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Peru: New Law Threatens Free Speech, Trans Rights
(New York) – A law enacted in Peru on May 12 purports to combat sexual violence against children and adolescents, but instead undermines freedom of expression and access to information and discriminates against transgender people, Human Rights Watch said today. The law’s vague and overly broad provisions could also be used to suppress expressions of identity, artistic content, and educational materials while failing to effectively address pervasive sexual violence against children and adolescents in the country.
The law, the stated aim of which is to “safeguard the right to sexual integrity of children and adolescents,” also mandates that public restroom access be restricted based on “biological sex,” effectively barring transgender people, including trans youth, from using public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“Protecting children and adolescents from sexual exploitation and abuse is an important state obligation, but this law turns child protection into a pretext for repression and discrimination,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The law opens the door for authorities to censor expression that they deem ‘inappropriate’ under the guise of safeguarding children, while scapegoating trans people, a group already at high risk of violence in Peru.”
The levels of sexual violence against children and adolescents in Peru are high. According to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, from January to March 2025, the Women’s Emergency Centers received 4,910 cases of sexual violence against children and adolescents (out of 15,293 total cases received). In 2024, the total number of such cases was 22,798 (out of 63,489). While Congress has a responsibility to respond to this crisis, the new law fails to provide an effective or rights-based solution, Human Rights Watch said.
Article 4 of the law prohibits the “exploitation and sexualization” of children and adolescents in media, advertising, and entertainment. However, because the provision does not define what constitutes its key concepts of “sexual connotation” or “objectification,” it could be used to censor personal or cultural statements, artistic creations, or learning resources. Resulting arbitrary enforcement and censorship could also undermine children and adolescents’ ability to access information relevant to their own sexual development, including as part of an age-appropriate and science-based comprehensive sexuality education curriculum that could help prevent sexual violence.
The law also modifies the provision of the criminal code concerning “obscene exhibitions and publications” by increasing the minimum prison sentence from three to four years for “anyone who shows, sells or delivers to a minor … objects, books, writings, images, visual or auditory, which due to their nature may affect their sexual development.” The maximum prison sentence remains six years.
Human rights standards call for specificity and proportionality for any restriction on the freedoms of expression and access to information, particularly when criminal penalties are involved, as vague or overly broad legal language can lead to unjust restrictions and discrimination.
Article 5 of the law states that “entry and use” of public restrooms is prohibited for individuals whose “biological sex” does not align with “the sex for which the service is intended.” Such provisions not only discriminate against transgender people but also reinforce harmful and unfounded fears that equate the presence of transgender people in restrooms with a threat to children.
Studies have shown no correlation between inclusive restroom policies and increased safety risks to women or children. On the contrary, it is transgender people who face elevated risks of harassment and violence in public spaces, including restrooms. Enforcing such a discriminatory policy also emboldens intrusive and humiliating scrutiny of individuals’ bodies or identities, potentially exposing people, including transgender and gender nonconforming youth, to suspicion and mistreatment.
On May 7, Human Rights Watch wrote to President Dina Boluarte, urging her to veto the then-proposed law as it curtailed the freedom of expression, the right to information, and the right to nondiscrimination. No response was received.
On May 12, the Congressional Ethics Committee voted to open an investigation against Congresswoman Susel Paredes for her alleged encouragement of trans women to use the women’s restrooms in congress during a March event focused on gender diversity. The complaint alleges that she violated the Parliamentary Code of Ethics; she faces a suspension of 120 days without remuneration. Peru’s new law is likely to lead to more arbitrary and baseless legal actions targeting both transgender people and their allies.
Peru has an obligation to uphold children and adolescents’ right to comprehensive sexuality education, an essential element of the right to education. At its core, comprehensive sexuality education consists of age-appropriate, affirming, and scientifically accurate curricula that can help foster safe and informed practices to, among other things, prevent gender-based violence, including sexual violence. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on Peru to provide all children with appropriate and accessible education on sexual and reproductive health. This new law will threaten that access.
Additionally, Peru is a party to several human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, which oblige the State to protect all individuals from discrimination on any grounds, including age and gender identity. Enactment of this law violates Peru’s commitments as outlined in these treaties.
“Peru should urgently repeal this law, which fails to respond effectively to sexual violence against children and threatens the rights of the very people it seeks to protect, including trans children and adolescents,” González said. “Instead, Congress should pass targeted and evidence-based laws to prevent sexual violence as well as the high levels of discrimination against transgender people.”
Victims of Sri Lanka’s Civil War Seek Justice
Last weekend, Tamils in Sri Lanka gathered to commemorate those who died or went missing in the country’s civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2009. As they have for the last 16 years, they also called for justice. Despite overwhelming evidence gathered by the United Nations and human rights groups of war crimes and human rights abuses by state security forces, successive governments have failed to launch any credible accountability process. Meanwhile, Tamil activists and victim communities continue to face repression and other violations.
The war between the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government was marked by widespread violations by both sides. As the Sri Lankan military closed in on the LTTE, eventually defeating them on May 18, 2009, soldiers committed summary executions, rape, and forcible disappearances of hundreds of surrendered combatants. The military indiscriminately shelled civilians who were trapped in the combat zone by the LTTE, which used them as human shields.
In last year’s elections, many Tamils voted for Anura Kumara Dissanayake for president, hoping he would break from previous administrations and address the legacy of repression and discrimination. They have been disappointed.
The Dissanayake government has backed failed initiatives of previous governments, including the Office on Missing Persons, the Office for Reparations, and the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation, which have made little if any progress. These institutions have been rejected by many victims’ families, who see them as part of a pattern of failed promises.
Meanwhile, the government has kept in place the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act, long used to target Tamils. The government had pledged to repeal this draconian law, including to the European Union as a condition to keep tariff-free access to the EU market under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+).
The UN Human Rights Council mandated that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report and monitor progress on accountability, and establish the Sri Lanka Accountability Project to gather evidence of international crimes for use in future prosecutions. Those mandates are due for renewal in September. Given the lack of progress in Sri Lanka, renewal is vital to hold perpetrators of international crimes accountable. The Dissanayake government has opposed the council’s intervention as “divisive and intrusive.”
Instead of pretending that discredited domestic initiatives are working, the government should demonstrate its commitment to accountability by backing the resolution to renew the Accountability Project, and work towards delivering justice at last.
Discriminatory Testing Blocks Migrant Children’s Right to Education in Russia
This week, Russia’s education and science supervision agency, Rosobrnadzor, reported that so far in 2025 only 335 children of migrants have been allowed to take the Russian language proficiency test, a new prerequisite for school enrolment. This means that just 19 percent of the 1,762 children who applied to take the test were allowed. A law prohibiting public schools from enrolling children of foreign nationals without proof of Russian language proficiency was adopted by the State Duma in December 2024 and has been in effect since April 1, 2025.
Officials cited incomplete documentation, lack of school places, and alleged inaccuracies in applications as grounds for rejecting the other 1427 students. Of the 335 who were allowed to register for the test, only 44 children took it, and of them 27 completed the assessment and gained the necessary passing points; the rest failed.
Mandatory Russian language testing is a part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on migrants amid increasing xenophobiafollowing the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack, which has been attributed to Central Asian suspects. Despite Russia’s heavy dependence on migrant labor, ultranationalist sentiment has surged, resulting in sweeping legislation changes that significantly curtail the rights of migrants living and working in Russia.
The language proficiency requirement provides a pretext for the preexisting practice of schools across Russia arbitrarily refusing admission to migrant children. It creates a systemic barrier to children’s right to education, violating Russia’s human rights obligations with respect to education and nondiscrimination.
By weaponizing language proficiency as an exclusionary mechanism to deny migrant children access to education, Russian authorities are also depriving these children of the economic and health benefits that education provides. Denying migrant children access to school also hinders their long-term social integration, increases the risk they will engage in hazardous child labor and exposes them to child marriage. All children in Russia should have equal access to education regardless of nationality or language proficiency.
Russian authorities should immediately suspend the discriminatory language testing requirement and instead design and implement accelerated Russian language programs for school-aged children through the government school system. Other governments should urge the Russian authorities to implement these measures.
Afghan War Crimes Victims Still Awaiting Justice
Family members of Afghans unlawfully killed by foreign military forces during the 20-year war in Afghanistan have been waiting a long time for justice. Last week revealed two quite different approaches by countries that should provide it.
Australia, which has gone the furthest in investigating alleged war crimes by its forces in Afghanistan, has established a website for family members to file complaints. The site, managed by Australia’s Defense Ministry, includes an online form in the Dari and Pashto languages to request compensation.
While this progress is commendable, it comes five years after a governmental inquiry first disclosed the extent of probable crimes, including summary executions of captured combatants and civilians. Only one soldier has been charged in connection with the allegations.
The long delays led United Nations special mandate holders in August 2024 to raise concerns about Australia’s approach to compensation “as a form of charity at the discretion of its military, not as a legal right of victims under international law,” and the lack of clarity concerning consultation with victims and their families.
Those concerns remain. Afghan human rights activists are hosting online panels to draw attention to the website. The Australian government needs to ensure Afghans know about the website and how to file a complaint.
The United Kingdom, meanwhile, which also has an obligation to provide justice for war crimes, has made much slower progress.
Last week, BBC Panorama presented new evidence of war crimes by British special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including interviews with former soldiers about summary executions of wounded detainees and civilians, including children. “They handcuffed a young boy and shot him,” said a former soldier who had served in Afghanistan. “He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age.”
The UK government has tried its best to prevent such crimes from ever being prosecuted, with successive governments alleged to have covered up crimes and shut down criminal inquiries. While the government established an independent inquiry into the Afghanistan allegations in December 2022, it has taken years to get going and is limited in scope to the three years 2010-2013.
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said the new allegations highlighted “the need for comprehensive accountability.” That is the only way victims and their families will find justice.
UN General Assembly Should Act on North Korea
(New York) – The United Nations General Assembly should establish a new body to examine the connections between the North Korean government’s repressive system and its military programs and nuclear weapons development, Human Rights Watch said today.
On May 20, the General Assembly will hold a special high-level plenary session on North Korea. In the December 2024 resolution calling for the special session, the General Assembly stressed that the country’s grave human rights situation is linked to its weapons programs, highlighting the impacts of the government’s mass diversion of resources to the military and its severe repression of the population, which has enabled the mobilization of forced labor to support military programs crucial for the development and production of nuclear weapons.
“The UN General Assembly needs to step up pressure on North Korea since the Security Council remains deadlocked,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Maintaining scrutiny of North Korea’s human rights record and its weapons programs will help ensure that future diplomatic negotiations and UN discussions on North Korea will address both issues together, and not just focus on nuclear proliferation and sanctions compliance.”
More than 10 years have passed since a historic UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea—after documenting extensive crimes against humanity and other serious violations—recommended that the Security Council refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court. The General Assembly transmitted that report to the Security Council in 2014.
While the Security Council met in 2015 to debate North Korea’s human rights situation and has held a handful of debates since, including one in June 2024, it has failed to produce any meaningful actions or resolutions. Over the same period, North Korea’s human rights situation has only grown worse.
High-level plenary meetings of the General Assembly such as the one on North Korea are not common. They often include the participation of heads of state, ministers, as well as ambassadors, and are a means of spotlighting major global issues.
At the upcoming General Assembly session, UN member states should consider options for a standing UN body—staffed by experts in international human rights and humanitarian law, weapons proliferation, and sanctions—to better document how North Korea’s systemic rights violations increasingly threaten peace and security, not just on the Korean peninsula but worldwide. Focus areas could include the North Korean government’s extensive use of forced labor, unregulated arms exports to abusive governments, and the humanitarian impacts on North Korea’s people of the diversion of resources from social services to support the government’s weapons programs.
A standing body to examine and report on information about human rights abuses and their links to security issues and weapons proliferation could also contribute to future accountability for serious abuses, Human Rights Watch said. Additionally, it could provide reporting on the humanitarian impact of sanctions on North Korea and recommendations for sanctions compliance and human rights monitoring.
“Concerned governments need to send high-level officials to the May 20 plenary to offer specific ideas on how the General Assembly can better hold North Korea accountable by documenting the links between North Korea’s rights abuses and its weapons programs,” Sifton said. “The North Korean people deserve more than ritualistic recitations of statements of concern.”
Japan: Press Cambodia’s Leader on Human Rights
(Tokyo) – Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba should publicly raise human rights issues when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet visits Tokyo in late May, Human Rights Watch said today. The Cambodian government has increasingly suppressed freedom of expression and assembly, the rights of workers, and Cambodian government critics in Japan and other countries.
“Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet’s visit to Japan provides an important opportunity for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to publicly raise key human rights concerns, from press freedom and workers’ rights to Cambodia’s targeting of critics in Japan and elsewhere,” said Teppei Kasai, Asia program officer at Human Rights Watch. “As a major aid donor and trade partner, Japan should be clear that there cannot be business as usual so long as the Cambodian government continues to oppress its people.”
Human Rights Watch, in a letter to Japan’s Foreign Ministry on April 28, said that under Hun Manet, who became prime minister in 2023, the Cambodian government has increasingly curtailed the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, targeted independent media, and carried out politically motivated arrests and detention of dissidents and government critics. His father, Hun Sen, who had ruled Cambodia since 1985, serves as Senate president and remains head of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
The Cambodian government’s record on respecting and protecting workers’ freedom of association in line with International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions has deteriorated over the past decade. The 2016 Trade Union Law introduced mandatory registration of unions and excessive rules around Most Representative Status, which effectively placed barriers on unions’ ability to collectively bargain and represent workers before the Arbitration Council in collective disputes.
Despite recent amendments to the Trade Union Law, its provisions pose significant legal barriers for workers to form and join unions of their choosing, have union representation during collective bargaining, and gain access to collective dispute resolution through unions. In June 2024, the ILO Committee on Application of Standards recommended changes to Cambodian regulations to protect the ability of unions to register and operate.
In May 2024, a number of United Nations member states urged Cambodia during its Universal Periodic Review to ensure freedom of association for civil society and labor groups, and improve working conditions and labor standards.
Prime Minister Ishiba should urge Hun Manet to amend the Trade Union Law, the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations, and other relevant legislation so that they align with international human rights and labor standards.
The Cambodian government has also repeatedly reached across its borders, including to Japan, to harass and threaten critics of the government and exiled opposition party members living abroad, a practice known as transnational repression.
In May 2024, Sun Chanthy, the head of the opposition National Power Party, was arrested after returning from Japan, where he gave a speech to supporters critical of the Cambodian government. In July, a Cambodian court found Teav Vannol, who leads the opposition Candlelight Party, guilty of defamation and fined him US$1.5 million after he criticized Hun Manet and Hun Sen in a media interview in Tokyo.
In August 2024, authorities in Cambodia forcibly disappeared Vannith Hay, the 28-year-old brother of a Japan-based activist, Vanna Hay, after Hun Sen threatened Vanna Hay in a speech earlier that month. At the time, Vanna Hay led the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Movement in Japan and was a critic of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area (CLV), an economic development plan involving the border provinces of the three countries.
In October 2024, two envoys of Hun Sen came to Japan and effectively forced Vanna Hay to record a video at a Tokyo hotel in which he apologized for his past activism and pledged allegiance to Cambodia’s ruling party. On October 18, a Phnom Penh court ordered Vannith Hay’s release, the same day Hun Sen posted Vanna Hay’s apology video on social media.
Prime Minister Ishiba should publicly call on Cambodia’s leadership to immediately stop threatening critics both at home and abroad, and release those wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said.
“In line with its pledge of human rights diplomacy, Prime Minister Ishiba should use Hun Manet’s rare visit to impress upon the Cambodian government its responsibility to protect the rights of people in Cambodia,” Kasai said. “Japan’s silence on these matters will provide the Cambodian government a green light to continue its repressive tactics.”
Chad: Opposition Leader Arrested
(New York) – Chadian authorities arrested Succès Masra, the former prime minister and leader of Chad’s main opposition party, at his residence in N’Djamena early on May 16, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
Masra’s arrest raises concerns of escalating harassment and threats against the opposition party Les Transformateurs (The Transformers) as well as other political opponents of the ruling party. If Chadian authorities are not charging Masra with a credible offense, he should be released promptly.
“Succès Masra and his party, Les Transformateurs, have the right to express their opinions freely without fear of arrest,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Chadian authorities have instead used arrests and other forms of repression to clamp down on peaceful dissent time and time again.”
A witness at Masra’s residence in the Gassi neighborhood of N’Djamena, the capital, said that government security forces arrived just before 6 a.m. to arrest Masra. Party members told Human Rights Watch that Masra, 41, was being held by the judicial police in N’Djamena, where he has access to his lawyers.
Security footage of Succès Masra being arrested at his residence in the Gassi neighborhood in N’Djamena, Chad, on the morning of May 16, 2025. © 2025 Private
At a news conference, the public prosecutor, Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye, said Masra was arrested following an intercommunal clash in the Logone Occidental province in southwestern Chad that killed 42 people on May 14. According to Kedelaye, Chadian authorities are accusing Masra of inciting hatred and violence through social media posts and implicating him in the violence. However, following the Logone Occidental violence, Masra had expressed condolences to the victims, stating that “no Chadian’s life should be taken for granted.”
While clashes between herders and farmers are common in southern Chad, intercommunal violence has become more acute over the past several years, resulting in the deaths of scores of people.
Masra and his supporters have faced threats prior to the May 2024 elections, in which Masra ran against then-transitional president, Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby. After Déby was declared the winner, his presidency ended a transitional period that started in 2021, following the death of his father, then-President Idriss Déby Itno, who was killed while fighting an armed group a day after being re-elected to his sixth term.
Under the current government, authorities have shown opposition to debate or dissent, including open discussions about Chad’s past.
The government’s crackdown on freedom of expression and association has at times been violent: after the 2021 re-election of Idriss Déby Itno and his subsequent death, security forces used excessive force, including live ammunition fired indiscriminately, to disperse opposition-led demonstrations across the country. Several protesters were killed. Authorities detained activists and opposition party members, and security forces beat journalists covering the protests.
On October 20, 2022, security forces fired live ammunition at protesters—killing and injuring scores of demonstrators—and beat and chased people into their homes. Hundreds of men and boys were arrested, and many were taken to Koro Toro, a high security prison 600 kilometers away from N’Djamena. Several detainees died en route to the prison, some due to lack of water. At Koro Toro, protesters suffered further abuse, including torture and ill-treatment by other detainees.
In October 2023, dozens of members of Les Transformateurs were arrested in the lead-up to a constitutional referendum to allow Mahamat Déby to run as a candidate.
The period prior to the May 2024 presidential elections was also marred by violence. On February 28, 2024, security forces killed Yaya Dillo, the president of the Parti socialiste sans frontières (Socialist Party Without Borders), during an attack on the party’s headquarters in N’Djamena. More than one year on, the authorities have not clarified the circumstances of his death.
“The Chadian government should be seeking ways to dialogue with the political opposition, rather than shutting them down through the use of intimidation and violence,” Mudge said. “They should immediately release Masra if he is not charged with a valid offense.”
Another Courageous Journalist Jailed in Azerbaijan
“If you are reading this note it is because I have been unjustly jailed for my journalism work. Like my other journalist colleagues, I have committed no crime,” wrote Ulviyya Guliyeva (known as Ulviyya Ali) in a note she wanted to be shared in the event of her arrest.
Last week, Guliyeva became the 25th reporter Azerbaijani authorities have jailed on bogus charges during the past 18 months as they seek to silence critical voices. She is the 11th journalist jailed in connection with an investigation that the government launched against Azerbaijan’s largest exile-based independent media outlet Meydan TV, whose entire newsroom staff has been held in pretrial detention since December 2024.
Authorities had imposed a travel ban on Guliyeva in January 2025, after she was questioned as part of the Meydan TV investigation. In her statement, Guliyeva denied working for Meydan TV while stating that even if she had, this would not constitute a crime.
Known for her independent reporting, Guliyeva was Voice of America’s (VOA) Azerbaijan correspondent until February 2025, when Azerbaijani authorities revoked VOA’s accreditation. Her latest reporting was from the court hearings of Tofig Yagublu, a veteran opposition politician who was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in March 2025, and of journalists from Abzas Media, another prominent and now exiled independent news outlet.
Earlier this month, police searched and ransacked Guliyeva’s flat and claimed to have found money which they said she had smuggled into the country. Later, during interrogation, she was allegedly struck in the head several times by police and threatened with sexual violence to coerce her into handing over her mobile device’s password.
According to her family, shortly after her interrogation, Guliyeva began to vomit repeatedly. She has requested a full medical checkup, including an MRI scan to determine if she has sustained any internal injury, which would require her transfer to a facility with the necessary medical equipment and personnel. The request was pending at the time of this writing.
The authorities claim Guliyeva colluded with Meydan TV reporters to smuggle the money allegedly found in her apartment into Azerbaijan. Guliyeva denies the accusations and a Meydan TV representative has confirmed Guliyeva did not work for the outlet. Nearly all the reporters arrested since November 2023 face similar bogus smuggling charges.
Other freelance journalists arrested in connection with the Meydan TV case include Fatima Movlamli, Nurlan Libre, and Shamshad Aghayev.
Azerbaijani authorities may think that by arresting more journalists who report the facts, they can intimidate journalists and create a pliant media. But all they’ve done is show how much they fear the facts.
Poland Ends ‘LGBT Free’ Zones
Municipal officials in the town of Łańcut, Poland, have abolished the country’s last remaining “LGBT Ideology Free” zone, righting more than five years of political assault on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) people across the country.
Between 2019 and 2024, while the right-wing Law and Justice party was in power, provinces, towns, and municipalities across Poland adopted discriminatory “family charters” pledging to “protect children from moral corruption” or declared themselves free from “LGBT ideology.”
Over time, authorities in one-third of the country adopted anti-LGBT resolutions after the Law and Justice ruling party made “protecting” Poland from “LGBT ideology” a centerpiece of its successful 2019 electoral campaign. Under the resolutions and charters, regional and local governments were to refrain from encouraging tolerance toward LGBT people and cut funds to organizations promoting nondiscrimination and gender equality.
Although legally unenforceable, LGBT activists told Human Rights Watch the “LGBT Ideology Free” zones – in their attempts to stigmatize, exclude, and indirectly discriminate against LGBT people – sent the message that LGBT people were not welcome in these areas. As a gay man in eastern Poland told Human Rights Watch: “In 2020, one of my good friends who had never before had an issue with my sexual orientation suddenly accused me of being ‘an ideology.’”
Courts in Poland pushed back against the zones, defending activists’ rights to document and critique them. Over time, authorities repealed the zones.
The situation in Poland offers a lesson for the region. In recent years, alongside the rise of right-wing populism, there has been manufactured hostility towards the concepts of “gender” and “genderism” in Europe, with opponents labeling it “gender ideology.”
Opponents have weaponized undefined “gender ideology” as a tool to curtail sexual and reproductive rights and LGBT equality by playing on people’s fear of social change and claiming a global conspiracy of great influence and scale.
Some observers refer to “gender ideology” as “symbolic glue,” or an “empty signifier”: it simultaneously means nothing and everything, and is consistently used to attack feminism, equality for trans people, the existence of intersex bodies, the elimination of sex stereotyping, family law reform, same-sex marriage, access to abortion, contraception, and comprehensive sexuality education.
The removal of Poland’s last “LGBT free” zone is reminder of the profound harm such symbolic policies inflict on people’s lives, a lesson that should be heeded across the region and the world.
US: Florida Set to Trample Young People’s Rights
(Miami) – A devastating decision from Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeals would eliminate access to abortion care for young people unable to get written, notarized parental consent, Human Rights Watch and If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice said today. The May 14 opinion moves to strike down parts of Florida law that allow young people to petition a court for permission to access abortion without notifying and getting consent from a parent or legal guardian. The case could end up before the Florida Supreme Court.
The vast majority of Florida youth considering abortion involve a parent in their decision. Those who do not often have no access to a parent or fear that parental involvement will lead to severe consequences, such as physical abuse, loss of housing, family alienation, or forced continuation of a pregnancy against their wishes. The only alternative in Florida law for young people in these circumstances is petitioning a judge for a waiver through the judicial bypass process. This week’s decision moves to eliminate that option.
“Florida’s judicial bypass process has been the only pathway for some young people without parental support to exercise their right to access abortion care without leaving the state,” said Margaret Wurth, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This decision would give unsupportive or even abusive parents unchecked power to block abortion access and force young people to continue pregnancies against their will.”
In the November 2024 election, a majority of Florida voters (57 percent) supported a constitutional amendment to protect the right to access abortion, but it fell short of the 60 percent threshold required to amend the state constitution.
Florida youth face extraordinary barriers accessing abortion care. Abortion is banned after 6 weeks of pregnancy, and patients must make two trips to a clinic – at least 24 hours apart – to access care. Young people under 18 in the state face the added barrier of forced parental consent and notification, or judicial bypass.
A 2023 Human Rights Watch report documented the harms of Florida’s forced parental consent law and called on state legislators to repeal it. Many US states, including New York, Illinois, and New Mexico do not mandate parental consent or notification and enable young people to access confidential abortion care with support from the people they trust.
Youth seeking judicial bypass are often in highly vulnerable and precarious circumstances as they seek time-sensitive abortion care in a restrictive and hostile environment. Judicial bypass is a challenging and burdensome process that poses risks to young people’s safety and confidentiality. Accessing reliable information and legal support can be difficult, and appearing before a judge can be highly stressful and even traumatizing. Young people must demonstrate that they are sufficiently mature to decide to have an abortion without parental involvement, or that involving a parent is not in their best interest. Judicial bypass can involve intimate and invasive questions about highly sensitive topics. Though deeply flawed and highly onerous, it offers an alternative for those facing lasting harm from forced disclosure to a parent or legal guardian.
“No young person should be forced to carry a pregnancy and give birth against their will,” said Jessica Goldberg, Senior Youth Access Counsel at If/When/How. “Making young people who cannot safely include a parent in their abortion decision choose between having the abortion they want, and their safety and wellness is a disgusting and cruel use of state power.”
The case before the appeals court involved a pregnant 17-year-old who wished to get an abortion without involving her parent and petitioned a trial court in Clay County for a judicial waiver. The judge denied the young person’s request finding she did not have “the requisite maturity” to decide to end the pregnancy. Judges in Florida deny far too many young people’s requests for judicial waivers.
Prominent US healthcare associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and others, oppose forced parental consent. The AAP found, “most minors 14 to 17 years of age are as competent as adults to provide consent to abortion.”
The young person and her lawyer appealed the denial. In this case, the appeals court blocked the petitioner from accessing care, by rejecting the young person’s appeal and affirming the lower court’s decision.
The court then made the highly unusual move of inviting the state attorney general to submit an amicus curiae brief in the case. Florida’s attorney general then moved to intervene in the case, joining as an adverse party, and argued that the judicial waiver process conflicts with parents’ constitutional rights. In its ruling, the appeals court invalidated the sections of Florida law providing for judicial bypass and invited Florida Supreme Court review by certifying a “question of great public importance.”
“The court examined a deeply harmful law and made it more harmful and more extreme, by giving no alternative for young people whose parents would oppose or block their decision to end a pregnancy, or subject them to serious and irreparable harm,” Wurth said.
Under international human rights law, parents have rights and responsibilities to care for their children, but young people’s right to health affords them an increasing degree of decision-making autonomy as their capacity evolves, including around access to healthcare services like abortion care. Human rights experts have urged all governments to guarantee the best interests of pregnant youth and “ensure that their views are always heard and respected in abortion-related decisions.” The appeals court decision does the opposite, Human Rights Watch said.
“Requiring written parental consent gives parents complete veto power over a young person’s abortion decision-making while also creating extreme barriers to abortion for those young people who, for whatever reason, cannot get a parent’s consent in writing,” said Goldberg. “Whether a young person can access abortion care or not can determine the entire trajectory of their life.” In recent years, anti-abortion policymakers in Florida have enacted harsh restrictions designed to make it nearly impossible to access abortion care in the state. Though the six-week ban, in effect since May 2024, made it difficult for young people to pursue judicial bypass before reaching the state’s gestational cutoff, data obtained by Human Rights Watch from the Florida Courts show some young people managed to.
“Young people have the right to access abortion care without being subjected to a parental veto,” Wurth said. “Once again Florida leaders are putting young people in harm’s way and playing politics with their lives as they look for new ways to cut off access to abortion care.”
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Sri Lanka’s Tamil Women Await Justice 16 Years Since War’s End
This Sunday, May 18, marks 16 years since the Sri Lankan government defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending an armed conflict that had raged for 26 years. But while the fighting has long been over, the battle for justice for Tamil women victims continues.
Both sides in the conflict committed countless atrocities. Among the victims were female LTTE fighters and other Tamil women captured by government soldiers before being stripped, sexually mutilated, and killed in the conflict’s final weeks. The soldiers even took and kept photos and videos as war trophies. These included prominent images of the LTTE newspresenter Isaipriya, whose body was found having apparently been raped before she was killed.
This kind of state-perpetrated sexual violence against Tamils was not uncommon. During and following the war, security forces sexually tortured numerous Tamil detainees, both men and women.
Successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to hold security force members accountable for wartime sexual violence or for other serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances.
Nor has sexual violence against Tamil women been consigned to the history books. Ongoing militarization across the conflict-affected north and east has again put former LTTE female fighters at risk of sexual abuse and extortion. The wives and mothers of the disappeared, who have led yearslong continual protests for truth and international justice, have faced threats, violence, and sexual harassment.
Due to decades of impunity in Sri Lanka, Tamil victims and advocates have lost faith in the domestic justice system and started looking for justice elsewhere. The United Nations human rights chief has noted the importance of states “using all potential forms of jurisdiction,” including extraterritorial and universal jurisdiction, to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed in Sri Lanka to end “systematic impunity.”
One remaining vehicle is the UN human rights office’s “Sri Lanka Accountability Project,” which gathers evidence for potential prosecutions and other accountability processes. It is due for renewal by the UN Human Rights Council in September, which the Sri Lankan government should support. Its continuation is vital to ensure justice for Sri Lanka’s Tamil victims, including women like Isaipriya and the suffering wives and mothers of the disappeared.
EU Needs Tougher Response to Attack on Turkish Opposition
(Brussels, May 16, 2025) - The jailing by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government of a key political opponent is a blatant repudiation of the rights to political association and participation, 58 rights, media, and legal groups, including Human Rights Watch, said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, whose party was about to nominate him to run for president, was arrested on March 19, 2025.
The organizations called on the European Union to issue an effective and bold response to the Erdoğan government’s major blow to the rule of law and human rights in Türkiye.
“Türkiye as a democratic society based on the rule of law is a fiction as long as the government continues its move to eviscerate the main political opposition,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Today EU leaders will meet alongside President Erdoğan at the European Political Community summit. They need to take a firm stand and make clear that curtailing political rights will come at a cost.”
The groups’ message to the EU comes after the historic May 12 announcement by the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of its decision to disarm and disband, bringing to an end a four-decade conflict with the Turkish state.
The EU should make clear that it expects a reversal of negative rule of law and human rights trends before it can deepen bilateral trade and investment, such as through the modernization of the EU-Türkiye Customs Union sought by Ankara.
Tangible human rights improvement should include Türkiye’s full implementation of European Court of Human Rights judgments, particularly in the cases of politicians Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu and human rights defender Osman Kavala, the groups said. The Erdoğan government needs to immediately and unconditionally release them and fully restore their rights, as well as those of other arbitrarily detained politicians, civic activists, lawyers, journalists, and human rights defenders.
The authorities should also carry out independent and prompt investigations into allegations of torture, and other ill-treatment, violations of fair trial rights and unlawful use of force by police during the recent protests sparked by İmamoğlu’s detention, the groups said.
“EU efforts to pursue the deepening of economic and defense ties without insisting on human rights improvements risks emboldening the authorities’ repressive policies and worsening democratic backsliding,” Williamson said. “Engagement with the Turkish government should be based on clear human rights red lines as a non-negotiable element of bilateral relations.”
UN Security Council Should Renew South Sudan Arms Embargo
As hostilities escalate across South Sudan, the United Nations Security Council should renew its arms embargo on the country. The council should also act to prevent additional weapons from reaching the warring parties and foreign forces from adding to the violations.
In recent months, government forces have attacked populated areas, often using helicopter gunfire and air-dropped munitions, putting civilians at grave risk. In March, Human Rights Watch found that the government had used improvised incendiary bombs that horrifically burned and killed dozens of people, including children, in Upper Nile state, exacerbating an already catastrophic humanitarian situation. The use of incendiary weapons in populated areas may amount to war crimes.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the current hostilities, many to neighboring countries. Humanitarian access remains difficult, with aid organizations facing bureaucratic restrictions and attacks, as evidenced by the recent bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital.
South Sudan has been under a UN arms embargo since 2018. The restrictions prohibit weapons transfers and external military support to the country’s warring parties.
The recent deployment of armed Ugandan soldiers and military equipment in South Sudan was a brazen violation of the embargo, as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported.
The South Sudan government’s house arrest of opposition leader Riek Machar and other opposition members without due process risks returning the country to protracted conflict.
The Security Council should call out Uganda’s violation of the embargo and ensure it is extended for another year to help protect civilians from abusive forces. The council should also press the South Sudanese leadership to ensure that the UN peacekeeping mission, UNMISS, can move freely and safely in the country.
For years, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has called for lifting the arms embargo, eroding support among some states for the UN sanctions. Last year the council only narrowly approved a resolution to renew the embargo until May 31, 2025.
Rather than lifting the arms embargo, which could embolden the warring parties to commit further atrocities, the Security Council should keep it in place and hold violators to account.
Proposed US Budget Bill Will Harm Right to Health
Members of the US House of Representatives are meeting this week to debate a legislative package that would, if enacted as written, have profound negative impacts on human rights in the United States.
It should not become law.
At its core, the bill would reshape how the US government raises and spends money. It would extend and deepen expensive tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy while radically reducing federal support for public services and programs essential for rights. Health care, in particular, is at risk.
Under international human rights law, everyone has the right to health. The US government should ensure good quality health care is available and accessible for all.
The bill under consideration does the opposite. Rather than raising revenues equitably and using those resources to improve health, it would make health care less available, less affordable, and of poorer quality for millions of people.
Medicaid, a public program that provides health insurance to about 80 million low-income people, would take the brunt of this austerity. A report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan governmental research agency, found that the bill’s proposed changes to Medicaid would cause 7.6 million people to lose their health insurance, exposing them to the high costs of drug prices and hospital care. Black and Hispanic families would be disproportionately harmed.
The bill’s language aims at defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides essential health care, like cancer screenings, birth control, abortion services, and testing for sexually transmitted infections. The cuts could force clinics to close or stop providing certain services like obstetric care. Additionally, the bill would end federal funding and health benefit coverage for gender-affirming care for youth on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and for adults covered under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.
The proposed bill would also squeeze savings from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, potentially causing more than 3 million people to lose food assistance, according to CBO estimates.
It would also eliminate environmental health funding. Programs that reduce air pollution, a major driver of poor health outcomes that contributes to deepening racial health inequalities, would be cut. As would public subsidies promoting renewable energy sources in the United States, crucial to ending the climate crisis, which is a massive threat to health.
Taken together, these cuts would threaten the health and lives of millions of people.
Congressmembers should reject these cuts.
Rising Food Prices Deepen Nigeria’s Poverty Crisis
Several West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Gambia, proudly compete over who makes the best “jollof rice,” rice cooked in spicy tomato sauce. But in Nigeria, this cultural staple is becoming a luxury because of soaring inflation, while government support remains slow and inadequate.
Last month, SBM Intelligence, a geopolitical research and strategic communications firm, released its latest SBM Jollof Index. The report, titled “Staple Under Stress,” tracked food costs from September 2024 to March 2025, revealing that the cost of cooking one pot of jollof rice in Nigeria jumped to 25,486 naira (₦) from ₦21,300, a 19 percent spike. Prices of essential ingredients like rice, onions, tomatoes, and peppers have surged.
Nigeria has entered its worst cost-of-living crisis in nearly three decades, according to news and academic reports. The global advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, in its January 2025 Nigeria Budget and Economic Outlook warned that inflation combined with inadequate social protection could push up to 13 million naira Nigerians into poverty this year.
Recovery from economic woes triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic has been stifled by a series of poor policy decisions, including the abrupt removal in 2023 of a fuel consumption subsidy without sufficient compensatory measures.
While it is critical for governments to move away from fossil fuel subsidies, which disproportionally benefit the wealthy and delay the transition to renewable energy, it is equally critical that governments put in place adequate compensatory measures, which allow low-income households to access essentials, such as power, transport, goods, and services that may rise in cost after subsidy removal.
Nigeria lacks a comprehensive, rights-based social security system that guarantees income support across a person’s lifetime. As of 2022, just 14.8 percent of the population had access to at least one social protection benefit.
In October 2023, the government announced a ₦25,000 monthly cash transfer for three months to 15 million households to help cushion the impact of inflation. But so far, only about 5 million households have received payments. A government official told Human Rights Watch that implementation of the program has been slow due to efforts to “improve accountability” by linking the National Social Registry – used to identify “the poorest among the poor”– with the National Identification Number system.
In general, such programs are often costly to administer, prone to high exclusion errors, and burdened with bureaucratic hurdles that end up stigmatizing beneficiaries.
The authorities should instead take steps toward building a universal rights-aligned social security system, backed by clear strategies and progressive funding, to deliver comprehensive support to people.
Only then can staples like jollof rice remain something enjoyed by all, not just a privileged few.
Syria: US Lifting Sanctions Will Bolster Rights, Recovery
(Washington, DC) – US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will remove longstanding sanctions on Syria is a critical step toward improving Syrians’ access to fundamental economic rights and encouraging efforts to rebuild a country devastated by years of grueling conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. The announcement should be followed by concrete executive or legislative measures that remove financial and other sanctions hampering access to rights, including the right to electricity and an adequate standard of living.
Broad sanctions, which remained in place despite the ouster of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, have greatly hindered reconstruction efforts and exacerbated the suffering of millions of Syrians. The European Union and the United Kingdom have already taken steps to ease sanctions on Syria, but the EU should go further by lifting other financial sanctions, including those imposed on Syria’s Central Bank.
“Syria’s economic collapse – due, in part, to US sanctions – has pushed millions into poverty. Now there’s a glimmer of hope,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “President Trump’s recent statements offer Syrians a sense that rebuilding and recovery might be possible, but only if he backs these words with quick, concrete, meaningful actions.”
Thirteen years of conflict and displacement have left much of Syria’s infrastructure in ruins, with entire towns uninhabitable; schools, hospitals, roads, water facilities, and electrical grids damaged; public services barely functioning; and the economy in freefall. Over 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, with at least 9 million unable to access enough quality food; nationwide, an estimated 16.5 million Syrians require some form of humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs. Human Rights Watch previously found that broad sanctions imposed by the US and other nations hindered aid delivery in Syria, despite humanitarian exemptions.
The United States enforced the most severe measures, prohibiting nearly all trade and financial transactions with Syria.
Now, to ensure that sanctions relief meaningfully improves Syrians’ wellbeing and fundamental economic rights, the US and other governments should take measures to:
Restore Syria’s access to global financial systems, including removing sanctions imposed on the Syrian Central Bank;End trade restrictions on essential goods;Remove energy sanctions to ensure access to fuel and electricity.Additionally, sanctions should be lifted in good faith: relief efforts will fall short if they are conditioned on vague, shifting, or politically motivated demands. The failure to lift sanctions and the continued use of sanctions to pressure Syria into fulfilling unrelated foreign policy goals – such as security cooperation or diplomatic concessions – risk turning economic measures into tools of unlawful coercion. Any remaining conditions for sanctions removal should be narrowly tailored, clearly articulated, and rooted in international legal obligations, especially those related to human rights and humanitarian access.
China/Tibet: Panchen Lama Forcibly Disappeared for 30 Years
(New York) – China’s government should free the 11th Panchen Lama Gendun Choki Nyima and his parents, whom Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared on May 17, 1995, and who have not been seen for 30 years, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s religious leader, have historically played key roles in recognizing the other’s successor. As the current 14th Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday on July 6, the question of his succession—and the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people—is becoming increasingly urgent.
“The Chinese government kidnapped a 6-year-old and his family and have disappeared them for 30 years to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama and thus Tibetan Buddhism itself,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned parties should press the Chinese government to end this cruelty and secure the freedom of Gendun Choki Nyima and his family.”
The Chinese government forcibly disappeared the then 6-year-old on May 17, 1995, three days after the Dalai Lama recognized him as the 11th Panchen Lama. Even pictures of Gendun Choki Nyima, along with those of the Dalai Lama, are prohibited in Tibet.
Following the Panchen Lama’s disappearance, the authorities forced another group of monks to identify a different child, Gyaltsen Norbu, whose parents were reportedly members of the Chinese Communist Party, as the official reincarnation.
Authorities also detained Jadrel Rinpoche, the abbot of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery who oversaw the search for the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation, and arrested more than 30 monks from the monastery. Jadrel Rinpoche’s whereabouts and well-being are also unknown, according to the Dalai Lama.
Twenty years after his disappearance, in 2015, the Chinese authorities claimed that Gendun Choki Nyima was “living normally” and “does not want to be disturbed by anyone.”
Over the next decade, the Chinese government tightened its grip over Tibet, which includes the Tibet Autonomous Region and the neighboring Tibetan autonomous areas within Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces.
Since 2008, when a massive crackdown on popular protests swept the Tibetan plateau, Chinese security forces have maintained a heavy presence in Tibet and tightly restricted access and travel to Tibetan areas. Any questioning of government policies, however mild, can result in arbitrary detention or long-term imprisonment, prosecution, enforced disappearance, and even instances of torture. Authorities maintain highly intrusive mass surveillance systems in Tibet, require Tibetans to use Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction in schools, and pressure many to relocate en masse from their long-established villages to new government-built settlements. Authorities also make it extremely difficult for Tibetans to travel abroad or to obtain passports and punish people severely for contacting relatives or others outside the country.
Since 2007, Chinese authorities have imposed regulations limiting the recognition of reincarnate lamas, who include many of the religious leaders in Tibetan Buddhism. These provisions specify that reincarnations may not be recognized without state approval and must be born within China’s borders. High-ranking incarnations must be selected using the “Golden Urn,” an 18th century Chinese lottery system that had scarcely been used by Tibetans until 2007, when the Chinese Communist Party mandated it as the only legal way to select top-ranking lamas.
Since 2009, there have been 160 instances of self-immolation, resulting in the death of 127 Tibetans.
In 2012, the government placed nearly all Tibetan monasteries under the direct control of Chinese government officials who are permanently stationed in Tibet. Since 2018, Chinese authorities have required all monastics to meet the “Four Standards,” including “political reliability” and “being dependable at critical moments.” These standards are believed to involve support for the Chinese government’s choice of the next Dalai Lama and any other reincarnate lama.
Five United Nations human rights mandates, including the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, in a joint statement on the 25th anniversary of the Panchen Lama’s abduction, condemned “the continued enforced disappearance of Gedhun Cheokyi Nyima, and the regulation of reincarnation of Tibetan living Buddhas against the religious traditions and practices of the Tibetan Buddhist minority.”
Enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts.
Various governments and independent bodies, including most recently the European Parliament, have called on the Chinese government to provide information on the whereabouts of the Panchen Lama.
The Chinese government should allow UN monitors, independent human rights organizations, and media outlets unfettered access to Tibetan areas, Human Rights Watch said.
Concerned governments, especially those with significant Buddhist populations, such as Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, and India, should mark the 30th anniversary of the Panchen Lama’s enforced disappearance by speaking out publicly and by asserting the rights of Tibetans to exercise their religious freedom.
“The 30th anniversary of the Panchen Lama’s disappearance provides governments an important opportunity to urge the Chinese government to end its decades of repression of the Tibetan people,” Uluyol said.
Gaza: Latest Israeli Plan Inches Closer to Extermination
(Beirut) – The Israeli government’s plan to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area would amount to an abhorrent escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said today.
Israeli authorities, who have blocked the entry of aid, food, fuel, and medical supplies into Gaza for 75 days, have reportedly decided on a plan that would include “flatten[ing]” buildings and displacing Gaza’s entire population into a single “humanitarian area” if no “deal” with Hamas is reached by mid-May 2025. The dire humanitarian situation stemming from the unlawful blockade and plans to escalate forced displacement and widespread destruction demand a more robust response from other governments and institutions, especially the United States, France, Germany, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Human Rights Watch called on all parties to the Genocide Convention to do more to prevent further atrocities, including ending weapons sales, military assistance, and diplomatic support to Israel, imposing targeted sanctions on Israeli officials, and reviewing and considering suspending bilateral agreements.
“Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza’s 2 million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington,” said Federico Borello, interim executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination.”
The United Nations has warned that Gaza is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the beginning of hostilities. The world’s foremost experts on food insecurity, the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), said on May 12 that there is a “high risk” that famine will occur in Gaza in the coming weeks, with one in five people likely to face starvation. The World Health Organization said on May 11 that Gaza is experiencing “one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” citing a Gaza Ministry of Health report that at least 57 children have died from malnutrition in Gaza since the blockade began. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated in mid-April that Israel’s “policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said at the time: “As long as our hostages are dying in tunnels, there is absolutely no reason to allow even a gram of food or aid.”
According to the Israeli government, 58 Israeli hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza, of whom 23 are believed alive. Palestinian armed groups should immediately and safely release all civilians they detain, just as Israeli authorities should immediately and safely release all unlawfully held Palestinians.
In early May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved a plan dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots,” which it says could start as soon as US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region concludes on May 16. The plan involves forcibly displacing much of the Palestinian population of Gaza while seizing and occupying the territory. “There will be no in-and-out,” Netanyahu announced on May 5. Israel is “finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry and sits on the security cabinet. Smotrich, who has said that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” and its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries,” also suggests these plans should not be adjusted, even if hostages are released.
When coupled with the systematic destruction of homes, apartment buildings, orchards and fields, schools, hospitals, and water and sanitation facilities, as well as the use of starvation as a weapon of war—acts that amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity including extermination, and acts of genocide—these plans trigger the “duty to prevent” under the Genocide Convention. For the 153 states that are parties to it, the duty to prevent genocide arises as soon as a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide may be committed. A definitive determination that genocide is already underway is not required, as Human Rights Watch set out in an April 2025 intervention in a case currently before the UK courts challenging the UK government’s decision to continue to license military equipment used by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Israel and the United States are advancing a new plan to use private military contractors to provide aid only to certain parts of Gaza. In a May 4 joint statement, the UN and aid groups operating in Gaza warned that the plan won’t reach the most vulnerable, “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic,” and “will further entrench forced displacement.” The IPC said the plan is “highly insufficient to meet the population’s essential needs.”
Virtually all of Gaza’s population has already been displaced, while Israeli authorities have pursued forced displacement as state policy, rendering the strip largely uninhabitable. Israeli officials have confirmed that going forward, areas “cleared” by their military would follow the “Rafah model,” a euphemism for the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The Genocide Convention obligates states parties to “employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible.” States that are party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany, risk legal liability for failing to act to prevent genocide in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2007 found that the obligation applied extraterritorially “to a State wherever it may be acting or may be able to act in ways appropriate to meeting the obligation.” The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, which have strong ties with or influence over the Israeli government, have a heightened responsibility to act.
Aid agencies have 171,000 metric tons of pre-positioned food in the region, which would be enough to sustain 2 million people in Gaza for three to four months, but they have not been allowed to enter since March 2, 2025. Bakeries, community kitchens, and relief organizations, including the World Food Programme and World Central Kitchen, have been forced to stop operations because their food stocks ran out. People now spend hours waiting for a few gallons of water or rotten flour. According to the International Water Association, 90 percent of households were struggling with water scarcity in the first half of April, often forced to choose between showering, cleaning, and cooking. That percentage has likely risen because fuel to run desalination plants and water pumps for wells has not entered Gaza since March 2.
Israeli authorities have made it impossible to effectively deliver assistance. Increasing use of evacuation orders has also trapped civilians in enclaves without food or water. According to a survey by Relief Web, 95 percent of the aid organizations operating in Gaza had to suspend or dramatically cut services since the escalation of hostilities on March 18 because of widespread Israeli bombing or onerous Israeli restrictions.
The ICJ has issued three rounds of provisional measures in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Israeli authorities have flouted them all.
Continued weapons sales, military assistance, and diplomatic support to the Israeli government despite overwhelming evidence of atrocity crimes also expose governments and officials to the risk of complicity. Governments should halt arms transfers immediately. They should also support international accountability efforts, including by enforcing the arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch said.
Governments should also immediately review bilateral agreements with Israel, including the EU-Israel Association agreement, which identifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as an “essential element” of the agreement. Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, and Sweden support such a review.
Both the UK-Israel Trade Partnership Agreement and the UK’s 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations should be revised, including removing provisions that shield or attempt to shield Israel from accountability, Human Rights Watch said.
“States that are party to the Genocide Convention committed themselves not just to punish genocide, but also to prevent it from taking place,” Borello said. “Failing to act to stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza and further rendering it unlivable flies in the face of the very purpose of the convention.”
The US Should Protect Exiled Cuban Dissidents
Last week, a group of 14 exiled Cuban dissidents living in the United States sent a letter to the US government and several members of Congress, urging officials to help them obtain legal status in the country. Some of them said they feared deportation.
Among the dissidents is rap singer Eliexer Márquez Duany. Known as El Funky, Márquez is one of the authors of “Patria y Vida,” a song that became an anthem for many protesters in Cuba who took to the streets in landmark July 2021 demonstrations that Cuba’s government severely repressed.
The song, which repurposes the Cuban government’s slogan “Patria o Muerte,” earned global recognition and fierce reprisal in Cuba. While Márquez managed to leave Cuba, two of the song’s other authors, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez, are respectively serving five and nine-year sentences in Cuba, following prosecutions that violated their rights to freedom of expression and association.
In April 2025, Márquez said US authorities denied his permanent residency and ordered that he leave the country within 33 days. He told Human Rights Watch that returning to Cuba would be “suicidal.”
Other dissidents who signed the letter include journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca and human rights advocate Eralidis Frómeta. The pair were given 26 days to leave the United States following the Trump administration’s termination of a humanitarian parole program for nationals of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti.
Valle Roca was jailed in Cuba in 2021 after posting a video of pro-democracy leaflets thrown from a building in the capital. He says he was beaten and put in solitary confinement.
Many other Cuban dissidents, including journalists, artists, and academics, say they remain stuck in lengthy US immigration proceedings and face the risk of being deported or arrested because of their legal status.
The US government should give Cubans and all others fearing persecution in their home country a fair chance to seek asylum in the United States. They should not be deported to countries like Cuba if they risk abuse there.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, should know that well.
Mali’s Junta Further Shutters Political Space
This week, Mali’s National Transition Council adopted a bill that effectively abolishes multiparty politics across the country. The new law officially bans opposition political meetings, speeches, and organizations. The action unfortunately came as no surprise given the ruling military junta’s recent attacks on the political opposition.
The law formalizes a political atmosphere in Mali in which freedom of expression is increasingly restricted. Days earlier, the country’s media regulatory body, Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAC), suspended TV5, an international French-language television network, because the authorities deemed its reporting of the May 3, 2025, anti-junta protests in the capital, Bamako, to be “biased” and “unbalanced.” The HAC also accused TV5 of “defamation of the armed and security forces.”
The new law coincides with the junta’s recent jailing and enforced disappearance of several political opponents, activists, and dissidents.
On May 8, two political opposition leaders, Abba Alhassane and El Bachir Thiam, went missing, sparking fears they may have been forcibly disappeared. Neither have been located, raising concerns for their safety.
Three days later, Abdoul Karim Traoré, the youth president of the opposition party Convergence pour le développement du Mali (CODEM), went missing in Bamako. Like Alhassane and Thiam, Traoré took part in the May 3 protests. He was a witness to and publicly denounced Alhassane’s abduction. International media has reported that Traoré is being held by state security officers.
A day before Traoré disappeared, unidentified men in Bamako assaulted democracy activist Cheick Oumar Doumbia, who also took part in the protests. Pro-junta activists have increasingly called for violence against democracy activists and those who participated in the protest.
And on Monday, Abdrahamane Diarra, the communication secretary for the opposition party l'Union pour la République et la Démocratie (URD), was detained and interrogated by security forces in Bamako. Diarra, a vocal opponent of the dissolution of Mali’s political parties, was later released, but the authorities’ message has become undoubtedly clear: the space for voicing dissent is closing.
These past few weeks have marked dark days in Mali as the military authorities again raise the stakes for activists advocating a return to democratic civilian rule. The junta should instead release those unjustly held and uphold the right to free expression.