Human Rights Watch

Latest Stories

FILE - In this March 21, 2018, file photo, Marip Lu sits in her family's shelter in a refugee camp in northern Kachin State, Myanmar. Marip Lu, 24, claims she was kidnapped by traffickers and suffered six years of captivity, rape and abuse deep in China. A human rights group says the governments in Myanmar and China are failing to stop the brutal trafficking of young women from the conflict-ridden Kachin region for sexual slavery. (AP Photo/Esther Htusan, File)

Report: Myanmar, China failing to stop ‘bride’ trafficking

By ELAINE KURTENBACH - Associated Press

FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2017 file photo, a Kurdish security officer orders a displaced man from Hawija to sit down as they try to determine if the men being held were associated with the Islamic State group, at a Kurdish screening center in Dibis, Iraq. In a report released Wednesday, March 6, 2019, Human Rights Watch said Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional Government authorities have charged hundreds of children with terrorism for alleged affiliation with IS, often using torture to coerce confessions. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen, File)

Group: Iraq is torturing children to coerce confessions

By ZEINA KARAM - Associated Press

Report slams Colombia for promoting officer tied to slayings

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO - Associated Press

FILE - In this April 20, 2018, file photo, then Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn speaks during an interview in Hong Kong. Carole Ghosn, the wife of Nissan's former chairman Ghosn, has written a letter to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, criticizing his long detention and Japan's criminal justice system as unfair and harsh. Her letter describes how prosecutors interrogate prisoners without a lawyer present in an apparent effort to get a confession - conditions that are routine for suspects in Japan. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Ghosn’s wife slams Japan detention as ‘draconian’ in letter

By YURI KAGEYAMA - Associated Press

FILE - In this April, 18, 2018, boats cruise along Tumaco in southern Colombia. An investigation by Human Rights Watch found former guerrillas are waging a brutal campaign of violence in the port city of Tumaco fueled by booming coca production, a lack of basic infrastructure and disillusionment with peace. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

Report: Dissident rebels fuel violence in Colombia port city

Associated Press

FILE - These two undated file photos provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) show sisters Rotana, left, and Tala Farea, whose fully clothed bodies, bound together with tape and facing each other, were discovered on on the banks of New York City's Hudson River waterfront on Oct. 24, 2018. The apparent suicide the sisters highlights the often secretive and risky attempts by Saudi women trying to flee abusive families. (NYPD via AP, File)

Saudi sisters’ tragic end in NY shows perils for runaways

By AYA BATRAWY - Associated Press

Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director, adjusts his glasses during a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. North Korean refugees say sexual violence against women in their former homeland is part of daily life. But a new report suggests there’s little chance that abused women in the North will get to say “MeToo” anytime soon. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

North Korea women suffer serious sexual abuse but no ‘MeToo’

By Hyung-jin Kim - Associated Press

In this Monday, Oct. 22, 2018 photo, Taghreed Abu Teer, recalls being held by Hamas authorities for 11 days and interrogated under “humiliating circumstances” for her activities with the rival Fatah movement during an interview with The Associated Press at a relative's home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. In a report released Tuesday, the New York-based watchdogHuman Rights Watch accused Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip of crushing dissent through routine torture, arbitrary arrest and other tactics. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Human Rights Watch: Palestinians crush dissent with torture

By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH - Associated Press

Key groups urge Turkey to seek UN probe of missing Khashoggi

By EDITH M. LEDERER - Associated Press

FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2018 file photo, a police officer stand guards at a newly established Ebola response center in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. The international community is sounding new alarm after three Red Cross workers were attacked while trying to contain the latest deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo. The U.N. Security Council seeks an immediate end to hostilities as it leaves for a Congo visit on Thursday, Oct. 4. Armed groups are active in the region and fearful residents have been aggressive toward health workers. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, file)

Alarm as Red Cross workers attacked in Congo Ebola efforts

By CARLEY PETESCH - Associated Press

FIEL - In this Aug. 21, 2018, file photo, ethnic Chinese woman Meiliana weeps during her sentencing hearing at a district court in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. A rights group says the Indonesian woman imprisoned for blasphemy after complaining about noise from a mosque is sharing a cramped cell with 16 other women and given “terrible” food. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara, File)

Indonesia blasphemy woman endures cramped cell, bad food

Associated Press

Watchdog accuses Yemen rebels of taking hostages, torture

By SAMY MAGDY - Associated Press

HRW: At least 16 children among kidnapped by IS in Syria

Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2018, file photo, Rohingya Muslim women with their children stand in a queue outside a food distribution center at Balukhali refugee camp 50 kilometers (32 miles) from, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. The human rights group Human Rights Watch is calling on Bangladesh's government to abandon controversial plans to relocate Rohingya refugees to a small, uninhabited island said to be at severe risk of serious flooding. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

Human rights group opposes moving Rohingya to island camp

By JERRY HARMER - Associated Press

Rights group calls on Iraq to declare detention centers

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN - Associated Press

FILE - In this March 5, 2009 file photo, workers on tractors harvest soybeans in Campo Novo do Parecis, in Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Human Rights Watch released a report on Friday, July 20, 2018 saying Brazil is one of the largest consumers of pesticides in the world and that the nation isn’t doing enough to protect people from the hazardous products. (AP Photo/Maurilio Cheli, File)

Human Rights Watch urges Brazil to regulate pesticides more

By SARAH DiLORENZO - Associated Press

FILE - In this March 13, 2018 file photo, Ziad Itani, a Lebanese stage actor, who was indicted on charges of collaborating with Israel and drug possession, shouts as he speaks with journalists after he was released by Lebanese authorities, at his house, in Beirut, Lebanon. The New York-based Human Rights Watch called on Lebanese authorities to investigate allegations of torture made by Itani. The watchdog said Monday, July 16, 2018, that the case of Itani is a test for whether the law criminalizing torture, passed in November, will end impunity for security officials. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

Lebanon must investigate torture claims by actor, HRW says

By The Associated Press - Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and First Vice President of the Russian Football Union Nikita Simonyan, left, listen to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, back to a camera, during a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, July 6, 2018. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Column: Infantino fawns over Putin, politicizes soccer body

By ROB HARRIS - Associated Press

In this file photo released early Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017, by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian security force members check human remains at the site of two mass graves believed to contain the bodies of civilians and troops killed by the Islamic State militants, in the village of Wawi near the northern city of Raqqa, Syria. International watchdog Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday, July 3, 2018, that a local group working to uncover mass graves in Syria's northeastern provinces until recently controlled by Islamic State militants needs international support. (SANA via AP, File)

Watchdog: Syrian group uncovering ISIS mass graves needs help

By Bassem Mroue - Associated Press

This Monday, April 23, 2018 photo, Syrian refugee children play outside their family tents at a Syrian refugee camp in the town of Bar Elias, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. A leading international rights group and the U.N.'s refugee agency say Lebanese authorities have been evicting Syrian refugees from towns and camps in Lebanon without any legal basis. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Seeking aid abroad, Lebanon uproots Syrian refugees

By PHILIP ISSA - Associated Press