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UN Landmines Resolution Highlights Human Rights Impact
(Geneva, April 14, 2025) – The United Nations Human Rights Council’s first resolution on landmines strongly endorses the long-standing international treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines at a critical time, Human Rights Watch said today. The council Resolution 58/22 on “the impact of anti-personnel mines on the full enjoyment of all human rights” was adopted without a vote on April 4, 2025, the International Day for Mine Action and Mine Awareness.
Since March, five European countries have announced their intention to withdraw from the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, while US government aid cuts have disrupted mine clearance operations around the world, putting civilian lives at risk.
“The UN Human Rights Council resolution on antipersonnel landmines, supported by countries from around the world, sends a clear message that these weapons violate fundamental human rights,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Countries contemplating leaving the Mine Ban Treaty should reconsider given the devastating, long-term risk posed to civilians and the global support for the ban.”
The resolution directs the UN high commissioner for human rights to report on the impact of antipersonnel mines “on the enjoyment of all human rights, with particular emphasis on economic, social and cultural rights.” It sets up an interactive dialogue on landmines at the council’s 62nd session in the first half of 2026.
Play VideoAntipersonnel mines are designed to explode in response to a person’s presence, proximity, or contact. They are typically placed by hand, but can also be scattered by aircraft, rockets, and artillery or dispersed from drones and specialized vehicles. They cannot distinguish between soldiers and civilians, making them unlawfully indiscriminate under international humanitarian law.
Uncleared landmines pose a danger until cleared and destroyed. Mined land can drive displacement of the civilian population, hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid, and prevent agricultural activities. A Human Rights Watch report published on April 8, 2025, says that contamination from landmines, cluster munitions, and other weapons used during the 14-year conflict in Syria has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since December 8, 2024.
The Landmine Monitor in its 2024 report found that civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded landmine casualties in 2023, while children were 37 percent of casualties when the age was recorded. The highest number of casualties in 2023 was recorded in Myanmar, where antipersonnel mines have been used by junta forces and opposition, and ethnic armed groups in all 14 Myanmar states and regions, affecting about 60 percent of the country’s townships.
A group of countries from all regions, including Algeria, Croatia, Mozambique, Peru, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Vanuatu, submitted the resolution to the council. The resolution notes the positive efforts of countries, international organizations, and civil society to address the humanitarian impacts of antipersonnel mines through implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, also called the Ottawa Convention. It urges all countries to accede to the treaty and “strengthen their efforts to put an end to the suffering and casualties caused by antipersonnel mines.”
The Mine Ban Treaty, ratified by 165 countries, prohibits use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines and requires parties to destroy stockpiles, clear mined areas, and assist victims. Russia has not joined the treaty and its forces have used antipersonnel landmines extensively in Ukraine since its full-scale invasion in 2022, causing civilian casualties and contaminating agricultural land. Mine Ban Treaty member state Ukraine has also used antipersonnel mines since 2022 and has received them from the United States, in violation of the treaty.
Russia’s war in Ukraine and uncertainty over Europe’s future security are contributing to a difficult environment as five European Union member states are considering leaving the treaty. On March 18, defense ministers from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania announced their governments’ intent to withdraw from the treaty. On April 1, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo of Finland announced that his government is preparing to withdraw from the treaty to “give us the possibility to prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way.”
Withdrawal from the Mine Ban Treaty typically requires formal parliamentary approval by the state party concerned. Article 20 of the treaty explicitly prevents a state party that is engaged in armed conflict from withdrawing before the end of the conflict. Any withdrawal will take effect six months after the denunciation documents are submitted to the UN and the convention’s states parties as long as the country is not engaged in armed conflict at that time.
For over three decades, the United States has been the world’s largest contributor to humanitarian demining, mine risk education, and rehabilitation programs for landmine survivors. But the Trump administration’s deep cuts to foreign aid are now disrupting mine clearance operations. Thousands of deminers have been fired or put on administrative leave pending the completion of ostensible reviews.
Of the 47 current members of the council, 40 have ratified the Mine Ban Treaty. China, Cuba, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, South Korea, and Vietnam have not.
The council resolution says that all states and other relevant stakeholders should cooperate to accelerate demining efforts and ensure inclusive, non-discriminatory, and comprehensive victim assistance. It also urges “coordinated, multi-sectoral efforts” so that the needs of landmine survivors—in particular children, their families and communities—are effectively addressed and “their human rights promoted and protected.”
“Statements by European countries looking to withdraw from the Mine Ban Treaty ignore the reasons they joined the treaty in the first place,” Wareham said. “They should remind themselves why antipersonnel mines have been thoroughly stigmatized for decades and not seek a return of this ghastly weapon.”
Human Rights Watch is a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, and the Cluster Munition Coalition. It contributes to the campaign’s annual Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor reports.
EU-PA Dialogue Should Focus on Palestinians’ Rights
(Brussels, April 14, 2025) – European Union High Representative Kaja Kallas and EU foreign ministers should focus on the protection of Palestinians’ rights during the high-level dialogue with the Palestinian Authority (PA) on April 14, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
In recent months, the PA has escalated its repression of dissent, arbitrarily arresting and torturing critics and opponents with impunity. Following the February 24 EU-Israel Association Council meeting, Israeli authorities have ratcheted up their repression of Palestinians in the West Bank, part of their crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, and are continuing to carry out acts of genocide in Gaza.
“Israeli authorities’ atrocities do not give the Palestinian Authority a free pass to arrest and torture critics and opponents.” said Claudio Francavilla, associate EU director at Human Rights Watch. “The EU should denounce the Palestinian Authority’s abuses, but it won’t be taken seriously unless it ends its own double standards and addresses Israel’s apartheid and acts of genocide against the Palestinians.”
As the main donor to the PA, the EU should press to end arbitrary arrests, mistreatment, and torture. Palestinian security forces arbitrarily arrest critics and opponents and taunt, mistreat, beat, and torture detainees with impunity, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented.
Hamza Zbeidat, 40, told Human Rights Watch that PA police forces arrested him from his home in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem on February 20, hours after he called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to step down in a Facebook post. He said that PA forces “hit me nonstop across my body, cursed at me and yelled, ‘you dog, you animal, we will educate you.’” They placed him in an overcrowded cell and dumped cold water on him on a frigid day, he said. Interrogators questioned him about the post and prosecutors charged him with insulting “higher authorities,” under their restrictive cybercrime law, as well as with assault of an officer during his arrest, court documents show. The PA routinely uses the charge of insulting “higher authorities,” as they also did following a 2021 arrest of Zbeidat for participating in a protest over the killing of a prominent activist by PA forces, and related charges to criminalize peaceful dissent. They released him on February 28, but the charge remains outstanding.
In 2024, the Palestinian statutory watchdog, the Independent Commission for Human Rights, received 231 complaints for arbitrary arrests, including detention without trial or charge, and 124 complaints of torture and ill-treatment during detention by the PA. In an April 2024 report, the commission said it received 1,148 complaints about torture and ill-treatment against the PA, 766 against the police, between 2018 and 2022 and highlighted widespread impunity for these abuses.
Human Rights Watch wrote to PA Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa on February 27 to request updated information about arrests and treatment of detainees but has not received a substantive response.
Between December 5 and January 21, the PA conducted security operations in the Jenin refugee camp in which at least 11 people were killed in December alone. Those killed included security officers, but also at least two children, a journalism student, and an unarmed resident riding a motorcycle, the commission reported. Seven camp residents told Human Rights Watch that amid these operations they often could not safely enter and leave the camp, access to food, electricity, and water was limited, and many homes were damaged. The Palestinian legal organization Lawyers for Justice documented over 200 arrests and abuses, including arbitrary detention, restrictions on access to lawyers, and communication with family, and torture.
On January 21, the Israeli army raided the Jenin refugee camp, which they have controlled since, and displaced more than 16,000 residents, destroyed critical infrastructure, and killed 25 Palestinians.
Amid Al Jazeera’s reporting on the PA operations in Jenin, the Palestinian attorney general on January 1 suspended the international media outlet from broadcasting from the occupied territory, following a ministerial committee’s assessment that it had broadcast “inciting” material and “misinformation, sedition and interference in Palestinian internal affairs.”
On January 5, a Palestinian court restricted local access to several Al Jazeera websites, claiming that their reporting “threaten[s] national security and incite[s] the commission of crimes.” The Israeli government has also banned Al Jazeera and closed its Ramallah office. The bans on Al Jazeera are an alarming escalation by Israeli and Palestinian authorities to restrict media freedom and further limit the spread of information about serious abuses in Israel and Palestine, Human Rights Watch said.
In January, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council wrote to President Abbas about the “numerous violations” they had documented by Palestinian security forces, including “torture, ill-treatment, violations of freedom of opinion and expression, arbitrary arrests and detentions as punitive measures, collective punishments, including holding citizens as hostages, the closure of newspapers, media outlets, and websites … issuance of administrative decisions aimed at intimidating citizens, and failure to respect and implement judicial decisions.”
In March, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documented a “pattern of arbitrary detention and torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including perceived opponents in the West Bank … journalists, human rights defenders and other individuals deemed to be critical” by the PA.” It highlighted accounts by men and boys of “severe beatings” and “prolonged placement in stress positions, threats, and solitary confinement.”
During the EU-Israel Association Council meeting with Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on February 24, EU foreign ministers raised concerns about Israeli abuses against Palestinians, but their calls went unanswered. Israeli authorities again blocked all aid from entering Gaza, in flagrant violation of international law and a genocidal act, and launched renewed airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children, journalists, and paramedics. In the northern West Bank, Israel is increasingly using abusive tactics from Gaza in an escalating campaign.
In July 2024, a groundbreaking ruling by the International Court of Justice found that Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and that Israel is responsible for racial segregation and apartheid – adding to the consensus within the human rights movement. The court stated that Israeli settlements should be dismantled and that no other country – including the EU and its member states – should recognize or support Israel’s occupation, including trading with or investing in the settlements.
In February, 163 organizations and trade unions, including Human Rights Watch, urged the EU to ban trade and business with the settlements. They have yet to receive a reply, and requests for meetings with EU leaders to discuss the matter have been dismissed.
Given Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the governments of Spain and Ireland, numerous organizations, including Human Rights Watch, and Members of the European Parliament have urged the EU to review, with a view to suspend, the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Other calls supported by Human Rights Watch and other groups include suspending arms transfers to Israel, given the high risk of complicity in serious crimes, and support for the International Criminal Court and execution of all its arrest warrants. EU member states, though, are sharply divided and the EU Commission is reluctant to hold Israeli authorities to account.
“Palestinians find themselves between a rock and a hard place, and the EU is supporting both repressive authorities,” Francavilla said. “If the EU really cares about the human rights of Palestinians, it should take long overdue action to hold Israeli authorities to account and stop financing the PA’s machinery of repression.”
EU Border Agency: Use Aerial Surveillance to Save Lives at Sea
(Brussels, April 14, 2025) – Frontex, the European Union’s Border and Coast Guard agency, should ensure that its aerial surveillance capacity is used to save lives at sea, Human Rights Watch said today. The organization met with Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens on April 2, 2025, to deliver an EU-wide petition calling on the agency to take concrete steps that would enable more timely rescues of vessels in distress.
“The shocking death toll in the Mediterranean requires concerted action,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “As an actor at sea, Frontex has a responsibility under international law to use its resources to facilitate rescues that end in disembarkation of rescued people in a safe place.”
Click to expand Image Iskra Kirova, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, in front of the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, April 2, 2025. © 2025 Judith Sunderland/Human Rights WatchOver the last decade, at least 31,700 people have died or been reported missing in the Mediterranean Sea, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than three-fourths of these deaths and disappearances occur in the Central Mediterranean, between North Africa and Italy/Malta, making it by far the deadliest stretch.
The petition calls on Frontex to take clear steps to uphold its EU and international human rights obligations by prioritizing saving lives at sea. The agency should ensure that information about boats in distress sighted by Frontex aircraft is shared with nongovernmental rescue ships in the area. It should issue more frequent emergency alerts that go to all vessels and provide continuous monitoring as much as possible of vessels in distress.
Frontex should address any current constraints on its ability to take these steps, Human Rights Watch said. This includes ensuring it can operate on a broad interpretation of distress that reflects the foreseeable danger facing unseaworthy boats at sea and the positive obligations attached to the right to life.
In December 2024, a group of United Nations agencies, along with the Centre for Humanitarian Action at Sea, called jointly for a “broad understanding of distress,” resulting in a humanitarian and precautionary approach to identifying and responding to distress situations.”
The European Commission has signaled its intention to significantly expand Frontex by tripling its standing corps to 30,000 border guards and to review its mandate in 2026 to increase its role in deportations. Frontex’s size, role, and responsibilities have grown significantly since it was created in 2004. The agency’s mandate was significantly expanded already in 2019 when a revised regulation expanded its tasks and empowered it to have a standing corps of 10,000 border guards. Frontex’s annual budget skyrocketed from €142 million in 2015 to €922 million in 2024.
Any changes to Frontex’s mandate should strengthen rather than dilute its human rights standards, transparency, and accountability, Human Rights Watch said. This would include making sure that providing Frontex assets and services to member states is conditional on a broad definition of distress, cooperation with humanitarian organizations, and monitoring of distress cases and rescue operations.
The petition delivered to Frontex is part of the Human Rights Watch #WithHumanity campaign. Almost 18,000 people signed the petition, with almost half of all signatures coming from Italy, which is on the front lines of rescue-at-sea efforts, with the remaining signatures primarily from France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. Twenty-two nongovernmental organizations supported the initiative. The overall engagement with the campaign reflects strong support for measures to address the appalling loss of life in the Mediterranean Sea, Human Rights Watch said.
A 2022 analysis by Human Rights Watch and Border Forensics of Frontex aerial surveillance concluded that the agency’s practices make it complicit in well-documented abusive and indefinite arbitrary detention and other serious human rights violations in Libya.
While largely abdicating responsibility for search-and-rescue operations since 2017, the EU and its member states have focused on shoring up the ability of countries on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea to patrol their coastlines. Aerial surveillance by Frontex in the Central Mediterranean is part of this strategy: the agency shares the location of migrant boats it spots with relevant EU member states but also with authorities in Libya and Tunisia. This enables interdictions followed by returns to those countries, where migrants face serious human rights abuses.
As an EU agency, Frontex has human rights obligations under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as under the 2019 Frontex Regulation and the agency’s own Fundamental Rights Action Plan. International human rights law obliges Frontex to refrain from violating anyone’s human rights directly and not to expose them indirectly to serious violations of those rights, such as torture, elsewhere. The agency should therefore take steps to mitigate the human rights risks of its intelligence-gathering and border management activities. Frontex is also bound to protect the right to life, including by taking positive steps to prevent loss of life where there are foreseeable threats and life-threatening situations.
“People across the EU are sending a message that no one should be left to die at sea,” Sunderland said. “As warmer weather may see more attempts to cross the Mediterranean, Frontex should act now to ensure it does everything it can to prevent avoidable tragedies.”
Sudan: After 2 Years of War, Global Action Needed
(Nairobi) – Leaders gathering in London on April 15, 2025, should urgently work to protect civilians and guarantee safe, unfettered aid provision as the conflict in Sudan enters its third year, Human Rights Watch said today. The conference, co-hosted by the United Kingdom, the European Union, France, and Germany, takes place as civilians across Sudan continue to face egregious abuses and deliberate harm.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have committed widespread abuses, including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and rampant looting, and destruction of civilian infrastructure since conflict broke out on April 15, 2023. The RSF and allied militias have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in West Darfur. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more injured. An estimated 12.9 million people have fled their homes; half the country’s population faces acute hunger, and famine is spreading.
“For the last two years, Sudan’s warring parties have subjected the population to horrific abuses and suffering, and blocked aid, plunging the country into the world’s worst humanitarian disasters,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “International leaders should ensure that discussions to improve the humanitarian situation go hand in hand with commitments at the highest level to protect civilians.”
Click here to read major Human Rights Watch reports documenting some of the serious civilian harm in the conflictThe UK, as co-host of the conference, should build on past efforts at the United Nations Security Council to advance the discussion on civilian protection. They should ensure that like-minded countries, including from Africa and Middle East, make concrete commitments to protect civilians such as by forming a coalition of countries dedicated to moving this agenda forward and considering options such as the deployment of a mission to protect civilians, Human Rights Watch said.
Participants should also publicly acknowledge the lifesaving role of local responders and health workers, commit to provide them with support and protection, and make it clear that war crimes like attacks on medical facilities and personnel will have consequences.
In recent weeks, the SAF has regained control over areas previously under RSF control. On March 27, 2025, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, SAF’s commander, announced his forces had pushed the RSF out of the capital, Khartoum, which had been largely under RSF control since the conflict’s onset. On March 20, the UN reported that dozens of civilians including local humanitarian workers had been killed in shelling and bombings, and that the RSF had summarily executed people in their homes, while forces from both sides had looted civilian property and aid supplies.
Three volunteers in Khartoum told Human Rights Watch that in the months before the SAF drove the RSF out of Khartoum, the RSF targeted community kitchens in areas under their control, detaining several volunteers, looting food supplies, and imposing so called “protection fees.” The SAF has also intimidated, and arrested volunteers in areas under their control.
On April 3, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned reports of “widespread extrajudicial killings of civilians in Khartoum following its recapture by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on 26 March.”
As displaced people start returning to Khartoum, images are emerging confirming massive destruction of civilian infrastructure and looting of property. International media outlets reported the discovery of an RSF detention center and up to 550 new graves, and former detainees spoke of torture and starvation at the site.
“We came back to Khartoum to find it in ruins,” a 51-year-old woman who returned home to Bahri, Khartoum’s sister city, told Human Rights Watch. “In our neighborhood, everyone lost a relative or neighbor because of the fighting. Some of our neighbors have been missing for months. We found out that people are using a playground nearby as a graveyard because they couldn’t bury their loved ones properly in the cemetery.”
Civilians are still under attack in areas where hostilities continue. For almost a year, incessant fighting in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has killed countless civilians and forced many to flee to Zamzam, a camp for displaced people 15 kilometers away, where famine was first declared last August and which the RSF has repeatedly attacked in 2025. In January, an alleged drone strike on a hospital in El Fasher reportedly killed dozens of people. These attacks forced the UN World Food Programme to pause food distribution there in February. According to the UN, at least 70 children have been reportedly killed or maimed in El Fasher in the last three months alone. Leaders meeting in London should press the warring parties in and around El Fasher to protect civilians, allow safe movement of people and aid in line with their international humanitarian law obligations and the Security Council resolution adopted in June 2024.
During the SAF offensive to recapture Gezira state, which was largely under RSF control between December 2023 and February 2025, SAF and allied militia attacked civilians in the capital city, Madani, and surrounding areas. Human Rights Watch found that the Sudan Shield, an armed group fighting alongside SAF, intentionally targeted civilians and their property in an attack on the village of Tayba on January 10, 2025, killing at least 26 people. The RSF, which has carried out widespread summary killings, rape, and looting in Gezira while the state was under its control, also reportedly continued to attack parts of the state, killing at least 18 people in March 2025.
Aerial bombardments by SAF continue, including an attack on a busy market in Tora, North Darfur, in March 2025 that reportedly killed and injured dozens of people.
Both sides are obstructing aid and continue to target local responders, while funding cuts to humanitarian aid, including those imposed by the Trump administration, have further undermined aid operations including the operating capacity of local responders. UN experts said in June 2024, that both parties are using starvation as a weapon of war. On March 14, 2025, the secretary general of the international medical charity MSF (Doctors Without Borders) told the Security Council that “violence against civilians is driving humanitarian needs.”
Impunity for the crimes in Sudan emboldens abusive forces, Human Rights Watch said. In February 2025, Türk said that “accountability, regardless of the rank and affiliation of the perpetrators, is critical to breaking the recurring cycle of violence and impunity in Sudan.”
Governments should also commit to closing the impunity gap, including by ensuring the necessary political and financial support for ongoing investigations, notably by the International Criminal Court, the UN Fact-Finding Mission, and the African Commission for Peoples’ and Human Rights, as well as pushing the warring parties to allow access to Sudan by independent monitors and investigators.
Another key factor fueling the violence and emboldening the warring parties is the undeterred flow of weapons from external actors. In September 2024, Human Rights Watch documented the use of apparently newly acquired foreign-made equipment in regions of Sudan including Darfur, where a UN arms embargo is still in effect.
Leaders meeting in London should condemn arms embargo violations, including by the UAE, and commit to expanding the UN arms embargo and sanctions regime and to preventing the sale of any arms that could end up in the hands of Sudan’s warring parties.
“Global leaders have a chance to take firmer action to stop the warring sides from carrying out atrocities against civilians and allow aid to flow to those in dire need,” Osman said. “Leaders should provide life-saving aid, provide financial and political backing to local responders, support accountability efforts, and support creation of a global mission to protect civilians.”
China: Police Arrest Tibetans for Internet, Phone Use
(New York) – China’s government has arrested dozens of people in Tibetan areas since 2021 for politically motived phone and internet-related offenses, Human Rights Watch said today. Tibetan journalists in exile report that these arrests typically target Tibetans accused of keeping “banned content” on their phone or contacting people outside China, including relatives.
The full scale of such arrests and prosecutions is unknown, as Chinese authorities do not disclose official data for political offenses. The more than 60 reported cases appear related to an increase in government surveillance during this period, including through mass phone searches and the use of mandatory phone apps with built-in government surveillance, as well as a tightened regulatory regime on data and religion.
“For Tibetans, simply using a cellphone has become dangerous, and everyday activities like posting a humorous video or contacting loved ones abroad can bring arrest, detention, and torture,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Tibetans, particularly those living in remote areas, once celebrated the arrival of cellphones so they could stay in touch with friends and family, but their phones have effectively become government tracking devices.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed relevant cases since 2021 reported by Tibetan exile media, including Radio Free Asia and the Tibet Times, general media outlets, and official Chinese government sources. Human Rights Watch also interviewed residents in Tibetan areas, and a retired official with direct knowledge of the situation.
In many cases, those arrested were accused of keeping “banned content” on their phones or sharing it online. Such “banned content” typically includes references to Tibetan religious figures, particularly the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and expressions of pro-Tibetan sentiment. Chinese authorities have applied the ambiguous language of the law broadly: in one case, a man was arrested for setting up a WeChat group celebrating the birthdays of 80-year-old Buddhist monks. The police said it was “illegal” to form such a chat group “without permission.”
Tibetans have also been arrested for posting content online that the police deem to be promoting the use of Tibetan language and opposing the Chinese government’s language policy in primary schools, which replaces Tibetan with Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction. The authorities have closed down several Tibetan-language websites hosting cultural and educational content since 2020, including the popular Luktsang Palyon blog in April 2024, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported. A leading Tibetan webmaster, Bumpa Gyal, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2022 for engaging in unspecified “illegal activities,” after he offered technical support to Tibetan cultural and education websites.
Chinese authorities have also arrested Tibetans for using their electronic devices to contact people outside China and for sharing information about Tibet abroad. Those arrested have been prosecuted and received lengthy prison sentences for such activities. In 2021, Human Rights Watch documented the arrest of four monks in southwest Tibet who were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for contacting Tibetan monks of the same monastic order living in Nepal.
It is often unclear what happened to people who have been arrested, given the extreme information controls in the region. However, in the few cases where information was available, some of those arrested were imprisoned, mistreated, and tortured. In a particularly egregious case, a 38-year-old monk named Losel from Lhasa’s Sera Monastery was beaten and died from his injuries in May 2024. He had been arrested for allegedly “collecting and sending information abroad,” Tibetan exile media reported.
Many Tibetans have relatives living in exile in South Asia, Europe, and North America. The Chinese government’s intensified security measures following the 2008 Tibetan protests, which put an end to unauthorized border crossings and its discriminatory restrictions on the issuance of passports to Tibetans since 2012, have made foreign travel impossible for most Tibetans. The restrictions and monitoring of internet use and the punishment of users suspected of having contacts outside China mean that Tibetans in China and those in exile now have extremely limited contact.
Many of the Chinese government’s tactics against Tibetans to cut off their communication with the outside world are similar to those being used against Uyghurs, Human Rights Watch said.
The Chinese government should respect Tibetans’ rights to privacy and freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and religion, Human Rights Watch said. The government should allow United Nations monitors, independent human rights researchers, and journalists unfettered access to the region to examine these cases and the general human rights situation.
“Tibetans have not only lost their rights to freely express themselves and to access information, but they are losing even their basic right to communicate with their loved ones,” Wang said. “Even as global communications grow, the Chinese government increasingly seeks to close off and control entire populations.”
Policing the Internet
The Chinese government’s monitoring of people’s online activity is not new. The Ministry of Public Security employsinternet police personnel at provincial, prefecture, and county levels to censor and surveil internet users, while social media companies censor and monitor online content through teams of content moderators in addition to automated restrictions.
In addition, the authorities offer cash rewards to people for informing on one another. This became a formal policing method under the “Anti-Gang Crime” campaign that was adopted in 2018. The campaign has effectively criminalized and eliminated civil society activism in Tibetan areas. A retired senior official of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) told Human Rights Watch in December 2019 that:
In Lhasa residential courtyards and neighborhood committees there are letter boxes, WeChat numbers, and notice boards for reporting people who say things that are not allowed to say, meet people they are not allowed to meet, spread “reactionary” talk they are not allowed to spread.... There are rewards ranging from RMB100 (US$14) to RMB10,000 ($1,400) according to the importance and the quality of the leads provided. The large rewards given to suppliers of major leads are announced in public for all to see.
A six-point public notice from the Qinghai Party Committee’s Internet Information Office in November 2024 offers up to RMB100,000 ($14,000) for tipoffs on anyone writing online who commits offenses from a list that is largely political, starting with “opposing the leadership of the Party.”
In March 2022, the TAR Internet Illegal and Harmful Information Reporting Center received 1,395 reports, of which 35 percent were “politically harmful information,” 26 percent were “harmful information related to Tibet,” and 12 precent were “socially harmful information.” By comparison, “obscene and pornographic information” accounted for 6 percent of reports received.
Increased Manual Phone Searches
Intimidation and random searching of phones by police has been more frequent during security campaigns preceding sensitive anniversaries such as March 10 – the anniversary of the 1959 Lhasa uprising – or major political events in China such as the annual Chinese Communist Party meetings, based on reports. Police search people’s phones either by using phone scanning devices (known as Universal Forensic Extraction Devices, or UFEDs) that allow access to data on people’s phones or by forcing people to unlock their phones. Police have done this at checkpoints in Lhasa and other cities.
The first reports of Chinese police carrying out mass manual phone searches in rural areas of Tibet appeared in Tibetan exile media outlets in mid-2021. According to these reports, police in Sershul county, northwest Sichuan province, detained 117 Tibetans in 2021 for weeks of extrajudicial “political education” after the authorities claimed they had “banned content” on their phones. Since then, there have been several reports of manual phone searches to target Tibetans accused of sending news abroad:
In Drango county, Kandze prefecture, Sichuan province in February 2022, following the demolition of a giant Buddha statue by county authorities despite popular opposition, police conducted mass phone inspections searching for people who had reported this event online.In Derge county, Kandze prefecture, Sichuan province in February 2024, when local protests against dam construction attracted international attention, the authorities shut down internet services and made mass arrests, and police checked people’s WeChat and TikTok accounts to identify Tibetans who had posted reports of these events online.At Taktsang Lhamo monastery, Dzorge county, Ngawa prefecture, Sichuan province in October 2024, after Tibetan monks messaged contacts to say that their monastery school had been closed by Chinese authorities, authorities checked the phones of the monks and confiscated some of them.Human Rights Watch has independently confirmed reports of local police systematically searching cell phones for banned text and images in rural areas in Nagchu municipality, TAR, that were not connected to specific incidents. In November 2021, a rural Nagchu resident told Human Rights Watch that leaders of his village committee ordered residents to gather at the village center to have their cellphones screened by the township police, particularly those of young people who might have “illegal” images of religious signs, content, or songs.
The police said if anyone is caught with such things, “the crime is more serious than killing,” as their family would also be affected. The resident said that this was not new but had been in place for several years, and some young men were detained for having such items in their phones.
Compulsory Download of Government ‘Anti-Fraud’ App
Media reporting on several Tibetan areas found that police have forced Tibetans to download a government app to their phones en masse at security checkpoints and during compulsory meetings, ostensibly to educate the public about online fraud. Official reports describe police and party members being mobilized to visit homes and businesses in Tibetan areas to “promote,” “guide,” and “assist” on the installation of the anti-fraud app, which China’s National Anti-Fraud Center created in 2021.
The research network Turquoise Roof conducted a technical analysis of the app that found that in addition to its stated purpose of countering online fraud and allowing them to report potential scams, the app “grants operators access to sensitive user data or control over key device functionalities, allowing for highly invasive surveillance.” When downloaded to a smart phone, according to the analysis, it can access a user’s data including sensitive personal information, activity logs, private messages, call records including time stamps and contact information, and browser history, all without the user’s consent and knowledge.
The app requires a user to scan their face and their ID card to begin using it, utilizing facial verification technology to compare images, and capturing biometric data that can be networked with other data sources in a large government database with data analytics capabilities to track and monitor people at population scale.
The forced download of the “anti-fraud” app has been reported elsewhere in China. Party workers have publicly complained about having to meet monthly app installation quotas as part of their performance evaluation. Given the severe repression in Tibetan areas, Tibetans have found it more even difficult to refuse to comply with these police orders.
Increasing Online Restrictions on Religion
In March 2022, Chinese internet management regulations banned in the TAR all religious content not authorized by the government. Authorization is granted only to religious teachers considered politically reliable. Many ordinary Tibetans, both monastic and laity, rely on the internet and social media for access to religious teachings and materials, particularly as the government has closely managed physical access to religion.
While similar regulations have been applied nationwide to eliminate religious expression not sanctioned by the state, implementation is particularly strict in Tibetan areas, where Tibetan Buddhism is considered a direct threat to theChinese Communist Party’s legitimacy.
Police routinely question, detain, and criminally prosecute lay believers for circulating religious teachings online, exile media reported. Two women from Sershul county, Sichuan province, known for participating in local prayer meetings and social service initiatives were reportedly forcibly disappeared by police in December 2023, and their whereabouts remain unknown. Also that month, a court sentenced Semkyi Drolma, a young woman from Damshung county, Nagchu municipality, to 18 months in prison for “leaking state secrets.” Sources said her only offense was participating in religiously oriented WeChat groups.
The retired senior TAR official told Human Rights Watch in December 2019 that the authorities have for years subjected monks and nuns to greater online surveillance:
The government monitors the WeChat and social media activity of monks even more strictly than that of ordinary citizens. From what I hear, the internet monitoring units read and listen to each monk or nun’s WeChat individually, and apart from religious services inside the monastery or greeting their relatives, they are not allowed to take or send any photos of monastery sub-police stations, work team personnel, political education meetings, etc.
International and Domestic Law
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – which China signed in 1998 but has not ratified – protect the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and religion.
Both the Universal Declaration and the ICCPR state that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence,” and that “everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference.” Any interference with the right to privacy, including the collection, retention, and use of an individual’s personal data, must be necessary and proportionate, to pursue a legitimate aim, and subject to a clear and public legal framework.
For three decades since the introduction of the internet in China, the Chinese government has promulgated various laws and regulations that broadly prohibit a wide range of content on China’s internet, such as information that “incites subversion” or that “incites splittism,” including activities deemed to promote Tibetan independence. Such overbroad provisions are inconsistent with international human rights protections.
Current Chinese national laws do not meet privacy requirements provided for in international human rights law. The Chinese government has developed an increasingly sophisticated data regulatory regime since 2017, with the enactment of China’s Cybersecurity Law. It then promulgated various laws and regulations, including the Data Security Law in June 2021, and the Personal Information Protection Law in August 2021.
This evolving regime serves several purposes, which include regulating companies’ collection of consumer data, but also tightening government information control under the guise of “protecting national security” – whatever the Chinese Communist Party deems affects its hold on power – without providing meaningful protections against unlawful or abusive government surveillance.
Mozambique: No Arrests in Post-Election Political Killings
(Johannesburg) – Mozambican authorities have failed to conduct credible investigations into the wave of political killings following the October 2024 general elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Unidentified gunmen, some wearing security force uniforms, shot dead at least 10 key opposition party officials from October through March 2025.
Most of the people targeted had been involved in organizing national street protests contesting the election results. They either belonged to the main opposition party, Optimistic People for the Development of Mozambique (Partido Optimista pelo Desenvolvimento de Moçambique, or Podemos) or were supporters of the independent presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane. The police have announced investigations into some of the cases but have not identified or arrested any suspects or provided public updates on the status of investigations.
“The failure of Mozambique’s police to credibly investigate the killings of key opposition members sends a chilling message that the authorities have no interest in bringing those responsible to justice,” said Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Prompt, thorough, and effective investigations and fair prosecutions are needed if these apparently politically motivated killings are to stop.”
Human Rights Watch documented the killings of 10 opposition figures across the country through remote interviews with 21 people, including witnesses, relatives of the victims, journalists, and the police.
In one case, gunmen in a car ambushed Elvino Dias, the lawyer for Mondlane and the Podemos party, and Paulo Guambe, a Podemos election official, in Maputo and shot them dead. The other cases, most of them Podemos party officials and supporters, were similar.
On October 24, Mozambique’s election commission declared Daniel Chapo and his ruling party Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, or Frelimo) the winners of the country’s October 9 general elections. The elections were marred by political killings, widespread irregularities, and tight restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.
The opposition Podemos party contested the election results in nationwide demonstrations. Security forces cracked down on the protests, killing over 300 people and injuring hundreds more. Podemos submitted a report to the Office of the Attorney General alleging that more than 100 party members were killed and alleged that the police planned and carried out the killings.
Victims’ relatives and lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they regularly reached out to police for details of the investigations but did not receive any indication that there was any investigation under way or that authorities had identified a suspect in any of the cases. No updates were provided to family members or the public.
International human rights treaties to which Mozambique is party, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, obligate the government to investigate and prosecute alleged violations of human rights and provide appropriate remedies to victims.
The Southern African Development Community, the African Union, concerned governments, and major developmental partners of Mozambique should call on the government to ensure that there is a thorough investigation into the post-election violence, including apparent politically motivated killings, and fairly prosecute all those responsible, Human Rights Watch said.
“Impunity for attacks against political rivals encourages further political violence and undermines democratic governance,” Budoo-Scholtz said. “The Mozambican authorities should order a serious and impartial investigation into abuses before, during, and since the October elections and hold all those responsible to account.”
For further details on politically motivated killings documented by Human Rights Watch, please see below.
The protests following the October 2024 elections in Mozambique drew thousands of people contesting their results as well as the rising cost of living and other social problems. They forced the temporary closure of banks, schools, and shops in Maputo and other cities. The media reported extensive looting and vandalism and cases of protesters killing police officers and destroying state and private structures and offices of the ruling party, Frelimo, across the country.
Security forces were implicated in serious human rights abuses, including the unlawful killing of over 300 protesters and bystanders, among them children. Security forces have also injured hundreds of people and arbitrarily detained thousands of others.
Opposition parties have alleged that agents of the National Criminal Investigation Service (Serviço Nacional de Investigação Criminal, SERNIC) have gone from house to house assaulting people accused of organizing demonstrations. Podemos alleged that 106 of its members and supporters have been murdered since the protests began.
The local monitoring group Plataforma Decide documented at least 18 killings of prominent opposition members across the country as of March 25.
Apparent Politically Motivated Killings Since October 2024
Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe, in Maputo
On October 18, 2024, after 9 p.m., unidentified gunmen shot dead Elvino Dias, the lawyer for the Podemos party and independent presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, and Paulo Guambe, a Podemos election official, in Maputo. A 27-year-old witness told Human Rights Watch that gunmen in civilian clothes, driving a white Mazda BT-50, ambushed the victims’ car as it made a turn onto Joaquim Chissano Avenue, firing several shots from what appeared to be Kalashnikov-style assault rifles. The Center for Democracy and Human Rights and the media reported that 25 bullet rounds were fired at the vehicle.
The police said the two men died at the scene. The attack drew worldwide condemnation, including from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Following the attack, SERNIC reportedly confiscated the CCTV cameras from banks and an embassy near the scene, allegedly to assist with investigations. During a news conference on November 22, a SERNIC spokesperson said an investigation was underway, but no one has been arrested or charged with the killings, and there has been no public update on the status of the investigation.
Eugénio Raúl Madeira, in Zambezia Province
On December 22, in the early hours of the morning, unidentified gunmen fatally shot Eugénio Raúl Madeira, the Podemos mobilization secretary for Mocuba district, in Zambezia province, near his house. A friend of Madeira who witnessed the attack told Human Rights Watch that a white Toyota vehicle with tinted windows and without a license plate approached the square, as Madeira and others prepared to start their workday as moto-taxi drivers. The friend said that someone fired two bullets from inside the car, striking Madeira in the head:
We were positioning our motorbikes to start the day when this Toyota approached slowly. I initially thought it was a client, but I then realized the car didn’t have a license plate. While I was still trying to figure out what was happening, the window of the front passenger seat opened, a pistol emerged and fired two bullets straight at Eugénio’s head. He died there.
Madeira and another Podemos official, Xadreque Francisco, had been the party’s focal points in Mocuba district and leaders of the protests there. During a violent protest in November, Zambezia provincial police had accused the two men of acts of vandalism.
Four days after Madeira’s killing, three gunmen in civilian clothes broke into Francisco’s house early on December 22 and fired several shots, wounding him, the media reported.
Abudo Bacar Lawia, in Cabo Delgado Province
On the evening of January 3, 2025, Abudo Bacar Lawia, the chef mobilizer of the protests in the Montepuez district of Cabo Delgado province, was gunned down outside a friend’s house. The friend said that at about 8 p.m., as they stood by the gate of the compound, two men approached wearing the uniforms of the communal militia, a government-organized local counterterrorism force.
“We didn’t suspect them because we thought they were doing their normal night patrolling of the town,” the friend said. “Then suddenly I heard gunshots, and I lost consciousness. … I woke up at the hospital where I was treated for a gunshot injury [in the shoulder].”
Two witnesses, a friend of Lawia and a police officer, said that Lawia died after being hit in the chest by two bullets fired from a pistol.
Before his death, Lawia had received death threats in messages and phone calls, a relative told Human Rights Watch. “He was an open supporter of VM [Venâncio Mondlane] and didn’t shy away from leading and organizing protests,” he said. “Police officers warned him several times that he would be targeted one day, but he didn’t care.”
On January 6, a police spokesman for Cabo Delgado confirmed that the investigative police had collected evidence from the crime scene and that a criminal file had been opened. Human Rights Watch contacted the Cabo Delgado police spokesperson on February 7 via text message seeking an update on the status of the investigation. The spokesperson referred Human Rights Watch to her superiors, but the Cabo Delgado police did not respond to Human Rights Watch calls.
Rachide Eduardo, in Cabo Delgado Province
Rachide Eduardo was shot and killed on January 6, at about 6 p.m., at his home in Ntutupue town, in the Ancuabe district of Cabo Delgado province. Eduardo was a Podemos party leader in Ntutupue and had helped organize and lead various anti-government demonstrations across the district. He was a close friend of Arlindo Chissale, a journalist actively supporting the opposition candidate, who was allegedly forcibly disappeared on January 7 by a group of men, three of whom wore military uniforms.
A neighbor of Eduardo said that on the night of his death, he heard several gunshots coming from inside his house. He saw two men quickly leave the premises and enter a Mahindra pickup vehicle, like those used by Mozambican security forces. He said:
I saw the car parked for about an hour outside Rachide’s house. It wasn’t the first time. Every now and then, that car would park in different places along our road. Sometimes the occupants wore uniforms … that dark green uniform like UIR [Unit of Rapid Intervention]. On the day they killed Rachide, the two assassins were wearing plain clothes.
Sande Antonio, in Sofala Province
Sande Antonio, 30, a Podemos party delegate in Sofala province, was shot dead at his home in Buzi town, in the early hours of January 16. A Podemos official, Vale Magalhaes, told the media that at about 1 a.m. that day, Antonio sent a text message saying that police officers had surrounded his home. When Magalhaes tried to phone Antonio, no one answered. He said he later received the news that unidentified gunmen had shot Antonio three times, “one [bullet] in his head, one in the chest, and another in the back.”
A journalist who had interviewed Antonio on several occasions said that the politician had fled his home for a safer location after he started receiving death threats for denouncing ballot stuffing during the elections.
The journalist said Antonio returned to his home on January 15 because he believed that it was safe to do so since Chapo had been sworn into office as president.
As of March 26, police had not made any public comments about Antonio’s killing. One of his relatives said that the police had informed the family that a criminal investigation had been opened and that they were trying to trace the gunmen, but no further information was provided.
Daniel Guambe and Rafito Sitoe, in Inhambane Province
On March 8, at about 10 p.m., two gunmen stepped out of their car carrying Kalashnikov-style assault rifles and fired at least seven bullets at an Isuzu vehicle transporting two prominent Podemos members, Daniel Guambe, 28, and Rafito Sitoe, 21, in Massinga village, Inhambane province, various sources reported. Members of the community tried to rescue the men, but they died on their way to the hospital, Podemos confirmed in a statement. Days before the fatal attack, Sitoe and Guambe had led the preparations for a surprise visit by Mondlane to Massinga on February 26, a party official told Human Rights Watch. The police have yet to publicly comment on the killings.
Ivo Armando Nhantumbo and João de Deus Nhachengo, in Inhambane Province
On March 15, local residents found the bodies of Ivo Armando Nhantumbo and João de Deus Nhachengo, two well-known Podemos members and Mondlane supporters, in Inhambane province, media reported. Plataforma Decide reported that the body of Nhachengo had three bullet wounds to the chest, while Nhantumbo had one bullet wound to the head and his genitals had been cut off.
The Mozambican police have yet to publicly comment on the killings of Nhachengo and Nhantumbo. On March 21, the spokesman for the General Command of the Mozambican Police, Orlando Mudumane, told Human Rights Watch that “authorities are concerned about the killings, and investigative units are on the terrain searching for the perpetrators of the crimes.”