in the letter were beyond the council’s sphere of influence.
As outlined in a 2023 FairSquare report, very few political leaders in Manchester have offered any criticism of the UAE, even though the city council has been engaged in joint commercial ventures with entities linked to the Emirati government.
The Manchester mayoral candidates should pledge that, if elected, they would press the UAE to end its support for the RSF. They should also promise to conduct human rights due diligence on UAE-linked investment in the city and region, by raising concerns directly with Emirati representatives and meeting Emirati human rights defenders, and speak out on the UAE’s domestic record.
“Manchester’s next mayor should be willing to stand up to the UAE given its domestic repression and support for the abusive RSF in Sudan,” said Alex Carlen, research and advocacy manager at FairSquare. “Given local government’s long-standing and extensive ties to the Emirati monarchy, voters need reassurance that investment from the UAE is not being used to deflect from its record as a human rights violator. Our letter offers all candidates the opportunity to speak out and lay out their position clearly.”
Philippines: Rights Advocates in Mining Areas Face Prosecution
(Manila) – Prosecutors in the Philippines should dismiss criminal libel complaints, including those filed by a mining company, against four rights advocates in Nueva Vizcaya province, Human Rights Watch said today.
In July 2026, the North Luzon Mineral Resources Corporation filed a criminal complaint for cyber-libel against two lawyers representing local communities. The complaint accused the lawyers of defaming the company through their statements on Facebook and on a radio broadcast in which they alleged that the company did not consult residents affected by the company’s operations, including farmers and members of the Indigenous Bugkalot/Ilangot tribe. Two community leaders also face cyber-libel complaints.
“Philippine prosecutors should dismiss criminal complaints filed by companies to silence communities raising concerns about their business operations,” said Lian Buan, Southeast Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Philippine legislators should revive bills that would make it easier for the authorities to block such criminal lawsuits from proceeding.”
Cyber-libel, defined as libel “committed through a computer system or any other similar means,” is a criminal offense under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, punishable by 6 to 12 years in prison. Under Philippine law, prosecutors can dismiss criminal complaints, including for libel, for lack of evidence.
The lawyers, Fidel Santos and Edgardo Balgos, represent residents of Kasibu, a town in Nueva Vizcaya province. The residents filed a petition on July 14 before the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources to cancel the company’s permit for mining exploration, alleging it had not adequately consulted the communities. The residents said in their petition that they have a Certificate of Land Ownership Award that confirms their land rights as agrarian reform beneficiaries, and that their area is protected watershed under local laws.
In the company’s complaint against the lawyers, filed on July 2, the company said that it had consulted with two communities twice in March 2024, before it was granted an exploration permit on June 25, 2025, covering 4,455 hectares encompassing different villages. The company said it has a certification from the Philippine National Commission on Indigenous Peoples that its permit area does not overlap with ancestral domain, a designation under Philippine law for territory used by Indigenous communities since time immemorial.
The pattern of criminal libel suits against the community leaders and their legal representatives have the effect of being so-called SLAPP suits, Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation, Human Rights Watch said. “They are filing cases one after the other,” Santos said. “They targeted the leaders first, and now their lawyers.”
The cyber-libel charge against the lawyers has the effect of undermining their right to freedom of expression, and the residents’ right to legal representation during disputes, Human Rights Watch said. “As their lawyer, I have a responsibility to advocate for their cause,” Balgos said. “But this [criminal libel case] creates a chilling effect, because if their defender is being harassed, then the more afraid they are.”
A community leader, Florentino Daynos, is also facing a cyber-libel complaint that the company filed on June 19 for his support for a community barricade against mining exploration in Kasibu. On June 3, Daynos and another community leader, Anthony Glenn Guingayan Sr., were notified that other Nueva Vizcaya residents had brought additional cyber-libel complaints against them.
The complaints that the company filed directly will undergo preliminary investigation by prosecutors in Isabela province, where the company is based, a four-hour drive from the two lawyers. Filing complaints far from the defendant is a common tactic in libel cases in the Philippines.
Companies and Philippine authorities have used cyber-libel charges to intimidate critics. The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression has specifically condemned the use of cybercrime laws to suppress free speech and criticism in the Philippines.
The cybercrime law and provisions on libel in the revised penal code seriously undermine the right to freedom of expression under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the Philippines is a party. Human Rights Watch opposes criminal defamation laws because they have a serious chilling effect on free speech.
The UN special rapporteur on the rights of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association has stated that “SLAPPs aim to shut down critical speech by intimidating critics into silence and draining their resources.”
Philippine authorities have not protected activists, lawyers, and others from such lawsuits by companies and state agencies, Human Rights Watch said. The UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change reported in August 2024 that there should be a “major judicial inquiry” in the Philippines “to review all cases in which environmental human rights defenders have been prosecuted on trumped-up charges.”
The Philippines has had special rules against SLAPPs since 2010 for environmental cases. However, the rules have not deterred the filing of SLAPPs against Philippine environmental defenders. The Philippine-based Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center has found that “many [environmental defenders] have been detained under false charges.”
House Bill No. 5592, filed in October 2022, seeks to expand SLAPP prohibitions to all public interest cases and make it mandatory for prosecutors and courts to determine whether a case is a SLAPP when it is filed and if so dismiss it summarily. The bill has not progressed in Congress.
The UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression has also recommended that states enact anti-SLAPP legislation, including early dismissal with awarding costs and other measures to penalize abuse.
“Efforts to target Indigenous communities and their lawyers in the courts should prompt firm action by the Philippine government,” Buan said. “If environmental and human rights advocacy is criminalized, affected communities will be unable to sound the alarm when corporations and officials threaten their rights.”
China’s Police Harass Animal Protection Supporters
Two incidents of videoed cruelty of stray animals in China this summer have triggered widespread outrage. Both spread rapidly online, and both showed a familiar government response: censorship, intimidation, and dispersion.
In late June, videos of four boys cruelly mistreating and burning a dog and her puppies in Jieyang, Guangdong province, circulated widely online. Public outrage was swift and overwhelming: paid billboards and other advertisements appeared in over 100 cities across the country called for an end to animal abuse. More than 70,000 people signed an online petitiondemanding accountability and a national animal protection law.
Animal protection supporters abroad crowdfunded a billboard in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district and purchased screen advertisements in Taipei and New York’s Times Square.
On June 30, the government, while acknowledging that the abuse occurred and explaining the consequences for those responsible, also urged "netizens not to spread related information."
Suppression followed. Social media platforms removed posts about “Wang Wang,” a generic and endearing term supporters used for the puppies’ mother. The Chinese social media site Weibo also reportedly blocked a celebrity’s statement and a related trending topic. Online, people have reported that police ordered memorial advertisements taken down from public screens in several cities. An organizer told the BBC that police had questioned and threatened dozens of others, telling them to stop their activism.
The Jieyang response follows a pattern. Earlier in June, police in the municipality of Chongqing forcibly dispersed hundreds of residents who had gathered for days to protest another reported case of dog abuse. They injured several people and briefly took dozens away before detaining—under public pressure—the alleged abuser.
Animal abuse has clearly touched a nerve in China, especially among young people for whom pets have become an important source of companionship. Peaceful expressions of public outrage should never be considered a threat to state security. Chinese authorities should stop suppressing public discussion of animal abuse, free any protesters still detained, and investigate police violence in Chongqing. They should also listen to what people are saying, whether it’s about personal freedom, the rights of the public, or the protection of Wang Wangs.
Uganda’s Military Forcibly Disappears Opposition Politician
It has been 13 days since armed soldiers seized Muwanga Kivumbi, a deputy president for the National Unity Platform, Uganda’s main opposition party. He has not been heard from since and the authorities have yet to account for his whereabouts.
Click to expand Image Muwanga Kivumbi. © 2021 Ssemmanda will/WikimediaOn July 10, the day after a court released Kivumbi on bail on politically related terrorism charges, armed plainclothes and uniformed soldiers dragged him from his car at a police roadblock on the outskirts of Kampala and drove off with him to an unknown location. A victim of an enforced disappearance at the hands of Ugandan soldiers, his safety and life remain at risk as long as the military are holding him beyond the protection of the law.
Kivumbi’s family filed a habeas corpus application this week, asking the authorities to immediately release him, but a judge declined to do so and instead ordered the government to “conclude investigations” into his disappearance and provide a response within a week. During the proceedings, the police denied they are holding Kivumbi.
Kivumbi had been detained in prison since January 22, 2026, when authorities arrested him, Jolly Jackline Tukamushaba, and Lina Zedriga Waru, two other deputy presidents from the opposition party, following the January 14 general elections. The authorities released Tukamushaba and Waru after holding them incommunicado for several days, but charged Kivumbi with terrorism for allegedly orchestrating and executing “a violent attack” on a police station and a polling station, an accusation he denied, and remanded him to prison before his release on bail on July 9.
Ugandan security agencies regularly re-arrest people shortly after courts have granted them bail or acquitted them on politically related charges.
Kivumbi’s enforced disappearance is one of several unlawful detentions of government critics and opponents in recent weeks by the Ugandan military and a crime under international law. An enforced disappearance occurs when state authorities or their agents detain a person and refuse to acknowledge the detention or reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law, as has happened in Kivumbi’s case. He, like other victims of enforced disappearances, is at a heightened risk of torture and other grave abuses.
The Ugandan authorities should immediately disclose Kivumbi’s whereabouts, release him, and end their assault on political opposition and criticism.
India: Excessive Force Used Against Student Protesters
(New York) – Indian security forces used tear gas and batons to suppress largely peaceful student and youth protests in New Delhi on July 20, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration should promptly and impartially investigate unnecessary and excessive use of force, allow peaceful protests, and stop suspending mobile internet services, which put people at added risk.
Protests that began in June to demand accountability for mismanagement of medical entrance examinations grew to include grievances against unemployment and government corruption. The “Cockroach Janta Party,” a Gen Z-led movement that began after the Supreme Court chief justice compared unemployed youth to cockroaches, called for a peaceful march to parliament on July 20. Scores of people, including some police officers, were injured, with one young woman protester in critical condition.
“India’s youth wanted to march peacefully to parliament to seek accountability from their elected leaders,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, the police met them with batons, tear gas, and internet shutdowns.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 9 witnesses, including protest organizers, journalists, and student protesters; and analyzed and verified 10 videos posted on social media.
On July 21, political opposition leaders criticized the police crackdown, calling the government “insensitive” and “authoritarian.” Delhi police temporarily detained several top opposition leaders after a nearly three-hour protest in front of Modi’s residence. The Supreme Court refused to hear a plea on alleged police abuses against student protesters, saying, “don’t waste our time.”
Since June, demonstrators had occupied Jantar Mantar, an 18th century observatory that is a prominent protest site a couple of kilometers from parliament. The protests gained momentum on July 18 after Delhi police forcibly removed the activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike since June 28, from Jantar Mantar and admitted him to a public hospital.
The Delhi police claimed that protesters displayed “unruly, aggressive and violent behavior,” attacked them with stones and other objects, vandalized their vehicles, and resorted to “large-scale violence,” injuring their personnel. Human Rights Watch verified one video showing protesters beating and piling onto a police officer, who falls to the ground.
The Cockroach Janta Party and protesters rejected the police account of large-scale violence, saying the police used force without any provocation. “The protesters were just sitting there, begging the police not to beat them, asking them, ‘Why are you beating us?’” said a 34-year-old Delhi-based lawyer. “This entire crowd was far more engaging with the police than retaliating. No hitting back or stopping the batons, they were just taking the hits.”
“I did not expect the police to be so brutal,” said a 24-year-old photojournalist who was covering the protest. “I have photos of protesters just standing there and the police beating them. I saw male police officers bashing up women. The women were entreating with folded hands and still police officers were beating them up.”
A number of protesters said that security forces pushed them into very tight spaces, or charged at crowds, risking a stampede. “It was suffocating, there was hardly any space to breathe,” said a 24-year-old law student describing a skirmish that took place when police charged at protesters who had tried to breach police barricades. “Somehow, I managed to keep standing, but two of the girls with me fell and people stepped on them.”
Human Rights Watch verified six videos showing security officers using batons or tear gas against protesters, or pelting them with stones. In one video, a possible tear gas canister lands and bursts among a group of protesters sitting on the ground. The force of the blast knocks one protester off his feet as he tries to run away.
Human Rights Watch verified a video that shows three men in civilian clothes holding plastic batons like those used by security officers. At least one is seen beating protesters alongside police officers. Several witnesses said police were also present in civilian clothes and many police and Rapid Action Force riot-control police did not wear name tags which thwarts accountability for their actions. According to digital rights groups, protesters were also subjected to surveillance using facial recognition systems.
Telecommunication service providers reportedly received orders to shut down mobile internet services in parts of central Delhi on July 20. However, the government did not abide by Supreme Court directions to make suspension orders public. A protester said he lost his friends in the stampede-like situation and then the police hit him with a stick on his elbow. But he could not locate his friends, he said, “because they had shut down mobile internet and jammed mobile services, so no calls were going through.”
Indian authorities have a history of shutting down the internet during protests to restrict access to information, conceal abuses by security forces, and prevent independent documentation of these abuses, Human Rights Watch said. Access to the internet is widely recognized as an indispensable enabler of a broad range of human rights guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other human rights instruments to which India is a party. The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution in 2016 unequivocally condemning internet shutdowns and called upon all states to “refrain from and cease such measures.”
The right to peaceful assembly and protest is a fundamental right protected under international human rights law. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provide that officers may only use force when strictly necessary. When using force, law enforcement officials should exercise restraint and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and to the legitimate objective to be achieved. The 2020 UN guidance on less-lethal weapons in law enforcement provides that tear gas should only be employed when necessary to prevent further physical harm and should not be used to disperse nonviolent demonstrations.
“India’s police have a long history of committing serious human rights violations with impunity,” Ganguly said. “The authorities need to promptly and impartially investigate security force abuses against the protesters in Delhi, and appropriately prosecute those responsible, regardless of rank.”
US Officials Sound Alarm on Haiti While Preparing to Deport Haitians There
Fresh from a trip to Haiti, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz offered the UN Security Council on July 20 a harrowing account of the “kill zone” he said Port-au-Prince has become. In unusually graphic detail, he recounted grotesque incidents, including one in which several Haitian national police officers were “were flayed alive in the streets [and] pinned to the side of their burning armored vehicle.”
Consistent with Waltz’s report, a July 10 State Department travel advisory warns: “Do Not Travel to Haiti,” citing “robbery, carjackings, sexual assault, and kidnappings,” and even the “risk of being struck by stray bullets,” saying that violence “happens frequently.”
And yet, the same government that describes horrors before the UN Security Council and certifies the country as too dangerous to travel to is preparing to deport some 350,000 Haitians there, as the US Supreme Court stands aside and allows the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Mass deportations would put these people in grave danger and exacerbate Haiti’s humanitarian crisis. Many would be compelled to rejoin families living in dangerous areas where, perceived as wealthy, they could become targets for kidnapping and extortion.
It’s not too late. A new Homeland Security secretary is in place, Markwayne Mullin, who could still recognize Haiti as unsafe and extend TPS. It will take some convincing: after the Supreme Court ruling, he called upon Haitians to self-deport, offering them $2,100 to go back. But maybe the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits US air carrier flights to Port-au-Prince due to ongoing instability will give him pause.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is due to go into effect later this month. Secretary Mullin should listen to the words of the US ambassador to the UN and heed the State Department’s warning that, in fact, applies as much to Haitians as to US citizens: Do Not Travel to Haiti.
Niger: 3 Years of Military Rule Deepens Human Rights Crisis
(Nairobi) – Niger’s military junta has entrenched authoritarian rule, dismantled democratic institutions, and intensified repression since seizing power three years ago, Human Rights Watch said today.
On July 26, 2023, Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani and other Nigerien army officers overthrew the elected government of President Mohamed Bazoum. Since then, the junta has consolidated sweeping and unchecked powers, systematically weakening institutions capable of holding the military authorities to account. In the past year, the military authorities have dissolved all political parties and several independent unions, suspended dozens of civil society groups, detained journalists under a broad cybercrime law, stripped political opponents of their nationality, criminalized consensual same-sex relations, announced Niger’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), and prolonged the country’s political transition without any roadmap toward democratic elections.
“Three years after the coup, Niger’s junta has broadened its assault on human rights,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The military leaders have expanded their own authority while closing civic space and shutting off pathways to justice for victims.”
The junta continues to arbitrarily detain former President Bazoum, his wife, the former Interior Minister Hama Amadou Souley, and Moussa Tiangari, a prominent human rights defender. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in opinions issued in February 2025 and May 2026, found that the detentions of both Bazoum and Tiangari were arbitrary, in violation of international human rights law, and called on authorities to release them.
In March, the junta adopted a new criminal procedure code setting pretrial detention in terrorism cases at 12 months, renewable once. As Tiangari has been detained since December 2024 on terrorism-related charges, his lawyers filed an application for his release with the court of appeal on June 19. Although the law requires the court to rule within three days, no decision was issued. A week later, the authorities amended the law, extending the maximum pretrial detention period to four years, renewable once.
“The coincidence is too serious to be ignored,” Hamid Amadou N’gadé, former communication adviser to President Bazoum, said on social media. “A justice system worthy of the name doesn’t change the rules to keep a citizen in prison.” Tiangari’s lawyers contend that the revised provision cannot be applied retroactively to justify his continued detention.
The military authorities have also taken a series of actions that restrict media freedom and civic space. They have targeted journalists for reporting on or sharing matters of public interest under sweeping cybercrime legislation. In October 2025, police in Niamey, the capital, arrested the journalists Moussa Kaka, Abdoul Aziz Idé, Ibro Chaibou, Souleymane Brah, Youssouf Seriba, and Oumarou Kané after they shared on social media an invitation to a media briefing about a solidarity fund to raise money for the state security forces. The authorities charged them with “complicity in distributing documents likely to disturb public order” under the cybercrime law. In November, a court released Kaka, Idé, and Brah on bail, and retained Chaibou, Seriba, and Kané in custody, ordering their transfer to Kollo prison, outside Niamey. Seriba and Kané were released on July 15, while Chaibou remains in detention. The cybercrime law, which the junta amended in 2024, reintroduced prison sentences and fines for broadly defined public order offenses.
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which Niger ratified in 1986, guarantee the rights to freedom of opinion and expression.
The authorities have also sought to suppress criticism beyond Niger’s borders. Since late 2024, the authorities temporarily stripped at least 18 exiled opposition figures of their Nigerien citizenship based on a 2024 order that created a national database of people suspected of terrorism. In June 2026, the authorities revoked the Nigerien citizenship of Mariama Djibrine, president of a coalition of Nigerien, Malian, and Burkinabè diaspora opposition groups advocating for a return to constitutional rule in the three Sahel countries. That month, the foreign affairs minister instructed Nigerien diplomatic missions to monitor online criticism of the military authorities, signaling an effort to discourage the diaspora from discussing the country’s human rights situation.
In March, Niger adopted a new penal code that punishes consensual same-sex relations and broadly defined Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) practices with 5 to 10 years in prison and heavy fines. Same-sex marriage is also punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison, and the same penalties apply to people who facilitate, support, finance, organize, or participate in organizations and events for LGBT people.
International media reported that in June, security forces detained at least 16 people, including senior police officers, under the revised legislation. In Niger, where LGBT people already face stigma and discrimination, the criminalization of same-sex conduct is already having consequences far beyond the courtroom. Several community health workers told Human Rights Watch they have suspended outreach and support activities for men who have sex with men due to fears of harassment or abuse. The junta’s criminalization of consensual same-sex conduct contravenes its obligations under regional and international human rights law.
The security situation in the country has continued to deteriorate. Islamist armed groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have repeatedly carried out deadly attacks against civilians in the western Tillabéri region. Niger’s security forces have responded with abusive counterinsurgency operations. In January, a Nigerien military drone strike killed at least 17 civilians at a crowded market in western Niger in violation of laws-of-war prohibitions against indiscriminate attacks.
Niger’s withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States in 2025, coupled with the withdrawal from the ICC in June, reflects a broader effort by the junta to restrict avenues for regional and international accountability.
International engagement with Niger’s military authorities has often come at the expense of human rights. Some governments including the United States, Russia, Türkiye, and Italy have prioritized security cooperation without conditioning assistance on adequate human rights benchmarks, despite the junta’s worsening abuses.
The UN has not consistently denounced human rights violations by Niger’s military authorities. As the UN reviews its approach to the Sahel region, including through the assessment commissioned by Secretary-General António Guterres of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), UN member states should ensure that accountability and protecting human rights are central pillars of any future UNOWAS engagement with Niger, Human Rights Watch said.
“Niger’s international partners need to reengage to address the junta’s escalating repression in the pursuit of security,” Allegrozzi said. “They should press the authorities to respect fundamental rights, release those arbitrarily detained, stop targeting political opponents and critics, and set out a credible path to civilian rule.”
UAE: International Cycling’s Top Team Risks ‘Sportswashing’
(Beirut) – The United Arab Emirates’ cycling team Emirates-XRG risks “sportswashing” the country’s egregious human rights record, Human Rights Watch said today.
The team’s principal sponsors are state-owned companies, and the team has stated openly that its aim is “representing an entire nation, the UAE.” UAE Team Emirates is currently leading in the Tour de France, which began on July 4, 2026, and will end on July 26.
“Even as evidence of the UAE’s military support to Sudan’s abusive Rapid Support Forces mounts, UAE Team Emirates-XRG is prominently displaying UAE government logos in the world’s biggest cycling races,” said Joey Shea, senior UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The team and its sponsors should use this high-profile opportunity to speak out about the UAE’s relationship with a group responsible for mass killings, widespread sexual violence, and other serious violations in Sudan.”
The UAE hosts high-profile sporting, entertainment, and cultural events to promote a public image of openness that is at odds with the government’s efforts to prevent scrutiny of its rampant, systemic human rights violations at home and abroad. The UAE uses these high-profile events to burnish its image, despite maintaining a zero-tolerance policy toward dissent domestically and fueling human rights abuses abroad.
For over three years, a steady body of reporting by international media, United Nations experts, and human rights organizations has repeatedly documented the flow of weapons, personnel, and other support from the UAE to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is battling Sudan’s military for control of the country.
The UAE’s role has helped fuel a conflict and humanitarian catastrophe that has killed more than 150,000 people, forced 14 million people to flee their homes, and left more than 30 million in need of humanitarian aid. On June 18, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, issued a “stark warning” over the risk of atrocities as RSF forces are reportedly encircling the city of El Obeid.
For a decade and a half, Human Rights Watch has documented the UAE’s intervention in foreign conflicts in support of abusive local armed forces. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch found that Colombian private military contractors, apparently hired by a UAE-based company, transited through UAE military facilities before being deployed to Sudan to support the Rapid Support Forces. This is further evidence indicating that the UAE is assisting or otherwise substantially contributing to the RSF’s capacity to commit war crimes.
In 2017, UAE state-owned and government-linked entities began sponsoring what is now called UAE Team Emirates XRG.
In February 2017, UAE Team Emirates announced it had confirmed International Golden Group (IGG) as a new sponsor. In 2021, IGG’s logo is displayed on the kit of UAE Team Emirates. In 2022, Road Bike Kit continues to list IGG as a sponsor of the team.
IGG was mentioned in a 2013 UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts report on Libya as acting as a representative of the UAE armed forces in a deal that led to the delivery of munitions to Benghazi, under the control of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF).
Human Rights Watch’s May 2026 report stated that the France 24 television network found that 81mm munitions made by Dunarit, a Bulgarian manufacturer, and captured by the Darfuri Joint Forces following clashes with a convoy of Colombians in Darfur in November 2024, had first been purchased in a deal where the end user was the UAE armed forces. The deal involved IGG.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG should take immediate steps to ensure that its participation in major races is not used to distract from the harm linked to the UAE government at home and abroad, Human Rights Watch said.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG has a responsibility to respect human rights throughout all its operations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights sets out these responsibilities, including the expectation that businesses will adopt specific policies and conduct due diligence to identify any risks of contributing to human rights harm. Such harm may include helping a country’s reputation in a way that helps distract from its human rights abuses.
Human Rights Watch wrote to UAE Team Emirates-XRG outlining its concerns and urging the team to develop a human rights risk mitigation strategy that includes speaking out about the UAE’s abuses. Human Rights Watch asked whether the team had agreed to any clause that would restrict the freedom of its employees or riders to publicly speak out about UAE’s abuses. UAE Team Emirates-XRG has not responded.
“As Sudan faces yet again the imminent risk of further atrocities, international cycling’s top team risks sportswashing egregious abuses in Sudan by failing to speak out about the UAE abuses,” Shea said.
Nigeria: Boko Haram Trials Ineffective, Flawed
(Abuja, July 22, 2026) – The Nigerian authorities’ prosecution of Boko Haram suspects does not advance justice for serious international crimes, as the cases continue to target primarily low-level suspects and raise significant fair trial concerns, Human Rights Watch said today.
On April 8, 2026, the Nigerian authorities began the ninth phase of terrorism trials involving more than 500 defendants. The tenth phase began on June 15 with about 600 defendants. Lower-level suspects accused of offenses related to providing material support to armed groups, such as Boko Haram, dominate the court’s docket, while prosecution of those most responsible for serious international crimes are not being prioritized. The judicial proceedings also appear to be based on evidence insufficient to justify criminal convictions. Human Rights Watch raised similar concerns in 2018.
“Nigerian authorities should hold those responsible for atrocities by Boko Haram and security forces to account, but they repeatedly prosecute people with tenuous connections to the most serious crimes in trials that don’t deliver justice,” said Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Prosecutions should target higher level offenders and meet fair trial standards to ensure accountability for atrocities by both sides.”
The recent phases of the trials were held at the Federal High Court in Abuja from April 8 to 11 and June 15 to 18, with 10 judges hearing cases simultaneously in separate courtrooms. Human Rights Watch observed proceedings in five of these courtrooms on April 9 and 10 and June 17 and 18, monitored reporting on the trials, and interviewed a government official involved in the proceedings. Human Rights Watch also wrote to relevant government institutions involved in the trials, including the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria, seeking responses to questions and concerns about the trials. The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria and the director of public prosecution, on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Justice, have responded.
In its response to Human Rights Watch, the director of public prosecutions said that Nigeria's approach to prosecutions aims to balance the need to confront “terrorism” with the imperative to “preserve the constitutional rights of every person before the courts.” The response went on to emphasize that the office aims to prosecute support networks—including financing, logistics, recruitment, and material support—as part of what it calls “an internationally recognized strategy for disrupting and dismantling terrorist organizations.” The Legal Aid Council stated that it was dissatisfied with the convictions and sentences imposed by the courts in some cases during the ninth phase, and had appealed those decisions.
According to media reports, during the 4 days of trial hearings in April, the judges found 386 defendants guilty of terrorism-related crimes, including participation in Boko Haram attacks on civilians, and ordered sentences ranging from 5 years to life in prison. The judges discharged eight defendants in cases in which the director of public prosecutions, in his response, indicated that continuing the prosecutions would not serve the interests of justice and acquitted two others. The court adjourned 112 other cases until June.
During the June proceedings, the court heard cases involving 490 defendants on the first day and an additional 84 on the second day, according to media reports.
Twenty-five of the cases that Human Rights Watch observed were linked to Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Human Rights Watch also observed 10 cases involving the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist movement in southeast Nigeria, and 2 other cases involving banditry-related offenses. Criminal groups commonly referred to as “bandits” operate mainly in the northwest and north central regions of Nigeria.
In 2017 and 2021, the Nigerian government issued terrorism proscription orders designating the activities of IPOB as “bandits” and “terrorism,” specifying that “any person … participating in any manner whatsoever in any form of activities involving or concerning … the [designated] groups … will be violating the provisions of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act … and liable to prosecution.”
In all cases Human Rights Watch observed, prosecutors did not present witnesses or circumstantial evidence to substantiate the alleged charges, which were in some cases ambiguous and lacking crucial information like the specific date and details of the alleged offense.
The director of public prosecutions, in his response, stated that a range of evidence is considered—including witness testimony, electronic and forensic evidence, military operational reports, financial records, documentary exhibits, and expert evidence—before terrorism charges are filed. However, none of these forms of evidence were presented in the cases Human Rights Watch observed, in which convictions were all based on defendants’ guilty pleas, with only confessional statements and investigation reports provided in some cases as supporting evidence.
Judges based the convictions primarily on guilty pleas with alleged confession statements, and investigation reports tendered by the prosecutors as supporting evidence in some cases. When defendants entered not guilty pleas, the prosecution was unable to substantiate the alleged charges and withdrew them. These charges were then struck without being tested in court, even in cases potentially including attacks resulting in civilian deaths.
The prosecution only proceeded with charges to which defendants pleaded guilty, typically related to providing material support to a designated “terrorist” group or failure to report information about members of the group or their activities to security forces. This pattern raises serious concerns about the credibility of these charges and whether Nigerian prosecutors had sufficient evidence to justify bringing or sustaining them in court.
Many defendants had already spent years in pretrial detention, some since 2016, which may amount to arbitrary detention, while some were arrested as recently as 2025.
Under Section 13 of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, which criminalizes material or nonviolent support to terrorist groups, individuals face penalties of up to 20 years in prison. While Section 13 provides a legal basis for prosecution, its broad framing risks sweeping in individuals whose involvement may have been indirect or coerced, particularly those in conflict-affected areas.
Coupled with the serious fair trial concerns observed, including weak evidentiary basis for the criminal charges and concerns about the ability of defendants to mount an effective defense, these sentencing outcomes raise significant concerns about due process and the proportionality of harsh sentences for minor or tendentious allegations of material support, including when those actions may have been carried out under duress, Human Rights Watch said.
In some cases, defendants and their lawyers presented mitigation statements, including fear of harm to themselves or their families, or inability to report to authorities due to lack of access or security constraints. While these factors led to lesser sentences in some cases, they did not do so in others.
In December 2020, the former International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the completion of her office’s preliminary examination into the situation in Nigeria, during which it assessed whether it would open a formal investigation. The ICC Office of the Prosecutor concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that members of Boko Haram and its splinter groups, as well as members of the Nigerian security forces, had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in the context of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria since June 2011. However, at the time, the prosecutor decided not to request the judges’ authorization to open an investigation into the situation in Nigeria, including due to resource constraints.
As a court of last resort, the ICC only steps in when national courts are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute serious crimes. In the years that followed, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor sought to constructively engage with the Nigerian authorities to ensure they delivered on their legal obligation to bring justice with respect to alleged international crimes in the country.
On March 26, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian government deferring to Nigeria’s primary responsibility to investigate and prosecute alleged serious international crimes before its domestic judicial system. The memorandum also stipulates the prosecutor’s office’s commitment to provide support to Nigerian authorities, including through continued encouragement and technical and strategy-related assistance.
Despite these commitments, the current domestic trials have yet to demonstrate the authorities’ genuine willingness and ability to address the pervasive impunity gap in the country, including for serious international crimes committed by the Nigerian security forces, as the focus of the proceedings so far has primarily been on Boko Haram, ISWAP, and other non-state actors.
The OTP should use its unique leverage and the commitments made under the memorandum to press Nigerian authorities to implement the necessary reforms in law and in practice to ensure the genuine investigation and prosecution of serious international crimes committed by all parties, Human Rights Watch said.
Nigerian authorities should ensure that all terrorism trials comply with international fair trial and due process standards, including basing prosecutions on credible and sufficient evidence, and guaranteeing adequate time and appropriate facilities to prepare a defense. They should amend the Terrorism (Prevention) Act to narrow the scope of material support offenses, and ensure that people who acted under coercion or duress are not prosecuted or punished for providing support to armed groups. The amendments should further ensure that people who are unable to report terrorist activity safely, lack meaningful involvement in such activity, or are otherwise in vulnerable or coercive circumstances are not subject to disproportionate penalties for failing to report. The authorities should also establish a process to review and commute sentences imposed on people convicted despite acting under coercion.
“More than eight years after these trials began, recent proceedings continue to reflect substantive and procedural failures,” Ewang said. “If the Nigerian authorities are serious about delivering real justice, they should address these shortcomings, prioritize credible investigations into serious international crimes, and produce robust evidence that can withstand judicial review in fair and credible trials.”
For more information on the trials observed, please see below.
Weak Evidentiary Standards and “Plea-Driven” ConvictionsIn the cases Human Rights Watch observed that were linked to Boko Haram and ISWAP, Justice Ministry prosecutors brought a range of charges related to association with the groups and their activities. These include membership in one of the groups, failure to report information about members of the group or their activities to security forces, and providing material or nonviolent support to the group.
Alleged material support offenses include paying a religious tax in the form of farm produce or farming; supplying essentials such as gasoline, firewood, rice, corn, seasonings, and other foodstuffs; rearing stolen cattle; purchasing agrochemicals for the group; transporting ammunition; acting as informants; recruiting; kidnapping; and receiving ransom payments. Some of these charges conflate serious allegations of support to proscribed groups with situations in which ordinary people may be coerced into providing resources. This raises serious concerns about whether some of the charges should be brought at all, Human Rights Watch said.
All defendants in the cases Human Rights Watch observed were represented by lawyers from the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria, a government-funded agency that provides legal assistance to indigent people. However, in its written response to Human Rights Watch’s questions and concerns, the Legal Aid Council stated that it provided legal representation to the majority of the defendants in line with its mandate to provide pro bono legal services, but noted that a small number of defendants in the trials were represented by private legal practitioners if they could afford to hire a lawyer.
In the trials that Human Rights Watch observed, prosecutors relied on guilty pleas rather than testing evidence through adversarial proceedings. In 26 of the 35 applicable cases, the prosecution asked the judge to strike out all charges to which the defendants had pleaded not guilty and proceeded to seek convictions only on the charges to which the defendants had pleaded guilty.
This pattern persisted even in cases that could include serious international criminal charges, such as attacks against a civilian population resulting in deaths, which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. These cases raise concerns that prosecutors are either overcharging defendants to coerce them into pleading guilty to lesser offenses or are not making meaningful efforts to secure accountability for the most serious crimes.
In one case, the prosecution brought four charges against the defendant, including participation in a Boko Haram attack in Gwoza, Borno State; participation in an attack in Biu, Yobe State, with civilians allegedly killed in both attacks; membership in Boko Haram; and receiving weapons training to carry out acts of terrorism. The defendant pleaded not guilty to the two charges concerning participation in attacks against civilians which were broadly framed and lacked specific details about the defendant’s alleged conduct or role in the attacks. Following the not guilty pleas, the prosecution applied to withdraw those charges, and the court struck them out. The defendant was subsequently convicted on the remaining two charges to which he had pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years on each count, with the sentences to run concurrently.
In one case in which an innocent plea resulted in charges being dropped, a defendant pleaded not guilty to all charges, including membership in Boko Haram, failure to report named individuals, and supplying goods such as gasoline and soft drinks. The prosecution then asked to adjourn the proceedings without presenting any evidence to challenge the plea. An official involved in the trials told Human Rights Watch that similar adjourned cases in earlier phases had not returned to court.
The proceedings also raised concerns about whether defendants were afforded a genuine opportunity to prepare and present a defense, even though in the proceedings that Human Rights Watch observed, the defense lawyers stated that they had met with the defendants prior to the trial to prepare their cases. The defense lawyers neither called witnesses nor presented evidence. Their role was mostly limited to appearing in court and, after the defendants pleaded guilty and were convicted, making brief statements to the judge asking for leniency before they were sentenced.
In the cases Human Rights Watch observed, defendants who pleaded guilty received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 80 years. Eighteen cases resulted in convictions for material support-related offenses, with sentences ranging from ten to thirty years. The defendant in a case involving 12 charges received several sentences, including 50 years for membership in and recruitment on behalf of Boko Haram, and 80 years for financing terrorism by receiving 50 thousand naira (approximately US$36) to further Boko Haram activities. In all cases, the court ordered to calculate the sentences retroactively from the date of arrest.
In another case, the prosecution brought four charges against the defendant, including membership in ISWAP in Okene, Ekiti State; receiving military training and weapons-handling instruction, including the use of AK-47 rifles; providing support to ISWAP during a 2021 prison break in Ekiti State; and attacking the Nigerian Navy using an AK-47 and other weapons.
The defendant pleaded not guilty to all charges except the membership charge. The prosecution subsequently applied to strike out the remaining charges and urged the court to convict the defendant on the count to which he had pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced the defendant to 20 years in prison.
The only two cases observed by Human Rights Watch in which this pattern did not occur involved one charge against each defendant—membership in Boko Haram and concealment of information relating to material support for Boko Haram, respectively—to which the defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 10 years each.
Nigerian authorities operate a deradicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration program known as Operation Safe Corridor for former Boko Haram and ISWAP affiliates classified as “low risk” or “repentant” insurgents. While judges did not specifically reference the program in their sentencing decisions, most of which included orders for deradicalization and rehabilitation before release, media reports indicate that individuals convicted in earlier phases of the trials were later transferred to Operation Safe Corridor for rehabilitation, deradicalization, and reintegration after completing their sentences.
Prosecuting ‘Material Support’ Risks Criminalizing Acts of SurvivalThe broad framing of “material support” offenses under the Terrorism (Prevention) Act risks criminalizing ordinary survival strategies in areas under Boko Haram or ISWAP control. Court proceedings did not appear to distinguish between voluntary collaboration and conduct carried out under coercion or duress, even in cases in which defendants or the defense lawyers indicated that their actions were not voluntary.
In three cases, defendants plead guilty, admitting to carrying out the alleged acts, saying that they had feared harm to themselves or their families, or were unable to report to authorities due to lack of access or security constraints. In 16 other cases, defendants or their lawyers gave these explanations as mitigating factors following guilty pleas and convictions. While these factors appeared to result in reduced sentences in some cases, they did not consistently do so.
This raises concerns about the effectiveness of legal representation, including whether defendants were adequately informed of the legal consequences of entering guilty pleas, and whether they were given sufficient time and opportunity to prepare and present a defense.
In one case, a defendant pleaded guilty to paying a religious tax to Boko Haram. When presenting mitigating statements before the defendant was sentenced, the defense counsel said that the payments were made under duress and because the defendant had no choice. The defendant was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison on that charge, to run concurrently with another 20-year sentence for failure to disclose information about Boko Haram members to security forces.
In another case, a defendant who had been detained since 2017 pleaded guilty to five charges of failure to disclose information about Boko Haram members, and not guilty to three other charges, including membership in Boko Haram. While pleading for leniency, he said that reporting Boko Haram activities to security officials was not possible because there were no security forces in his community. He was sentenced to 10 years on each count, to run concurrently from the date of his arrest.
One defendant was sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty to providing material support to Boko Haram by rearing goats for the group. While seeking leniency, the defense counsel said that rearing goats was the defendant’s primary source of livelihood and that he had been forced to work for Boko Haram after the group invaded his village.
Reduced Safeguards in the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2023The Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2023, which amended and replaced the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011, appears to have taken a more punitive approach. While the 2011 Act included a defense for individuals charged with failing to report terrorist activity if they could show they had a reasonable excuse, the 2023 Act removed that protection. It also failed to improve on the 2011 Act's broadly framed material support offenses by introducing an explicit defense for people who acted under coercion or duress, increasing the risk for victims of abuse to be prosecuted alongside those who intentionally assist terrorist groups.
Japan: Flag Desecration Law Violates Free Speech
(Tokyo) – The Japanese Diet on July 17, 2026, adopted a flag desecration law that criminalizes damaging Japan’s national flag, a violation of the right to freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said today. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its coalition partner Japan Innovation Party, and three opposition parties supported the bill during a session of the Diet’s upper house, following passage by the lower house on June 30.
The law prohibits “publicly damaging, removing, or defacing” Japan’s national flag in a “way or situation that evokes significant discomfort or disgust in people.” People charged with this offense face penalties of up to two years in prison or a maximum fine of 200,000 yen (about US$1,250), identical to article 92 of Japan’s Penal Code, which criminalizes the desecration of foreign flags.
“Japan’s flag desecration law poses a direct threat to the right to freedom of expression,” said Teppei Kasai, senior Asia program officer at Human Rights Watch. “By chipping away at this fundamental right, the law sends a message that puts everyone’s basic liberties at risk.”
The flag desecration law undermines the right to freedom of speech and expression in violation of international human rights law. Japan is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which in article 19 protects the right to freedom of expression, including symbolic acts. Legal restrictions to protect public order or national security are permitted only if they are necessary and proportionate.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has been clear that causing offense to patriotic sentiment or speech regarded as “deeply offensive” does not justify criminal punishment. The committee specifically “expresse[d] concern regarding laws on such matters as … flags and symbols.”
Before the bill was passed, a number of legal scholars said that the law was inconsistent with the Japanese Constitution. During a Diet session on June 25, the constitutional scholar Yoko Shida said:“It is extremely likely the bill in its current form will be ruled unconstitutional if it were to be brought to court.” Shida said the act is “extremely broad... [A]s a result, it will inevitably restrict various constitutional rights.”
Hisashi Sonoda, a criminal law expert, wrote that punishing an action that causes “discomfort” to others is a “serious violation” of article 21 of the Japanese Constitution, which protects freedom of expression. Nearly 150 criminal law researchers and several bar associations have also expressed opposition to the bill.
Other governments have used flag desecration laws to stifle dissent, Human Rights Watch said. In Hong Kong, the government has in recent years revived two colonial-era laws—the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance and the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance—that criminalize the desecration of China’s national flag and Hong Kong’s regional flag and used them against democracy activists.
In August 2019, Hong Kong authorities reportedly arrested five activists for removing the Chinese national flag and throwing it into the sea. In December 2019, a Hong Kong court sentenced a 13-year-old girl to 12 months of probation for burning a Chinese flag during a pro-democracy protest. In 2020, a Hong Kong court sentenced Tony Chung, a student activist, to four months in prison for damaging a Chinese flag during a 2019 protest. The late democracy activist Koo Sze-yiu had also been convicted at least eight times for violating the anti-flag laws.
“The flag desecration law hands the present and future governments of Japan a ready-made tool to silence protest against the state,” Kasai said. “The Japanese government should repeal this law and demonstrate to the world that Japan’s democracy is strong enough to tolerate dissent.”
Vietnam: 5 Arrested for Ho Chi Minh Book
(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities since late June 2026 have arrested and detained five people for their roles in the publication of a controversial book about Ho Chi Minh, the founder of Vietnamese communism, Human Rights Watch said today.
Hanoi police charged all five—Nguyen Thanh Nam, Tran Viet Anh, Nguyen Thuy Hang, Dao Ba Doan, and Nguyen Van Yen—with carrying out anti-state propaganda under the notorious national security law, penal code article 117, and published their home addresses, violating their families’ privacy rights. If convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison. The government should immediately and unconditionally drop the charges against the five and release them.
“The wave of arrests for a book about Ho Chi Minh sends a chilling message to all Vietnamese writers, journalists, and publishers that the proclaimed new era of ‘national rise’ just means more repression,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The extreme reaction to the book suggests that even prominent establishment figures in business, publishing, and media are not safe from Communist Party hardliners.”
In Conversation with Thanh: A New Account of the Light was written by the detained tech executive Nguyen Thanh Nam and published by the Writers’ Association Publishing House in Hanoi in April. The book details Ho Chi Minh’s life and revolutionary career using conversational dialogues between a teacher and a student, and contemporary vernacular to make Ho Chi Minh and his thinking relevant to younger Vietnamese people.
The police newspaper said “the content of this book distorts history, as well as the lines and policies of the [Communist] Party and State; and insults President Ho Chi Minh, General Vo Nguyen Giap [Vietnam’s most celebrated modern military leader], and many other Party and State leaders.”
Events to introduce the book in April and May garnered positive coverage, including in state media outlets like the People’s Daily, the People’s Army, the Liberation of Saigon, and others. However, in June, the retired provincial Communist Party official Phan Trung Can criticized the book online, accusing the author of disrespecting Ho Chi Minh and disparaging Vietnam’s revolutionary history. He focused on the book’s use of contemporary language as insufficiently reverential toward Ho Chi Minh and called for the book to be destroyed. Following his initial post, like-minded internet users demanded punishment of everyone involved in producing and promoting the book.
Newspapers in Vietnam soon removed articles promoting the book. The Writers’ Association Publishing House apologized publicly and ordered a recall. Days later, the Bureau of Publication, Printing and Distribution under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism disciplined the publishing house by suspending its operations for two months and fining it 100 million dong (US$3,800). In July, the ministry’s Press Bureau fined 23 newspapers for promoting the book. Over a dozen journalists received warnings, suspensions, or dismissals as a consequence of their perceived connection to the book.
Nguyen Thanh Nam, 65, the author, was arrested on June 27. He is a co-founder and former CEO of FPT Corporation, a major technology and education company in Vietnam, and founder of FUNiX, Vietnam’s first online university for software training. In 2019, then Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recognized him for “having achieved outstanding results in studying and following the ideology, ethics, and style of Ho Chi Minh … and contributing to the cause of building socialism and defending the Fatherland.”
For several years, he also taught Ho Chi Minh ideology at VinUniversity, a private university established by Vietnam’s giant private corporation VinGroup in 2019. He decided to turn his lecture notes into a book.
Tran Viet Anh, 33, was arrested for promoting the Ho Chi Minh book. He is the founder of Spiderum, an online discussion platform established in 2016 and popular with many young Vietnamese people. As of July 2026, Spiderum’s YouTube channel had 1.19 million subscribers. The platform has since been suspended.
On July 11 and 12, police arrested three senior figures from the Writers’ Association Publishing House whose names appear in the book: Nguyen Thuy Hang, 50, director; Dao Ba Doan, 55, chief editor; and Nguyen Van Yen, 64, editor. The police newspaper said that all three, who are senior Communist Party members, had been detained for “editing, amending, publishing and promoting” the book.
“For the Communist Party leadership, even a book about their founding father written for young people can be deemed a threat to the party’s monopoly on power,” Pearson said.
US Congress Should Pass Legislation on Sudan
Congress is currently considering two bills on Sudan: the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation (PEACE) in Sudan Act of 2026 in the Senate and US Engagement in Sudanese Peace Act in the House of Representatives. These bills contain several positive initiatives but should go further on accountability.
Human Rights Watch has documented widespread abuses by both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), including attacks against civilians by both groups, widespread sexual violence by the RSF, and evidence of ethnic cleansing by the RSF in West Darfur.
Although the administration has taken important steps on Sudan, including sanctions on both parties to the conflict, the US government has failed, along with the international community, to apply sufficient pressure to stop the atrocities and improve humanitarian conditions. Both bills bolster the US government’s response to the conflict, including by reinforcing the role of the special envoy on Sudan, which is currently vacant, and enabling the US to sanction those responsible for abuses in the country.
The House’s legislation authorizes US government support for a United Nations, African Union, or multinational force in Sudan. Human Rights Watch has consistently urged the UN Security Council to authorize the deployment of a civilian protection mission in Sudan
Both bills would also require the US government to identify foreign governments’ activities in Sudan and whether they are in violation of the UN arms embargo. The House bill would ban the sale of major defense equipment to any government supplying weapons to the RSF or SAF, unless waived for national security reasons.
These are welcome proposals given the growing evidence that the RSF has received military support from the UAE and recent Human Rights Watch findings that a UAE-based company hired Colombian private military contractors that trained at UAE military bases before deploying to Sudan to support the RSF.
Congress should enhance accountability measures in the bills to ensure the US government plays an active role in seeking a comprehensive approach to accountability in Sudan. Congress should direct the administration to support ongoing investigation efforts of serious international crimes, including support to the collection and preservation of evidence for future accountability processes to advance justice for victims.
By pushing for such legislation, Congress can play a vital role in responding to the human rights crisis in Sudan.
US/Ecuador: Abuses Proliferate as Security Cooperation Deepens
(Washington, DC) – The United States and Ecuador are deepening their security cooperation against a backdrop of serious human rights violations by Ecuadorian forces, unexplained drone attacks on fishing boats, and the disappearance of several fishermen, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The US Congress should urgently scrutinize these incidents and the broader security relationship between Ecuador and the United States.
July 21, 2026 A Dangerous PartnershipThe 94-page report, "A Dangerous Partnership: Abuses, Unanswered Questions, and US-Ecuador Security Cooperation," documents serious human rights violations in a rural community on the Colombia-Ecuador border, as well as attacks on and the disappearance of fishermen at sea near the Galápagos Islands. Each incident either clearly implicates the US-Ecuador security partnership or surfaces questions about responsibility. Ecuadorian forces tortured and arbitrarily detained four farm workers, and later burned and struck a dairy farm, during what the United States called a “partnered operation.” And drones of unknown origin attacked two fishing vessels, injuring several crew members. A third vessel remains missing.
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Before more harm is done, the US Congress should demand real answers and effective safeguards.”
In recent months, the United States and Ecuador have each taken steps to undermine human rights safeguards on the use of force against organized crime and have committed unlawful acts, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions, that they have sought to justify by mischaracterizing their efforts to confront drug trafficking and organized crime as a kind of armed conflict.
Between March and June 2026, researchers interviewed 62 people, including victims of abuses in an attack on a rural settlement and fishermen whose boats were attacked, as well as lawyers, witnesses, affected community members, and others. Researchers reviewed and analyzed more than 100 photographs and videos provided by lawyers and interviewees or published online on social media, along with satellite imagery, vessel monitoring data, fire detection data, medical records, and judicial documents.
Human Rights Watch requested information from the Ecuadorian and US governments about these events, but has received no response.
Since President Donald Trump took office and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa was re-elected in 2025, the two governments’ security cooperation has deepened, with the stated goals of responding both to surging violence in Ecuador and organized crime across the region. The United States has become a key partner in Ecuador’s security response, providing equipment, training, intelligence, and direct military support.
Click to expand Image Analysis and graphic © 2026 Human Rights WatchBetween March 1 and 6, Ecuadorian military forces conducted a series of joint operations with the United States in the San Martín community, a rural settlement on the Colombia-Ecuador border. Ecuadorian soldiers burned three properties, later struck two of them with air-dropped munitions, and arbitrarily detained and tortured four dairy farm workers.
“They tortured me with electricity, with a taser,” one of the men told Human Rights Watch. “They poured water on me and then shocked me, and I passed out. I lost consciousness at least twice.”
Both Ecuadorian and US authorities said this was a partnered operation. Ecuadorian authorities said the operation targeted facilities of the Border Commands (Comandos de la Frontera), an armed group that has for years operated on both sides of the border, and that the four men were detained “for investigative purposes” over alleged ties with the group. The head of US Southern Command, General Francis L. Donovan, praised the operation, telling the US Senate Committee on Armed Services that it was “professionally executed.”
Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence that the three destroyed properties had any connection with criminal armed groups. Based on a review of photographs, videos, satellite imagery, property records, and commercial receipts; and interviews with the properties’ owners, nearby residents, and others, one of the properties burned and later struck appeared to be a dairy farm, and the other two appeared to have been abandoned for years. The men detained had no criminal records, and prosecutors did not file charges because soldiers failed to provide any evidence against them.
Between January and March, the fishing vessels La Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca came under attack in the Eastern Pacific. A third vessel, the Fiorella, disappeared on January 20 with eight of its crew members.
Click to expand Image Last known locations of the Ecuadorian fishing vessels the Fiorella, La Negra Francisca Duarte II, and the Don Maca based on last signal transmitted as reported on the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data provided by the National Directorate of Aquatic Spaces of the Ecuadorian Navy and accessed through the publicly available Global Fishing Watch platform. Exclusive economic zone boundaries are based on Flanders Marine Institute, “Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase: World Exclusive Economic Zones, version 12,” Marine Regions, October 25, 2023,https://www.marineregions.org/downloads.php (accessed May 22, 2026). Analysis and graphic © 2026 Human Rights WatchOn March 17 and 26, crew members of La Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, respectively, said they were attacked by armed drones. Survivors said that armed US nationals wearing military-style uniforms bearing US flag insignias detained them aboard a nearby blue-and-white vessel, and then transferred them to the Salvadoran Coast Guard. Salvadoran authorities later allowed them to return to Ecuador. At least four crew members suffered serious injuries during the drone strikes.
Crew members of the Don Maca said that after their ship was attacked, a boat flying a US flag approached them. “How many are you? How many dead? How many injured?” a man asked them, they said. The survivors said they boarded the vessel while officers speaking English pointed “long guns” at them.
The US Department of Defense and Coast Guard have denied responsibility for the attacks on La Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, and the disappearance of the Fiorella. However, Human Rights Watch research, including interviews with 13 survivors, indicates that US authorities most likely had some level of involvement in, or knowledge of, these attacks. Other evidence reviewed was largely consistent with crew members’ accounts.
Despite extensive verification efforts and multiple inquiries to Ecuadorian and US authorities, many questions about these incidents remain unanswered, including what happened to Fiorella’s crew.
The US Congress should demand clear answers from the Trump administration to the many questions surrounding its security cooperation with Ecuador. It should also examine whether there are appropriate safeguards given the growing number of human rights violations under the Noboa administration. The Ecuadorian government should also reassess its determination that there is an “armed conflict” in the country and focus its efforts on strengthening justice sector capabilities to fight organized crime.
“Joint security operations against organized crime should not become a cover for abuses,” Goebertus said.
United Nations Funding Crisis and Human Rights
(New York) – The United Nations General Assembly amended a longstanding rule on June 30, 2026, to ease the world body’s deepening liquidity crisis, but severe funding problems remain, Human Rights Watch said.
A new Human Rights Watch questions-and-answers document describes the effects of the UN’s liquidity crisis on its global human rights activities , and makes recommendations to UN member countries to ensure the UN has the resources it needs to protect and promote human rights and save lives.
“The US, China, and other governments that haven’t paid or are late in paying their dues have forced the UN to cut back on critical human rights and humanitarian operations worldwide,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “UN member states should explore new avenues to hold delinquent countries accountable for defaulting on their UN financial obligations.”
While the US and China are responsible for nearly half the funds that member countries are obligated to contribute to the UN, dozens of other countries also pay late or not at all.
A Year Since Two Turkmen Activists Disappeared
July 24 marks one year since Alisher Sakhatov and Abdulla Orusov disappeared in Türkiye. Their families are still searching for answers about their whereabouts and fate.
Sakhatov and Orusov are Turkmen activists and bloggers who spoke openly about developments in Turkmenistan, including corruption, abuses by Turkmen security services, restrictions on freedom of movement, and the hardships faced by Turkmen migrants abroad. From Türkiye, where they had lived since 2018, they were among the few independent voices for many people in Turkmenistan living under a government that tolerates virtually no dissent.
In April 2025, Turkish authorities detained them under vague national security claims and ordered them deported. The constitutional court temporary suspended the order while assessing the risks of persecution in Turkmenistan. Within two weeks of the suspension, both activists went missing.
Turkish authorities opened investigations, but a year later have yet to publicly account for what happened to the men or establish their whereabouts. The lack of information about how they went missing raises serious concerns that they may have been unlawfully transferred to Turkmenistan and may be facing unfair trial, inhuman treatment, or torture.
The anguish caused by disappearance extends far beyond those who vanish. Their families, left in unbearable uncertainty not knowing whether their loved ones are dead or alive and unable to find closure or seek accountability, suffer cruel treatment. Every day that passes without news deepens the suffering.
Nor have Turkmen authorities publicly addressed the fate of two of its disappeared citizens or indicated any effort to seek information from Türkiye. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, where peaceful critics face intimidation, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and transnational repression.
Türkiye should urgently reinvigorate its investigation, disclose its findings, and establish the whereabouts of Sakhatov and Orusov. It should uphold its obligation not to deport or otherwise return activists and other critics to Turkmenistan if they face a credible risk of torture, imprisonment, or other serious human rights violations.
The international community should continue pressing both Türkiye and Turkmenistan for answers, and Turkmen authorities should publicly disclose whether the men are in their custody or not.
It has been a year. The uncertainty over Sakhatov’s and Orusov’s fate and the suffering of their families must end.
Free Outspoken Moroccan Rap Star
“Through rap, I'll stage a coup d’État
with my spiteful homies, ‘cause their lives are all stormy weather…
Go ahead, take me — blindfold my eyes,
reopen Tazmamart, and throw me in.”
With these biting lyrics, 34-year-old Moroccan rap star Mehdi Lyoubi, known as Mehdi Black Wind, invoked the infamous Tazmamart prison, where those accused of plotting against the monarchy were jailed in atrocious conditions from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s.
Click to expand Image Mehdi El Youbi. © Mehdi El Youbi/FacebookWhen a Moroccan judge ordered the detention of Lyoubi on July 15, he didn't send him to Tazmamart. Instead, he remanded him to Oukacha prison in Casablanca, pending prosecution for offending the king or crown prince – an offense punishable by up to four years in prison – according to his lawyer.
Lyoubi's arrest followed that of Ali Lmrabet, a prominent Moroccan journalist living abroad who was arrested at Tangier airport on July 12. Lmrabet, who said he was questioned about criticism of top-level officials in his podcast, was held in police custody for three days before being released following international outcry.
Police stopped Lyoubi at Rabat airport on July 10 while he was waiting to embark to Marseille, France, where he resides. Telling him he was banned from leaving, police ordered him to report to the station in his hometown of Salé, his wife said. At the police station on July 11, he received a summons from the National Brigade of the Judiciary Police (BNPJ), a unit that handles terrorism cases and, at times, critical journalists.
Lyoubi was held for interrogation at BNPJ headquarters in Casablanca on Monday, July 13, before appearing before a prosecutor that Wednesday and later in court. A judge ordered him remanded to custody pending trial.
His next hearing is scheduled for July 22.
Lyoubi rose to prominence in the wake of the 2011 regional uprising known as the Arab Spring. He voiced support in 2025 for Morocco's Gen Z protesters, who, after contrasting lavish government spending on sports infrastructure with poor education and health infrastructure, were met with police violence that left three dead and hundreds arrested.
Lyoubi's rap, like Lmrabet's journalism, is critical and hard-hitting. But criticism of government officials is protected under international law. Lyoubi should be released immediately and all charges against him should be dropped.
Bangladesh: First Enforced Disappearance Case Since July 2024 Uprising
(London) – The Bangladeshi authorities should immediately comply with a July 12, 2026 court order to investigate the alleged disappearance of 30-year-old Miraj Sheikh, who was last seen in the custody of the Coast Guard, in what appears to be the first known enforced disappearance case in two years, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should also reverse its decision to scrap reforms aimed at preventing enforced disappearances and instead ensure accountability by security forces.
Under the previous government, which was toppled by protests in 2024, enforced disappearances became endemic. This led the interim government that governed Bangladesh between August 2024 and elections in February 2026 to adopt the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance in November 2025. The ordinance provided for independent investigations of enforced disappearances and the power to inspect any detention facility without requiring a court order. However, the newly elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government allowed the ordinance to expire and proposed a new law that would bar the Human Rights Commission from investigating alleged rights violations by security forces.
“Thousands of people were subjected to enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, and this latest case shows that without genuine reforms they can happen again,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It is clear that these practices have become entrenched in Bangladeshi security agencies, and the new government, which has pledged reform, should ensure safeguards, institutional reforms, and accountability.”
Under international law, an enforced disappearance is the detention or abduction of a person by state forces (or persons acting on their authority), followed by the authorities’ refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or reveal the person’s whereabouts or situation. In August 2024, Bangladesh’s interim government acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which requires states to criminalize, investigate, and prosecute enforced disappearance.
On the night of April 10, 2026, multiple witnesses reportedly saw Coast Guard officers detain Miraj Sheikh, a fisherman, in Joymonir Ghol, near the Sundarbans forest in Mongla, and take him away by speedboat. The following day, his family went to the Coast Guard office in Digraj, Mongla, where they were initially told he was “on an operation” and to return that afternoon. When they did, the Coast Guard told them he had never been there.
On April 21, the owner of the tea stall where Sheikh was allegedly seized—and where his motorcycle had been left—said a man identifying himself as a Coast Guard member came to the shop, unlocked the motorcycle, and took it away. The tea stall owner said Coast Guard personnel returned it the following day.
“The witnesses explained the situation and time of disappearance, and how the coastguard members took him away,” the family’s lawyer, Muzahedul Islam Shahin, told Human Rights Watch.
Miraj’s family has filed a complaint, held a news conference, and written to multiple government officials with no results. On July 12, after his father filed a habeas corpus petition, the High Court ordered law enforcement agencies to find the missing fisherman and produce him before the court within 15 days.
Lt. Cmdr. Mahbub Hossain, the media officer for the Coast Guard’s Western Zone, has repeatedly denied detaining Miraj and told the media that they had no information about him.
This case appears to replicate abuses of the past. An interim government commission identified 1,569 cases of enforced disappearance between 2009 and 2024, of which 1,282 people reappeared after periods of secret detention ranging from weeks to years. At least 251 people never returned and are presumed dead, while the bodies of 36 others were recovered. The commission described this figure as a “substantial undercount.”
A wide range of security forces were implicated in disappearances, the commission found, including two units of the police—the Detective Branch and the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit—as well as the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion and the military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.
The commission also found that the disappearances were accompanied by a “widespread and systematic culture of torture.” It reported that “nearly every secret detention facility” contained "specialized interrogation rooms equipped with torture devices," including a "rotating chair," a "pulley system used to suspend people," devices used to administer electric shocks, and an instrument used to apply thermal torture.
Among the most notorious cases of disappearances is that of Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, known as Armaan, a lawyer and son of an Islamist party leader who was executed in 2016. Armaan was picked up by officials from the Rapid Action Battalion in August 2016 who held him in secret detention for eight years, releasing him the day after the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, 2024. He has said that he “didn't see sunlight in eight years.… It felt like I had been buried alive.”
The circumstances of Armaan’s detention form part of one of the trials at the International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic court that tries cases of crimes against humanity, in which 10 serving army officers formerly holding senior roles within Rapid Action Battalion are among those being prosecuted.
In another notorious case, a month before the 2014 national elections, 22 men involved in BNP politics were picked up over a two-week period from different parts of Dhaka and surrounding areas. Nineteen of them remain disappeared to this day.
There had been high expectations that a successor government would establish an independent body with the power to investigate such practices. The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, promulgated two ordinances, the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance, 2025, and the Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Redress Ordinance, 2025, which together would have ensured independent investigation of alleged disappearances with the possibility of referral to the International Crimes Tribunal.
However, the newly elected government allowed these ordinances to lapse, proposing instead laws under which the police would continue to investigate enforced disappearances, leaving the Human Rights Commission’s only recourse to “call for a report from the chief of the force concerned or from the Government.” Under the proposed law, the government would have greater influence both over appointing Human Rights Commission members and its rulemaking.
“The new government should amend its proposed legislation to remove any interference in the Human Rights Commission and to restore its authority to investigate enforced disappearances,” Ganguly said. “Allowing the police to investigate enforced disappearances will not ensure accountability and will not create the deterrence necessary to bring this practice to an end.”
Bangladesh: First Enforced Disappearance Case Since July 2024 Uprising
(London) – The Bangladeshi authorities should immediately comply with a July 12, 2026 court order to investigate the alleged disappearance of 30-year-old Miraj Sheikh, who was last seen in the custody of the Coast Guard, in what appears to be the first known enforced disappearance case in two years, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should also reverse its decision to scrap reforms aimed at preventing enforced disappearances and instead ensure accountability by security forces.
Under the previous government, which was toppled by protests in 2024, enforced disappearances became endemic. This led the interim government that governed Bangladesh between August 2024 and elections in February 2026 to adopt the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance in November 2025. The ordinance provided for independent investigations of enforced disappearances and the power to inspect any detention facility without requiring a court order. However, the newly elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government allowed the ordinance to expire and proposed a new law that would bar the Human Rights Commission from investigating alleged rights violations by security forces.
“Thousands of people were subjected to enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, and this latest case shows that without genuine reforms they can happen again,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It is clear that these practices have become entrenched in Bangladeshi security agencies, and the new government, which has pledged reform, should ensure safeguards, institutional reforms, and accountability.”
Under international law, an enforced disappearance is the detention or abduction of a person by state forces (or persons acting on their authority), followed by the authorities’ refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or reveal the person’s whereabouts or situation. In August 2024, Bangladesh’s interim government acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which requires states to criminalize, investigate, and prosecute enforced disappearance.
On the night of April 10, 2026, multiple witnesses reportedly saw Coast Guard officers detain Miraj Sheikh, a fisherman, in Joymonir Ghol, near the Sundarbans forest in Mongla, and take him away by speedboat. The following day, his family went to the Coast Guard office in Digraj, Mongla, where they were initially told he was “on an operation” and to return that afternoon. When they did, the Coast Guard told them he had never been there.
On April 21, the owner of the tea stall where Sheikh was allegedly seized—and where his motorcycle had been left—said a man identifying himself as a Coast Guard member came to the shop, unlocked the motorcycle, and took it away. The tea stall owner said Coast Guard personnel returned it the following day.
“The witnesses explained the situation and time of disappearance, and how the coastguard members took him away,” the family’s lawyer, Muzahedul Islam Shahin, told Human Rights Watch.
Miraj’s family has filed a complaint, held a news conference, and written to multiple government officials with no results. On July 12, after his father filed a habeas corpus petition, the High Court ordered law enforcement agencies to find the missing fisherman and produce him before the court within 15 days.
Lt. Cmdr. Mahbub Hossain, the media officer for the Coast Guard’s Western Zone, has repeatedly denied detaining Miraj and told the media that they had no information about him.
This case appears to replicate abuses of the past. An interim government commission identified 1,569 cases of enforced disappearance between 2009 and 2024, of which 1,282 people reappeared after periods of secret detention ranging from weeks to years. At least 251 people never returned and are presumed dead, while the bodies of 36 others were recovered. The commission described this figure as a “substantial undercount.”
A wide range of security forces were implicated in disappearances, the commission found, including two units of the police—the Detective Branch and the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit—as well as the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion and the military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.
The commission also found that the disappearances were accompanied by a “widespread and systematic culture of torture.” It reported that “nearly every secret detention facility” contained
Among the most notorious cases of disappearances is that of Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, known as Armaan, a lawyer and son of an Islamist party leader who was executed in 2016. Armaan was picked up by officials from the Rapid Action Battalion in August 2016 who held him in secret detention for eight years, releasing him the day after the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, 2024. He has said that he “didn't see sunlight in eight years.… It felt like I had been buried alive.”
The circumstances of Armaan’s detention form part of one of the trials at the International Crimes Tribunal, a domestic court that tries cases of crimes against humanity, in which 10 serving army officers formerly holding senior roles within Rapid Action Battalion are among those being prosecuted.
In another notorious case, a month before the 2014 national elections, 22 men involved in BNP politics were picked up over a two-week period from different parts of Dhaka and surrounding areas. Nineteen of them remain disappeared to this day.
There had been high expectations that a successor government would establish an independent body with the power to investigate such practices. The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, promulgated two ordinances, the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance, 2025, and the Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Redress Ordinance, 2025, which together would have ensured independent investigation of alleged disappearances with the possibility of referral to the International Crimes Tribunal.
However, the newly elected government allowed these ordinances to lapse, proposing instead laws under which the police would continue to investigate enforced disappearances, leaving the Human Rights Commission’s only recourse to “call for a report from the chief of the force concerned or from the Government.” Under the proposed law, the government would have greater influence both over appointing Human Rights Commission members and its rulemaking.
“The new government should amend its proposed legislation to remove any interference in the Human Rights Commission and to restore its authority to investigate enforced disappearances,” Ganguly said. “Allowing the police to investigate enforced disappearances will not ensure accountability and will not create the deterrence necessary to bring this practice to an end.”
‘I Can’t Feed My Children’
A man in western Afghanistan recently told me that his neighbors knock on his door to ask for food. A man in the capital, Kabul, said, “I can no longer feed my children properly,” and described how the rising cost of food was affecting him and his family.
Such stories are becoming increasingly common in Afghanistan, where millions are being impacted by a looming hunger crisis.
According to the United Nations, over 17 million people in Afghanistan, out of a population of about 44 million, are projected to face acute food insecurity this year, a crisis that disproportionately impacts women and children. And yet, as of June, the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan had received less than 20 percent of its required budget. Sharp reductions in foreign aid from the United States, which formerly funded up to 40 percent of Afghanistan’s humanitarian aid, as well as those from the United Kingdom and other donors, have meant that an already bad situation has gotten much worse. As a result, humanitarian groups have had to reduce programs, scale back services, and triage aid to those most in need.
Before October 2025, only 28 percent of Afghan households were getting sufficient food without assistance; by April 2026 the figure had fallen to 20 percent. About 22 million people require urgent aid for food and health care. Many of the five million Afghans forcibly returned by Iran and Pakistan over the past two years went to areas already struggling with drought and limited work opportunities, placing further strain on overstretched communities.
Exacerbating the crisis, the Taliban’s repressive policies impose severe restrictions on women working in international aid organizations and the UN. By limiting women’s access to employment in the humanitarian field, these policies have made it harder for aid agencies to reach people. Since only women are allowed to deliver aid to women, households that are headed by women are being especially hard hit by hunger.
Aid agencies have warned that without urgent additional funding, millions of Afghans will lose access to lifesaving support. Donor governments should act urgently to fund humanitarian operations in Afghanistan and ensure that returns are voluntary, safe, dignified, and accompanied by sustained support for returnees’ reintegration. Taliban authorities should immediately reverse all bans on women’s rights, including restrictions on movement and employment, which hinder their access to aid and economic security, including food.
Marking International Justice Day
On July 17, 1998, countries around the world adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a day now recognized as International Justice Day.
The ICC is the court of last resort for victims seeking justice for the most serious crimes in violation of international law. However, this year victims' access to justice is under threat as the United States escalates its attack on the global rule of law. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week announced a stepped-up campaign to "dismantle" the ICC. Behind the rhetoric, the US government wants to hand out “get-out–of–jail–free" cards to whomever it chooses.
In the face of these and other attacks on justice, crucial efforts are being undertaken, often led by survivors, to protect and advance the international justice system.
The ICC continues its critical work, including sending a first case from Libya to trial earlier this week. And the trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for alleged crimes against humanity during the murderous “war on drugs” is set to start in November.
ICC member countries, United Nations experts, and others have spoken out against the US government’s use of sanctions intended for human rights violators against ICC officials and those working to promote justice.
A number of countries are also working to advance justice at home. In Syria, the first atrocity crimes trial within the country and the ongoing transitional justice process, with their challenges and shortcomings still to be addressed, provide hope that justice is finally within reach. In Lebanon, two members of parliament introduced a bill that would allow prosecution of serious international crimes, opening the door for long-awaited domestic investigations.
In Myanmar and Sudan, survivor and civil society organizations are spearheading creative efforts to seek justice in other countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction, as there are no meaningful avenues for justice in their own countries.
On International Justice Day – and every day – governments should build on these efforts and show they stand by victims of atrocities. They should denounce attacks on the international justice system, show support for the ICC and those cooperating with it, and take concrete steps to protect those under attack.