All news on the topic: Human Rights Watch

The UK has turned to AI to determine ages of asylum seekers, and other countries are likely to follow suit. Our investigation finds the technology is deeply unreliable.

In a cluster of villages in Pakistan’s largely rural Chakwal district, more than 100 Shi’ite Muslims have returned from the United Arab Emirates without jobs, luggage, or access to the savings they spent years building abroad.

Weeks after a Tibetan-speaking five-year-old started preschool, she had "completely stopped speaking Tibetan", according to her mother.

Frontex reports and a recent BBC investigation have renewed scrutiny of Greece’s Evros border operations, documenting allegations of violent pushbacks in which masked men were allegedly used alongside Greek officers.

BBC Storyworks, the corporation’s commercial division, has partnered with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to produce films and articles highlighting the kingdom’s claimed progress on women’s rights and environmental initiatives, published on a BBC-branded mini-site.

An Istanbul court has restricted public and media access to the mass corruption trial of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a move a prominent rights group said violates Turkish and European law.

A Kyrgyz court freed a prominent investigative journalist after 18 months behind bars, placing her under a travel ban as she awaits a retrial in a case widely condemned as an attack on free speech.

Iranian authorities have arrested tens of thousands of people in what Human Rights Watch described on Tuesday as a “brutal campaign” of mass, arbitrary, and violent detentions aimed at terrorizing the population since late December.

As clashes intensified on the border with Thailand, Cambodian authorities increased their crackdown on journalists and online activists covering the conflict and expressing their views.

A new United Nations force has begun operating in Haiti amid a flurry of media messaging about its mandate to “neutralize” heavily-armed criminal gangs, which have seized control of much of the Caribbean nation in a murderous rampage.

Human Rights Watch has warned that the European Union continues to export vast quantities of hazardous pesticides banned for use inside the bloc — mainly to countries in the Global South — despite evidence linking the chemicals to cancer, infertility, miscarriages, developmental problems, neurological disorders, and even death.

Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was released under a presidential pardon after spending nearly 12 years in and out of prison, following international and domestic pressure.

Ethiopian security forces have detained at least six journalists and media workers since early August, Human Rights Watch said in a report Monday, as press freedom groups warn of a shrinking space for independent reporting ahead of the country’s 2026 elections.

Warring factions in Yemen have turned the country into one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East for journalists, detaining, torturing, and disappearing media workers in a campaign that has silenced reporting and gutted press freedom.

Human Rights Watch warns that Saudi authorities are increasingly using capital punishment to silence dissent, citing recent cases such as the execution of a journalist arrested in 2018 for exposing corruption within the royal family.

The UK’s High Court has dismissed a case filed by campaigners seeking to halt the transfer of all British-made spare parts for US-produced F-35 fighter jets to Israel, stating it lacked the constitutional authority to intervene.

From electrocution to decapitation, migrant workers on Saudi World Cup construction projects face deadly conditions amid a persistent lack of transparency and accountability.

Human Rights Watch cautions that Tunisia is imprisoning critics under ambiguous laws and severe conditions, with many facing imprisonment or death for online posts and political opinions.

Witnesses crossing from Yemen report being fired at with machine guns and seeing decaying bodies.

Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court upheld prison sentences for two journalists accused of inciting mass unrest. This move was condemned by international rights groups as a blatant attack on press freedom.

Human Rights Watch says Clementine De Montjoye’s case raises fresh questions about UK’s asylum seeker scheme

Football superstar Lionel Messi has been criticised for promoting several apps and video games that are part of what Human Rights Watch has described as China's network of censorship and surveillance

A report by Human Rights Watch accused the Government of glossing over serious concerns about Rwanda, where it claims there is 'credible information' of torture and killings

FIFA insisted that last year's World Cup would inspire reform of Qatar's oppressive laws, but that has been rubbished by Human Rights Watch, with LGBT+ people still facing horrendous abuses

At least 27 Americans have been killed so far, according to officials. The Israeli defence minister has vowed to "use every measure at our disposal" in response