Click to expand Image Children play at the LEA Primary and Secondary School Kuriga two days after 287 students were kidnapped, Kuriga, Kaduna State, Nigeria, March 9, 2024.  © 2024 Sunday Alamba/AP Photo

Various armed groups have kidnapped hundreds of people, including 287 schoolchildren, across northern Nigeria in a series of alarming attacks since late February. The kidnappings are the latest indication of Nigeria’s spiraling security crisis, as communities continue to face severe threats from Islamist insurgents like Boko Haram in the country’s northeast and other criminal groups in the northwest.

On February 29, suspected Boko Haram insurgents abducted over 200 internally displaced people, many of them children, in the Ngala Local Government Area of Borno State.

Then, on March 7, criminal gangs known as “bandits” kidnapped 287 students, including many girls, at the government secondary school in Kuriga town, in northwestern Kaduna State. Two days later, bandits broke into a boarding school in Gidan Bakuso village in Sokoto State and kidnapped 15 children as they slept.

The abductions have continued. Most recently, on March 18, over 87 people were reported to have been kidnapped in Kajuru community in Kaduna State.

Mass kidnappings by insurgents and other criminal groups have been a problem across the country’s northern regions since Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014, an atrocity that garnered wide international attention.

Government security forces have said they are working to obtain the safe release of the victims but face difficulties reaching remote forest areas where they are being held. Bandits have demanded 1 billion naira (about US$600,000) as ransom for the schoolchildren kidnapped in Kaduna, but Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed that no ransom be paid.

The Nigerian authorities should seek the safe release of those kidnapped, put in place adequate measures to prevent more kidnappings, particularly of vulnerable students, and hold perpetrators to account. 

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 18, 2024, 9:38 pm
Click to expand Image A makeshift memorial for the dozens of Indigenous children who died more than a century ago while attending a boarding school that was once located nearby at a public park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 1, 2021.  © 2021 AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File

From 1819 to 1969, the United States federal government funded and operated 408 known “Indian boarding schools” with the express intent to “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” The government systematically and forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families and communities, violating their human rights. Now, Native advocates, survivors, and members of the US Congress have reintroduced a federal bill that would establish a Truth and Healing Commission to examine the full range of harms from the boarding school system.

These boarding schools were established to separate, including by violence, Indigenous children from their families, communities, cultures, and land, with the goal of cultural decimation and land dispossession. Hundreds of thousands of children were removed from their communities because of this policy. Once at the schools, Indigenous children were often subjected to forced labor, sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, starvation, and death. The schools were operated by religious institutions in collaboration with the US federal government. When perpetrators killed children, the children were often buried in unmarked graves. These deaths were hidden, and the extent of abuse is yet to be uncovered, though the US Department of the Interior predicts the number of children killed will be “in the thousands or tens of thousands.”

Individual Indigenous children were deprived of their rights to life, health, security, family, religion, and education, among other rights. And Indigenous communities were deprived of many rights, including their rights to culture, language, family, security, and religion.

The legacy of this harrowing system that continued for more than a century reverberates through every Indigenous person in the United States. Advocates, survivors, and communities face intergenerational trauma, higher rates of poverty, and loss of language, land, traditions, and culture. Despite this, Indigenous communities in the US remain culturally distinct, resilient, and sovereign.

Through Senate Bill 1723 and House Bill 7227, an Indigenous-led step towards justice, Native advocates are demanding the United States take this step toward justice and healing. Under the bills, a new federal commission would examine the location of missing children, document the impacts of boarding school policies, hold culturally appropriate public hearings to collect testimony from survivors and descendants, and provide a list of recommendations for further healing. Congress should pass the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Act.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 18, 2024, 4:25 pm
Click to expand Image Crepin Mboli Goumba (right) with his defense team after he is provisionally released from the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry (OCRB) in Bangui, Central African Republic, March 6, 2024. © 2024 Private

“They held him there to send a message to the rest of us: be careful, or else.” A human rights activist from the Central African Republic said this to Human Rights Watch after Crépin Mboli Goumba, a prominent political opponent, was arrested and sent to a police unit notorious for torture, executions, and shooting suspects on sight.

On March 3, Mboli Goumba was arrested on charges of contempt of court after a press conference during which he accused four judges and the minister of justice of corruption, offering documentation to support his accusations and asking authorities to investigate.

Instead of a police station in the city, Mboli Goumba was taken to the headquarters of the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry (Office Central de Répression du Banditisme, OCRB), a police unit created in the late 1990s to address a rise in banditry that developed a notorious reputation for abuse. In 2016, Human Rights Watch released a report outlining how members of the OCRB unlawfully executed at least 18 people and possibly more between April 2015 and March 2016.

For the past two years the Central African Republic’s ruling party, the United Hearts Movement (Mouvement Cœurs Unis) and its supporters have waged a crackdown on civil society, media, and the political opposition. Since the idea for a constitutional referendum to remove presidential term limits first surfaced in 2022, governmental institutions, including police, have threatened civil society advocates, accused them of collaborating with armed groups, and prevented opposition protests.

Mboli Goumba was not mistreated at the OCRB, but if convicted, he could face up to 2 years in prison. He told Human Rights Watch that OCRB officials said his case was “tied to politics.”

Mboli Goumba was provisionally released on March 6 and had his first appearance in court last week. While the trial was postponed for a week, his initial detention at the OCRB sends a clear message: tough times lie ahead for opponents and critics.

 

 

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 18, 2024, 1:30 pm
Click to expand Image A young girl in her pre-primary class in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 2022, Uzbekistan hosted the World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education.  © 2023 Bede Sheppard / Human Rights Watch

This year, at the United Nations’ top human rights body in Geneva, there are signs of a potential giant leap forward, with growing hopes for new legal recognition of every child’s right to free education, from pre-primary through secondary education.

On March 20, the Dominican Republic, along with other states including Luxembourg, Sierra Leone,  Colombia, Panama, Nauru, Bulgaria, and Romania, together with Human Rights Watch, Plan International, and Girls Not Brides will convene countries at the Human Rights Council to discuss the immediate need for a new legal instrument. They will emphasize the critical intersection between free preprimary and secondary education and human rights, with a particular focus on empowering girls and women.

Globally, nearly half of all children are not enrolled in preprimary education, with only 2 in 5 children in low- and lower-middle-income countries attending such programs. Additionally, only 45 percent of children completed secondary school in 2021. For too many children, the cost of preprimary and secondary education remains a significant barrier to attendance. Global failure to universalize free access to the full cycle of education perpetuates poverty and inequality and hinders societal progress and development.

Yet many low- and middle-income countries are making significant strides to provide more free education. Countries like Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Nepal, and Sierra Leone, among at least 110 worldwide, have legislation that guarantees at least one year of free preprimary education and free secondary education.

But international human rights law has not kept pace with this progress. For example, the UN’s children’s rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, does not obligate states to provide free secondary education on the same immediate basis as primary education, nor does it explicitly reference early childhood education. This discrepancy is spurring growing global support for enshrining these rights into a new legal instrument, a fourth optional protocol to the convention. In turn, new international law could propel further implementation of free education in countries where fees are still charged.

It is imperative that other states rally behind this initiative. Together, they can guarantee that every child can learn and fulfill their potential, laying the groundwork for a more just and equitable future.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 18, 2024, 4:00 am
Click to expand Image Nitasha Kaul, professor at the University of Westminster in London, during an Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation Subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, October 22, 2019.  © 2019 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

(New York) – Indian authorities are revoking visa privileges to overseas critics of Indian origin who have spoken out against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s policies, Human Rights Watch said today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi often attends mass gatherings of diaspora party supporters in the United States, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere to celebrate Indian democracy, while his government has targeted people it claims are “tarnishing the image” of the country.

The Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) status is available to foreign citizens of Indian origin or foreigners married to Indian nationals to obtain broad residency rights and bypass visa requirements, but does not amount to citizenship. Many of those whose OCI visa status was revoked are Indian-origin academics, activists, and journalists who have been vocal critics of the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian ideology. Some have challenged their exclusion in Indian courts on constitutional grounds seeking protection of their rights to speech and livelihood.

“Indian government reprisals against members of the diaspora who criticize the BJP’s abusive and discriminatory policies show the authorities’ growing hostility to criticism and dialogue,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities seem intent on expanding politically motivated repression against Indian activists and academics at home to foreign citizens of Indian origin beyond India’s borders.”

The BJP-led government has in recent years become more cautious about the visa status for overseas Indians. In 2021, the government downgraded the privileges of the 4.5 million OCI cardholders by re-categorizing them as “foreign nationals,” and requiring them to seek special permission to carry out research and journalism, or visit any area in India listed as “protected.”

Over the past decade, the government has canceled over 100 permits and deported some status holders for allegedly showing “disaffection towards the Constitution.” This has heightened concerns for OCI cardholders whether living in India or abroad, many of whom have older parents and other strong personal ties to India.

In 2022, after the authorities revoked his status, Ashok Swain, an Indian-origin Swedish academic, appealed to the Delhi High Court, which quashed the order, stating that the government had not provided any reasons for its action. In July 2023, the Indian consulate in Sweden sent Swain a fresh order canceling his OCI status because of his social media posts “hurting religious sentiments” and “attempting to destabilize the social fabric of India,” without providing specific evidence to substantiate those allegations.

When Swain challenged the order in September 2023, the authorities claimed they had received “secret” inputs from security agencies. In February 2024, Swain’s X (formerly Twitter) account was blocked in India and subsequently hacked.

“My case has been used as an example to scare or to force other academics outside India to not be critical of the regime,” Swain told Human Rights Watch. “They want to create fear because people want the opportunity to go back to the country.”

Indian authorities have also prevented academics who are OCI cardholders from entering the country. On February 23, the authorities barred Nitasha Kaul, a British professor at the University of Westminster in London, from entering India to attend a conference on the constitution. Kaul said immigration authorities did not provide any reasons but a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson later said in response to questions about her case that “the entry of foreign nationals into our country is a sovereign decision.” Unidentified government officials also told the media that Kaul had “shown animus” toward India, which she has denied. Kaul has been a vocal critic of the BJP and its affiliated groups, and in 2019 she testified before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs about human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kaul told Human Rights Watch that she has received numerous rape and death threats online from pro-BJP trolls in India and overseas. “In addition to this, they have called me jihadi and a terrorist,” she said. “There has been a vast amount of deliberate disinformation suggesting that because my work is critical of the ruling party in India, that makes me pro-Pakistani.”

In some cases, the authorities have openly cited criticism of BJP government policies as evidence to revoke the visa status. In response to a petition by a British activist, Amrit Wislon, challenging her cancellation, the government cited her social media posts about Kashmir and her article condemning the police’s excessive use of force against protesting farmers in 2020 and 2021.

Indian authorities are increasingly using what appear to be politically motivated tactics against the around 25 foreign reporters with OCI status working in India as of January 2024, embroiling them in opaque bureaucracy or simply denying them permission to continue reporting.

Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who had lived in India for 22 years, said she left the country after the Ministry of Home Affairs sent her a “show cause” notice in January, saying it intended to cancel her OCI card because she did not have a permit to work as a journalist and her news reports created a “biased negative perception of India.” Dougnac was denied permission to work as a journalist in 2022, and said the ministry had not responded to her “repeated requests” for an explanation or review of its decision.

In 2023, the authorities revoked the OCI status of an American journalist shortly after the journalist published a report about criminal actions by an Indian company. The journalist, who did not wish to be identified, told Human Rights Watch: “No specific allegation was made against me, and no evidence has been produced despite several requests.”

In 2022, the authorities deported the American-Sikh journalist Angad Singh. After Singh brought a lawsuit challenging the decision, the government told the Delhi High Court that he “presented a very negative view of India’s secular credentials” in a 2020 documentary about the 2019-20 protests against the country’s amended citizenship law.

Foreign writers, journalists, academics, and activists have been increasingly denied access to India for seemingly political reasons, Human Rights Watch said. In March 2022, British anthropologist Filippo Osella, who had visited India regularly for over 30 years, was turned away by immigration authorities despite holding a valid research visa. Others denied entry include an Australian writer, Kathryn Hummel; a Pakistani academic, Annie Zaman; a former Swiss diplomat and activist, Kurt Vogele; Mukunda Raj Kattel, director of Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development; and Aaron Gray-Block and Ben Hargreaves, both Greenpeace activists.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which India is a party, addresses in article 13 the rights of aliens lawfully in a country, and non-discrimination against “all persons,” including non-nationals, in article 26. The Covenant does not recognize non-nationals having a right to enter or reside in a country, a decision left to the state. However, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, has stated in its General Comment No. 15 on the status of aliens, that, “in certain circumstances an alien may enjoy the protection of the Covenant even in relation to entry or residence, for example, when considerations of non-discrimination … arise.”

The General Comment further provides that if the legality of an alien's “stay is in dispute, any decision on this point leading to his expulsion or deportation ought to be taken in accordance with article 13. It is for the competent authorities … in good faith and in the exercise of their powers, to apply and interpret the domestic law, observing, however, such requirements under the Covenant as equality before the law” in accordance with article 26. Distinctions are permissible only when based on reasonable and objective criteria.

“Foreign governments eager to partner with India on trade and security should take note that the Indian government is increasing repression to hide a deteriorating human rights situation,” Pearson said. “These governments should press the Modi administration to interact with its critics to bring about reform instead of intimidating them into silence.”

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 18, 2024, 2:30 am
Click to expand Image Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong at the sixth China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue in Beijing, December 21, 2022. © 2022 CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Shutterstock

On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Australia to take part in the Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, a longstanding format where they will discuss trade, security, and other bilateral and international issues. During the visit, the Australian government should move beyond statements of concern and make clear their intention to seek accountability for China’s ongoing human rights violations.

This is the first visit of a Chinese foreign minister to Australia since 2017. While the Australian government’s focus continues to be “stabilizing relations” between the two countries, discussions should include systematic efforts to tackle persistent human rights violations by the Chinese government.

When a Chinese court imposed a suspended death sentence on the writer and Australian citizen Dr. Yang Hengjun earlier this year, Australia’s Foreign Minister
Penny Wong was “appalled,” saying the Australian government would be “communicating our response in the strongest terms.” 

And when the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report on Xinjiang in 2022, outlining a systematic campaign by the Chinese government to repress Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims that “may constitute … crimes against humanity,” the Australian government said they were “deeply concerned” about the findings.

Even earlier this month, the government once again expressed its “concern” about China’s human rights violations, this time regarding Hong Kong’s draconian new domestic security bill known as “Article 23,” which will further erode people’s long-cherished rights and freedoms.

Publicly expressing concerns is an important element of a human rights foreign policy. But given the trajectory of human rights abuses in China, it is clearly not enough. To hold China accountable, expressions of concern should be bolstered by concrete action. While Wang Yi is in the country, Penny Wong should outline specific steps Australia will take if the Chinese government doesn’t reverse its oppressive policies and practices.

Such steps might include imposing sanctions on senior Hong Kong officials, initiating an investigation into grave crimes committed in Xinjiang, spearheading a project to assist Uyghurs living abroad to locate missing relatives in Xinjiang, and informing Wang that Australian authorities will investigate and appropriately punish acts of repression by Chinese officials and their proxies in Australia that violate Australian law.

Principled words have their place. But the Australian government needs to recognize when actions speak louder than words.

 

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 17, 2024, 8:00 pm
Click to expand Image A Jordanian airstrike on January 18 on the town of Orman in the southern governorate of Sweida killed Dima, 5 (left) and Farah, 3, their parents Turki al-Halabi and Faten Abu Shahin, and three other relatives. © Private.

(Beirut) – Jordan should ensure accountability for airstrikes in southeast Syria that killed 10 people on January 18 and compensate the victims and their families, Human Rights Watch said today. The strikes, which killed women and children, appear to amount to extrajudicial executions.

The airstrikes were part of an intensified campaign by the Jordanian Armed Forces against drug and weapons traffickers following recent clashes on its border with armed groups reportedly carrying narcotics, arms, and explosives that it suspects are tied to pro-Iranian militias. On January 23, the Syrian government responded, saying there was no justification for Jordan’s attacks. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry retorted, neither denying nor confirming the attacks, but emphasizing the threat posed by drug and weapons smuggling, its impact on Jordan’s national security, and the lack of effective action by the Syrian government to combat such operations in its territory. Human Rights Watch wrote to Jordan's Foreign Minister on January 31 detailing its findings, but received no response as of the time of publication.

“Cross-border airstrikes that kill civilians demand scrutiny regardless of the threat posed by drug smuggling from southern Syria,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Jordan should halt military strikes against non-military targets and compensate victims of previous attacks and their families.”

Click to expand Image Destruction to the Talab family house located in the eastern part of Orman town. © Private.

On January 18, at around 1 a.m., airstrikes on the town of Orman in the southern governorate of Sweida struck a house in the eastern part of the town, destroying the house and killing its owner, Omar Talab; his mother, Amal Zein Eldin; and his aunt, Etihad Talab. 500 meters west, two munitions struck two of four connected houses in the center of the town, causing significant damage and killing the owner of one of the houses, Turki al-Halabi; his wife, Fatin Abu Shahin; and their two young daughters, 3-year-old Farah and 5-year-old Dima. It also killed their relatives Nazih al-Halabi, who owned another one of the houses, his wife Iqbal, and a relative, Roza al-Halabi. Three of the four connected houses belong to the al-Halabi family.

Human Rights Watch interviewed two relatives of the al-Halabi family who live nearby, and an activist and researcher at the local Suwayda24 news website. Researchers reviewed and confirmed photos, videos, and satellite imagery showing extensive damage to both sites, as well as photos of remnants collected from the site of the four connected houses that housed members of the al-Halabi family.

These photos, alongside evidence of a large crater, allowed for a positive identification of one of the weapons used: a 500lb-class JDAM satellite guided bomb. Jordan acquired 198 JDAM kits from the United States in February 2017.

Click to expand Image Destruction to a cluster of four houses in Orman town. A large crater is visible on the south part of the cluster where a house stood and was completely destroyed. © Private.

“At 1 a.m., I was at home in Orman,” said one relative. “I was with my wife and newborn girl. We heard warplanes and then a very big explosion nearby.

The relative said that he immediately went outside to see what happened and found the road to Turki al-Halabi’s house, 65 meters away, damaged and “full of rocks.” He said that when he reached Turki’s house, he found it demolished with extensive damage to the two houses next to it. His own house, he said, had a broken window.

The relative said that al-Halabi family is a well-known Druze family in Sweida governorate. He said that Turki al-Halabi works in agriculture and Nazih al-Halabi, a retired colonel, often participated in Sweida’s recent demonstrations for political reform. He said that neither men were involved in drug trafficking. Human Rights Watch could not independently verify this.

“We couldn’t tell how many times we had been attacked,” said the other relative, who lived across the street from the compound. “The fear, the sound, the dust and the screams of the kids, it was terrifying… All our windows were broken. When we saw what happened to my uncle’s house, we were terrified, a total collapse. Around an hour later, we were able to rescue Nazih’s children, all four of them were still alive.”

According to Suwayda24, search and rescue operations in Orman lasted over 10 hours. One of the al-Halabi relatives pointed to a lack of access to legal avenues in Syria by which they can seek answers and justice. “Sweida is left behind,” he said. “The government wants nothing to do with us.”

Click to expand Image Destruction to a cluster of four houses in Orman town following an airstrike that killed 7 members of the Halabi family. The two houses on the north side of the cluster were destroyed and collapsed. © Private.

The January 18 attacks were not the first Jordan is suspected of carrying out against alleged drug smuggling operations in southern Syria. At least five other attacks have been reported, the first on May 8, 2023. That strike targeted a home where Merie al-Ramthan, a local man widely believed to be heavily involved in the illegal drug trade, and his family were staying in al-Shaab village in Sweida governorate. The strike, which was investigated and reported by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), killed al-Ramthan, his wife, and five children.

A statement from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry a few hours after the strike noted that the Jordanian and Syrian governments had reached an agreement to form a joint security force aimed at combatting the threat of drug trafficking and that the two governments had established communication lines. According to Suwayda24, three of the other four reported attacks killed nine people, including two children under the age of five. Jordan has neither claimed nor denied any of these attacks.

On January 16, just over a week after a round of airstrikes on a house and farm in Sweida governorate that killed three people, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in southern Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, expressed his support for Jordan’s anti-trafficking operations, but implored Jordanian authorities to avoid civilian casualties and material losses.

On January 20, the Men of Dignity movement, the largest armed group in the governorate, publicly proposed a nine-point initiative to Jordanian authorities that would involve cooperation on issues relating to combatting drug trafficking, holding the Syrian government directly responsible for the issue, and outlining their willingness to pursue individuals involved in drug trafficking, following the Jordanian side’s sharing of lists naming those implicated. The movement also called for a halt to military operations against civilian sites, transparent investigations into deaths from the strikes, and compensation for damages.

On January 7, a day after the Jordanian army said it killed five drug and weapon smugglers and arrested 15 during clashes with armed groups of smugglers on its border with Syria, Media Director for the Jordanian Armed Forces Brigadier-General Mustafa al-Hiyari said in an interview with state-owned al-Mamlaka news agency, “the armed forces will use force as necessary and by all means to prevent the threat to Jordan’s national security.”

The right to life is an inherent human right that cannot be compromised, even in times of armed conflict or state of emergency. Summary, extrajudicial, or arbitrary executions are prohibited under international law, including under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United Nations Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions says that the duty to investigate is “triggered” not only in a clear case of an unlawful death, but also where there are “reasonable allegations of a potentially unlawful death,” even without a formal complaint. Family members should also have the right to full information about the circumstances and causes of the deaths and to participate in the investigation.

Jordan should ensure thorough and impartial investigations into the January 18 airstrike and previous strikes, including to establish how and with whom any policy originated, and ensure that those responsible for the violations are held accountable, Human Rights Watch said. Victims’ families should be compensated for the unlawful killings. Jordan’s international partners that provide military and security assistance should ensure that no funds or support they provide are used for unlawful killings or other human rights abuses.

“The last decade in Syria has generated an ever-lengthening list of atrocities and impunity,” Coogle said. “Jordan should not add to this by killing bystanders while targeting drug operations in Syria.”

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 17, 2024, 4:00 am
Click to expand Image Front gate of Jail Ogaden, May 2019.  © 2019 Felix Horne/Human Rights Watch

This week, Ethiopian authorities dropped all charges and released Abdi Mohamoud Omar, also known as “Abdi Illey,” the former president of Ethiopia’s Somali region, after serving more than five years in prison. The action is a setback to ending impunity for crimes involving senior officials.

State media reported that Ethiopia’s Ministry of Justice took the action for the “sake of public interest.”

Federal officials initially arrested Abdi Illey in 2018 for “violations of human rights and inciting ethnic and religious conflict in the Somali region,” and charged him in 2019 for his role during his last days in office, when Somali youth groups loyal to him and Somali regional special forces, called the “Liyu police,” attacked non-Somali groups. The charges also covered the destruction of churches and property in the Somali regional capital of Jigjiga.

But the authorities never brought charges against Abdi Illey for crimes during his decade of abusive rule.

As regional security chief in 2006, and president from 2010-2018, Abdi Illey oversaw and commanded the Liyu police. Human Rights Watch documented that the Liyu police frequently committed serious rights abuses against civilians throughout the Somali region during counterinsurgency campaigns, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape, as well as reprisals against local communities. 

In 2018, Human Rights Watch reported on the abuses during Abdi Illey’s rule, notably the pattern of torture and abuse in Ethiopia’s notorious Jail Ogaden, where prisoners were denied access to adequate medical care, family, lawyers, and at times, food. Former prisoners implicated Liyu police members, prison guards, and senior Somali region officials in rape, and widespread and routine torture, from which some detainees died. Abdi Illey himself was known to regularly visit the prison.

For victims of abuse under Abdi Illey’s rule, the decision to drop the charges is a devastating blow.

A 42-year-old former prisoner at Jail Ogaden told us: “We cannot forgive him for what he and his [Liyu] police have done to our people. He has destroyed a generation… He must face justice for what he has done.”

By failing to hold Abdi Illey to account for the many rights violations during his rule, the Ethiopian government is sending the message that impunity remains the order of the day.

With the government reportedly just weeks away from launching a nationwide transitional justice policy, the authorities need to reverse course and demonstrate a willingness to tackle accountability for serious abuses.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 8:56 pm

 

Click to expand Image The leader of Mali’s junta, Lt. Col. Assimi Goita, center, attends an independence day military parade on September 22, 2022, in Bamako, Mali. © 2022 AP Photo

Mali’s minister of territorial administration’s order to dissolve a student association is just the latest in a series of government actions to crack down on freedom of association.

The minister said that the Association of Pupils and Students of Mali (L’Association des Elèves et Etudiants du Mali, AEEM) was responsible for “violence and clashes in schools and universities,” and that in 2017 and 2018 the security forces had arrested some of its members who had been found with “lethal weapons, narcotics and large sums of unjustified money.”

The AEEM is the fourth organization to be dissolved in less than four months. On March 6, authorities dissolved the Coordination of Movements, Associations, and Sympathizers of Imam Mahmoud Dicko (Coordination des Mouvements, Associations et Sympathisants de l’Imam Mahmoud Dicko), which had been calling for presidential elections as part of a transition back to civilian democratic rule, accusing it of “destabilization and threat to public security.” On February 28, authorities dissolved the political organization Kaoural Renewal (Kaoural Renouveau), citing “defamatory and subversive remarks” against the military junta. And on December 20, authorities dissolved the Observatory for Elections and Good Governance (Observatoire pour les élections et la bonne gouvernance), a civil society group that monitored the fairness of elections, accusing its chairman of “statements likely to disturb public order.”

Since the military coup in 2021, Mali’s junta has increasingly cracked down on peaceful dissent, political opposition, and the media, shrinking the country’s civic space. On March 4, authorities forcibly disappeared gendarmerie Col. Alpha Yaya Sangaré, who recently published a book about abuses by the Malian armed forces.

Mali’s National Human Rights Commission recently issued a statement expressing concerns about “serious threats to the exercise of certain civic and political rights, especially freedom of association,” and said it was “outraged by the systemic trend of dissolution and/or suspension of political parties and/or associations.” The United Nations Human Rights Office spokesperson, Seif Magango, echoed those concerns this week.

As Mali passes three years with an unelected government, a free and safe civic and political space where people can organize, express their views, and demonstrate is more crucial than ever. The authorities should immediately reinstate the dissolved organizations and commit to upholding fundamental rights and freedoms.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 6:12 pm
Click to expand Image ©

Excellencies,

We, the undersigned human rights organisations, write to urge your delegation to support the renewal of the Special Rapportur on Belarus, and the establishment of an independent accountability mechanism to build upon and take forward the work of the OHCHR Examination on Belarus this session. We consider both mechanisms to be crucial to addressing the dire human rights situation in Belarus – ensuring comprehensive oversight of the situation, addressing the impunity fueling grave abuses, and supporting human rights defenders and victims and survivors of human rights violations. 

While we understand the EU’s desire to rationalise its approach by merging the two annual UN HRC resolutions on Belarus, it is essential that the message is clear that this does not signal any softening of approach, as the situation has continued to deteriorate since 2020.

The authorities continue their widespread and systematic politically-motivated repression, targeting not only dissent inside the country, but also Belarusians outside the country who were forced to flee for fear of persecution. Today, almost 1,500 prisoners jailed following politically-motivated charges in Belarus face discriminatory treatment, severe restriction of their rights, and ill-treatment including torture. Some high-profile political prisoners also face prolonged incommunicado detention and others’ whereabouts is being concealed which constitutes an enforced disappearance. The authorities have fostered a climate of fear, outlawing human rights work and bullying families and lawyers of those detained into silence. 

In late November 2023, Belarusian authorities carried out over a hundred searches of homes in connection with the ongoing criminal case against the opposition’s Coordination Council in exile, followed by orders to seize their property. 

In its 2023 report, the Examination by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR Examination) concluded that some of the documented violations committed in the context of the 2020 presidential vote may amount to crimes against humanity. Such findings, in context of the lack of access to justice domestically and limited access to remedy at the international level, merit a robust and credible response by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to pursue accountability. A reinforced advancement of accountability at the UN level, with a particular focus on steps to address the crimes documented by the Examination, is critical for sending a strong and clear message to Belarusian authorities ahead of the expected 2025 presidential elections.  

In this regard we encourage the UN Human Rights Council to evolve its approach in 2024, ensuring full renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur (SR) and further developing the HRC’s efforts to advance accountability to reflect the evolving situation. In particular:

Recommendation 1: Renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus 

The SR mandate remains an essential “lifeline” to Belarusian civil society, and should be fully renewed in 2024 [while this would usually be anticipated in a dedicated resolution, we understand the EU is proposing to merge the initiatives this session in the interests of rationalisation]. The annual reports, statements and other work carried out by the mandate ensure continuous international scrutiny of the latest developments in the human rights situation in Belarus and provide an important record of human rights trends and patterns of violations. The mandate has an important role to act on individual cases and legal developments, and provides valuable support to besieged civil society in the country and Belarusians in exile. In 2023 alone, working in conjunction with other mandate holders, the mandate issued communications in relation to 69 alleged victims (through communications BLR 3/2023, BLR 4/2023, RUS 17/2023), as well as intervening on amendments to the criminal code and the proposed Bill on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations (BLR 1/2023, BLR 3/2023, BLR 4/2023, RUS 17/2023.

Recommendation 2: Establish a fully independent investigative mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of potential international crimes beyond the 2020 elections period, with a view to advancing accountability.

The OHCHR Examination – distinct from, and complementary to the role of the SR – has played a vital role not only documenting, exposing, and providing authoritative legal qualification of grave rights abuses, but also collecting and preserving evidence for future prosecutions, of potential international crimes committed in the context of the 2020 elections and the aftermath. The OHCHR Examination has also been an important tool to advocate for accountability.  

However, more needs to be done to forge a path towards accountability. A particular focus should be put on: documenting and providing further authoritative legal qualification under international law of continuing grave abuses; advancing accountability at national levels, including via promotion and cooperation on universal jurisdiction cases; and the attribution of responsibility for international crimes. An independent investigative mechanism, mandated to focus on past and ongoing grave human rights violations that may amount to international crimes, could play a key role on these issues. 

With a view to challenging  impunity for potential international crimes in 2024, we encourage the UN HRC to evolve the work of the OHCHR Examination in the following ways:

The temporal scope should be widened beyond the 2020 elections period, to cover ongoing grave abuses and any abuses committed in the lead up to the next round of general elections in Belarus (2025). This would allow for the documentation and reporting on abuses in real time, with a view to contributing to future accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims. It would make the work more relevant, build on the solid work already done by the OHCHR examination on the 2020 elections, and serve as a deterrent to further abuses including in the context of the upcoming elections.  The examination should also be given more independence with wider discretion over which grave rights abuses that may amount to international crimes they investigate and with regard to how they report on their findings. In this respect, the HRC should mandate this work to be taken forward by a new, independent mechanism, to elevate and raise the profile of the work.

The UN HRC has played – and should continue to play – a vital role in ensuring robust documentation of human rights violations, elevating the voices of Belarusian civil society as they are silenced at national level, and working to challenge the climate of total impunity in Belarus. We consider that these measures in 2024 – in the context of efforts to “rationalise” and “streamline” – would ensure that the Council’s approach to the deteriorating human rights situation in Belarus is strengthened, enhanced, made clearer and more sustainable. 

We would welcome an opportunity to discuss the human rights situation in Belarus, as well as the above recommendations on how the UN Human Rights Council could best address it and support the work of civil society. We stand ready to support efforts to continue and enhance the HRC’s important work on Belarus.

 

Yours faithfully, 

 

Amnesty International

Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House

Belarusian Association of Journalists

Belarusian Helsinki Committee

Civil Rights Defenders 

Human Constanta

Human Rights Center Viasna

Human Rights House Foundation

Human Rights Watch

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)

Lawtrend

Legal Initiative

Office for the rights of Persons with Disabilities

PEN Belarus

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 2:21 pm
Click to expand Image Protesters demonstrate against the Citizenship Amendment Act in New Delhi, India, December 27, 2019. © 2019 AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File

This week, India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government began implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which parliament had enacted in 2019. The law fast-tracks citizenship requests from non-Muslims fleeing religious persecution from India’s Muslim-majority neighbors – Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh – but excludes Muslim refugees from those countries.

Before the government enacted the law, Home Minister Amit Shah explained the BJP government’s broader plans for a proposed nationwide citizenship verification process, called the National Register of Citizens, that would identify irregular immigrants.

When the CAA was passed, thousands of people across India protested the law, fearing it could be used to disenfranchise Indian Muslims and strip them of their citizenship rights. They had reason to be alarmed: in Assam state, citizenship screening ultimately rendered stateless over a million people. 

Indian authorities on Tuesday published a press release of questions and answers outlining the “positive narrative” of the law, but it was taken down hours later. The statement unconvincingly asserted that “Indian Muslims need not worry as CAA has not made any provision to impact their citizenship.”

Fearing further demonstrations, the authorities deployed a large number of security personnel in Delhi and Assam. Previously, police used excessive force to crush protests against the law, and communal clashes killed 53 people in New Delhi, most of them Muslim. The Supreme Court has yet to hear petitions challenging the amendments for religious bias and for violating fundamental rights.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights expressed concern over the law, calling it a “breach of India’s international human rights obligations.” Several leaders from Indian opposition parties criticized the government for enforcing a law that fosters religious discrimination.   

Over the years, India has provided protection for many people fleeing persecution. Those persecuted often are members of minority religious communities or ethnic groups, and India is doing right to welcome them. But members of the majority can also face persecution, such as Afghans at risk fleeing the Taliban.

India should demonstrate that it is genuinely committed to helping those whose lives or freedom are in danger by protecting all asylum seekers. It should ratify the Refugee Convention, establish nondiscriminatory refugee law and asylum procedures, and establish a path to citizenship for all recognized refugees without regard to their religion.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 1:41 pm
Click to expand Image President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, meets with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, June 15, 2022 © 2022 Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations. ​

The European Union is about to reward Egypt’s autocratic leader, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for preventing migrants’ departures towards Europe.

Visiting Cairo on March 17, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, along with the Prime Ministers of Italy, Greece, and Belgium, will officially upgrade the EU-Egypt relations to a “comprehensive and strategic partnership”, paving the way for a package of EU aid, grants, loans and investments in the country estimated at between four and eight billion Euros.

Key in this partnership will be the EU’s support for Egypt’s border control. While details are under negotiation, the blueprint is the same as the flawed EU deals with Tunisia and Mauritania: stop migrants, ignore abuses.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees by Egyptian authorities, as well as deportations to Eritrea constituting refoulement. Recent reports of deportations of Sudanese should be investigated.

Human Rights Watch has long criticized the EU’s cash-for-migration-control approach, crystalized under von der Leyen, which exposes the EU to complicity in abuses, contradicts the EU’s founding values, erodes its credibility as a principled global player, and emboldens the far right’s demagogic narrative across Europe. It strengthens authoritarian rulers while betraying human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and activists whose work involves great personal risk.

Egypt is the epitome of this.

Since taking power in a 2013 coup, and becoming president of Egypt in 2014, Sisi’s governments have ruled Egypt with an iron fist. They have been responsible for massacring protesters and jailing and torturing thousands of perceived critics and opponents – often holding them in protracted pre-trial detention or sentencing them in grossly unfair trials. Independent media and civil society have been stifled and the judiciary is an obedient arm of government repression. The ruling military has expanded its powers over civilian life.

Now this abysmal repression is being rewarded with fresh support from the EU, including funds that will likely directly support the repression of migrants.

At the same time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Arab Emirates have provided billions for Egypt’s depleted reserves. The IMF funds are linked to economic reforms supported by the EU, although some of the reforms are detrimental to the Egyptians’ economic rights, amid increasing poverty.

Without pushing for genuine human rights reforms or reining in Egyptian government abuses, the EU’s support is unlikely to stop the next economic or political crisis from erupting in Egypt. Ordinary Egyptians, businesspeople, migrants, and refugees will continue paying the price for this approach, while their oppressors thrive on impunity and renewed support.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 1:25 pm
Click to expand Image Families of victims and residents march against police abuse in the context of an operation in Baixada Santista, state of São Paulo, Brazil, March 3, 2024. © 2024 Cesar Muñoz/Human Rights Watch

(São Paulo)  – The Brazilian government should comply with two new rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that found Brazil responsible for serious human rights violations by the police, Human Rights Watch said today.

The decisions, published on March 14, 2024, in cases involving police killings in São Paulo and Paraná states, come as São Paulo police are in the midst of ongoing raids in low-income neighborhoods that have left at least 45 people dead in the past month and a half. Brazil has not yet fully carried out the ruling on police killings issued by the court six years ago.

“The Inter-American Court’s rulings are about cases that happened more than 20 years ago, yet the problem of unlawful use of lethal force by police continues to this day,” said César Muñoz, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch. “Brazilian authorities should take immediate steps to comply with the court’s decisions and halt police abuses, which undermine public security and take a huge toll on the communities suffering the violence, and on the police force itself.”

The Paraná case focuses on the May 2, 2000, military police killing of Antonio Tavares Pereira, a member of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement, and injuries to at least 69 other members. Police had blocked a road near Campo Largo to prevent about 1,500 rural workers from joining a march for agrarian reform in Curitiba. Officers used “less lethal” and lethal weapons against the crowd. Military prosecutors failed to press charges, and civilian prosecutors filed charges, but a civilian court dismissed them.

The second case involved an ambush by at least 53 police officers on March 5, 2002, that killed 12 suspects on a road near Sorocaba, a municipality in São Paulo state. Two police informers had allegedly convinced the men to rob a plane carrying cash, which in fact did not exist, and the men were on their way to the airport. Military police fired hundreds of rounds during the operation, known as “Castelinho.” One officer was slightly injured. Prosecutors said that the objective of the operation was to kill the suspects and charged the 53 military police officers with homicide, but state courts rejected the charges, ruling that they acted in self defense.

The Inter-American Court found serious failures in police investigations into both cases and said that Brazil should ensure independent investigations. In the Castelinho case the Court found that “the police and judicial authorities acted with such a degree of negligence in the preservation and collection of evidence that it leads the Court to the conclusion that they sought to prevent the investigation of the facts and secure absolute impunity for the extrajudicial execution of 12 people in a police operation.”

In the Tavares Pereira case, the Court ordered Brazil to ensure that military jurisdiction is not applied to crimes committed against civilians by police. In the Castelinho case, the Court ordered Brazil to ensure that prosecutors in São Paulo have adequate resources to investigate killings by military and civil police; to provide prosecutors and police internal affairs’ offices with body camera footage and geolocation of officers; and to temporarily remove officers involved in killings from street duty.

The rulings come as police continue deadly raids in Baixada Santista, a metropolitan area on the coast of São Paulo state. In 2023, 28 people were killed there during a 40-day police operation after the killing of a police officer. Human Rights Watch found important failures in the initial investigation of the killings by police.

After the killing of another officer on February 2, 2024, police carried out new raids in low-income neighborhoods in the area, killing at least 45 people so far in ongoing operations.

Human Rights Watch heard statements by family members and witnesses to the recent killings, some of them in the presence of the police ombudsperson and other civil society organizations during visits to the affected neighborhoods. Human Rights Watch found strong evidence of unlawful use of force in some cases, and received credible reports of intimidation, threats, tampering with evidence, and police obstruction of investigations.

Brazilian police killed 6,381 people in 2023, the vast majority of them Black. While some killings are in self defense, many result from illegal use of force. Human Rights Watch has documented scores of cases in which police failed to conduct adequate investigations, including by not visiting the crime scene; and forensic analysis did not comply with international standards. The poor quality of investigations is a longstanding problem.

In 2017, the Inter-American Court found that Brazil had failed to ensure independent and impartial investigations into the killing of twenty-six people in the Nova Brasília neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro during two civil police operations, in 1994 and 1995. The court found that the investigation by civil police was beset by “omissions and negligence,” that investigators failed to take “minimum measures required,” and that they lacked “diligence and independence.”

The court in 2017 ordered the Brazilian government, among other measures, to publish an official annual report with data on killings by police and the investigations conducted into each incident. It also ordered Brazil's government to ensure that police killings, torture, and other police abuses are investigated by “an independent body, distinct from the public force involved in the incident,” with the support of forensic experts “unrelated” to the law enforcement agency that allegedly committed the abuse.

In a 2021 decision assessing Brazil's compliance with the judgment, the Inter-American Court said that both the Brazilian government and victims’ representatives agreed that the prosecutor’s office was the independent body that should investigate police killings and other abuses in Brazil.

The measures ordered by the Court in the Nova Brasilia case would substantially improve investigation of killings by police, yet to this day, Brazil has not fully complied with them. The administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva published nationwide data about killings by police in 2023, but it doesn’t include information about investigations. Civil police continue to investigate killings by police, and forensic experts are either part of the states’ public security secretariat or part of the civil police itself, which does not guarantee independence.  

Brazil has an obligation to comply with Inter-American Court of Human Rights rulings. While state governors oversee the state police, the federal government has the authority to coordinate states’ efforts and develop nationwide public policies. The Lula administration should promote reforms to ensure that forensic experts are fully independent and work with the Attorney General’s Office to publish complete data on killings by police and investigations into those cases.

A resolution that would ensure that prosecutors lead investigations into all killings by security forces, instead of letting police investigate themselves, is under discussion at the National Council of Attorney General’s Offices. The Council should approve it, Human Rights Watch said.

State governors should also take immediate steps to halt police abuse, including by requiring police to use body cameras and abide by protocols, and enacting guidelines to prevent retaliation operations after the killing of a police officer.

“The São Paulo state government has shown callous disregard for the lives of people killed during police operations,” Muñoz said. “The governor should respond to the Inter-American Court decision by designing a new public security policy that prevents crime and protects the health and lives of residents and police officers.”

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 11:00 am
Click to expand Image Eleven men accused of responsibility for the 2009 massacre and mass rape of pro-democracy protesters by forces linked to a former military junta, stand during their trial in Conakry, Guinea, September 28, 2022. © 2022 Souleymane Camara/Reuters

Earlier this month, in the landmark trial of Guinea’s former president and 10 others, including former ministers, who are accused of responsibility for a massacre and rapes in a stadium, the prosecution team requested the reclassification of charges to crimes against humanity. The trial is currently suspended until March 18, 2024, to allow for the defense’s response.

The trial examines one of the most brutal events in Guinea’s history. On September 28, 2009, Guinean security forces opened fire on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators who had gathered in a stadium in the country’s capital, Conakry. At least 150 people died and many more were injured. Security forces raped more than 100 women.

Security forces later engaged in an organized cover-up, disposing of the bodies in mass graves.

So far, judges have heard from each of the 11 accused, more than 100 victims, and just over a dozen witnesses, including high-level government officials, called by all parties in the trial. Judges have also considered video and audio evidence captured around the 2009 events.

It was in response to the video and audio evidence that the prosecutor’s representative, El Hadj Sidiki Camara, took the floor and requested reclassification of the charges. He has now made a formal submission to the court in writing. Though shared with the parties in the trial, this submission is not publicly available.

According to trial monitoring organized by Human Rights Watch and media reports, when making the reclassification request, the prosecutor invoked Guinean criminal procedure law, arguing that reclassification is permitted, and relied on crimes against humanity provisions incorporated in Guinea’s 2016 criminal code.

The civil parties, that is, victims who have joined the case as formal parties to the proceedings, supported the prosecution’s request in court.

After hearing from the defense, the judges will decide whether the reclassification of the charges is appropriate. If they allow the reclassification, it would be the first time that crimes against humanity are prosecuted in Guinea.

A Human Rights Watch investigation into the event indicated that the abuses surrounding the event rose to the level of crimes against humanity. An international commission of inquiry and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reached similar conclusions. However, it will be up to the judges to rule on the reclassification request, addressing the specific allegations concerning the individuals on trial.

Reclassifying the charges could mean that the justice process will have greater impact, particularly in being seen to be responsive to the experience of victims, survivors, and the communities most affected by these crimes.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 7:02 am
Click to expand Image Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov addresses a Summit of the Intergovernmental Council of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, December 9, 2022. © 2022 AP Photo/Vladimir Voronin

(New York, March 15, 2024) – Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov should support Kyrgyzstan’s nongovernmental sector and withdraw the abusive “foreign representatives” draft law aimed at silencing the country’s vibrant and vocal civil society, Human Rights Watch said today. The draft law passed its third parliamentary reading on March 14, 2024, and the president has a month to decide whether to sign it.

The bill would require nongovernmental organizations receiving foreign funding and engaging in vaguely defined “political activities” to be listed on a special registry of “foreign representatives.” They would also have to label all their publications as “produced and distributed by a noncommercial organization performing the functions of a foreign representative” or acting in the interests of their foreign funders. The draft is similar to laws in Russia that have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights as violating, among other standards, the rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech.

“Advocating the rights of vulnerable groups is a legitimate activity that the government should support, not restrict,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Kyrgyzstan has signed on to numerous international and regional agreements that confirm that seeking resources from national, international, and foreign sources is an inherent part of the right to freedom of association.”

The draft law was introduced in May 2023, passed its first reading on October 25, and second reading on February 22. In addition to introducing the discriminatory and misleading label of “foreign representatives,” the draft law would also grant the government significantly enhanced oversight powers. These would include the right to participate in the internal and external activities of these nongovernmental organizations and to check their expenditures, ostensibly to determine if they are consistent with the organization’s founding purpose.

The bill defines political activity as anything involving the organization of public events and direct action, engaging in electoral processes, advocating to governmental bodies, or disseminating opinions through “modern information technologies’ “that shape people’s socio-political views.

This overbroad definition of political activity is a grave threat to the right of nongovernmental and noncommercial organizations to freely engage in their legitimate activities, Human Rights Watch said. These include protecting various groups of the population, civic education, and monitoring and raising concerns about the country’s civil and political situation.

Singling out nongovernmental organizations receiving foreign funding as ‘foreign representatives’ further stigmatizes Kyrgyzstan’s civil society and human rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said.

Kyrgyzstan’s international partners, in particular the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Germany issued a joint statement expressing their concern about the negative consequences of the legislation and urging President Japarov not to sign it. They said the draft “contravene(s) international norms,” may “hurt the most vulnerable” in society, and would “jeopardize our ability to provide assistance that improves the lives of the citizens and residents of the Kyrgyz Republic.”

On March 11, Matteo Mecacci, director of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights said the bill would have a negative impact on civil society, human rights defenders, and the media. OSCE also said it would “harm Kyrgyzstan’s international cooperation” due to its extremely repressive nature that allows greatly expanded government control over the activities of nongovernmental organizations and independent media.

On October 6, 2023, in a joint letter, three UN special rapporteurs noted that the draft law would have a “chilling effect on the operation of all associations in the Kyrgyz Republic,” curtailing their capacity to provide social services and advocacy for human rights, and unduly restricting their freedom of opinion and speech. In a resolution from July 13, 2023, the European Parliament called on the Kyrgyz authorities and members of Parliament to review the draft law as it contravenes Kyrgyzstan’s international commitments.

The draft law is also inconsistent with Kyrgyzstan’s commitments to uphold its international human rights obligations at home and abroad as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Until the February reading, the draft law included a provision for up to 10 years in prison for establishing or participating in a nongovernmental organization found to be “inciting citizens to refuse to perform civic duties or to commit other unlawful deeds.” That provision was removed from the draft.

“The Kyrgyz government should see civil society organizations, grassroots movements, and human rights defenders as its allies in building a thriving and inclusive society, and ensure an enabling environment that fosters diversity of opinion and freedom of association,” Hassan said. “President Japarov should withdraw the draft law and guarantee continued freedom and openness for Kyrgyzstan’s diverse civil society.”

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 4:00 am
Click to expand Image Sudanese women and children who fled the conflict in Geneina, in Sudan's Darfur region, line up at the water point in Adre, Chad, July 30, 2023.  © 2023 Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

(New York, March 15, 2024) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to alert the Security Council in the coming days that Sudan has entered a downward spiral of extreme conflict-induced hunger, Human Rights Watch said today. The council should immediately take action, including by adopting targeted sanctions against individuals responsible for obstructing aid access in Darfur.

“The Security Council will be formally put on notice that the conflict in Sudan risks spurring the world’s largest hunger crisis,” said Akshaya Kumar, crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Council just broke months of silence by adopting a resolution on Sudan last week, and should build on that momentum by imposing consequences on those responsible for preventing aid from getting to people who need it.”

The alert will be sent to the Council as a so called “white note,” drafted by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in accordance with its mandate under Security Council resolution 2417 to ring the alarm about “the risk of conflict-induced famine and wide-spread food insecurity.” OCHA’s alert follows warnings by international aid experts, Sudanese civil society leaders, and Sudanese emergency responders that people across Sudan are dying of hunger. It also comes on the heels of Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) brazenly escalating its efforts to restrict the movement of humanitarian aid.

In a 2023 presidential statement, the Security Council reiterated its “strong intention to give its full attention” to information provided by the secretary-general when it is alerted to situations involving conflict induced food insecurity. The council should honor that commitment and convene an open meeting to discuss OCHA’s findings. That could pave the way for decisive action, including sanctions on individuals responsible for obstructing aid delivery, Human Rights Watch said.

Since conflict broke out between Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, both warring parties have restricted aid delivery, access, and distribution. Ninety percent of people in Sudan facing emergency levels of hunger are in areas that are “largely inaccessible” to the World Food Programme. “Communities (in Sudan) are on the brink of famine because we are prevented from reaching many of the children, women and families in need,” according to UNICEF executive director, Catherine Russell.

In February, Sudan’s military leader, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said the authorities would no longer allow aid to reach areas under RSF control. Aid organizations have repeatedly said that the SAF is obstructing their delivery of aid to RSF-controlled areas. Aid groups face a maze of bureaucratic impediments, including delays, arbitrary restrictions on movement, harassment, and outright bans on some supplies.

On March 4, Sudan’s foreign affairs minister added to the restrictions, announcing that the government opposed cross-border aid delivery from Chad to areas under RSF control. On March 6, Sudanese authorities informed the UN that they would allow limited cross-border movement exclusively through specific crossings under the control of forces allied to the military. Sudanese authorities have also blocked cross-line aid movement to RSF-controlled territory, which has put Khartoum under a de facto aid blockade since November 2023 at least, aid groups told Human Rights Watch.

The UN welcomed the Sudanese authorities’ announcement identifying aid crossings. The medical charity, Doctors Without Borders, however, raised concerns that this would leave “vast areas in Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and Jazeera states still inaccessible.”  

Aid operations have also been choked by limited funding. As of the end of February, the UN's appeal was 5 percent funded. That gap is exacerbated by widespread looting of warehouses, including a December 2023 incident in which Rapid Support Forces fighters looted stocks in a World Food Programme warehouse in Wad Madani that would have been used to feed 1.5 million hungry people and attacked an MSF compound, forcing the organization to evacuate its team. There have been widespread attacks on aid workers, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, including killings, injuries and detentions.

The Security Council’s latest resolution 2724 on Sudan calls “on all parties to ensure the removal of any obstructions to the delivery of aid and to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access, including cross-border and cross-line, and to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that “the apparently deliberate denial of safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian agencies within Sudan itself constitutes a serious violation of international law, and may amount to a war crime.”

The Security Council’s Sudan Sanctions Committee met in February, announcing that it “wishes to remind the parties that those who commit violations of international humanitarian law and other atrocities may be subject to targeted sanctions measures in accordance with paragraph 3 (c) of resolution 1591 (2005).”

The World Food Programme and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization found in a recent report that food security in Sudan had significantly deteriorated even faster than anticipated, and that there is a risk of “catastrophic conditions” hitting the states of West and Central Darfur “during the lean season in early 2024,” roughly from April to July.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a US government-funded group that monitors food insecurity, said in February that the “worst-affected populations … in Omdurman (in Khartoum state) and El Geneina (in West Darfur state)” were expected to soon see “Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) outcomes.” Under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, a globally recognized scale used to classify food insecurity and malnutrition, catastrophic conditions are the fifth and worst phase. The program determines that famine is occurring when over 20 percent of an area’s population are facing extreme food gaps, and children’s acute malnutrition and mortality exceed emergency rates.

According to new figures released by the Nutrition Cluster in Sudan, nearly 230,000 children, pregnant women, and new mothers could die in the coming months due to hunger.

In Darfur, civil society and local leaders have repeatedly sounded the alarm about hunger among displaced people living in camps in areas under RSF control. Leaders shared that their communities have resorted to eating ants, tree bark, and animal feed. People currently in West Darfur include survivors of waves of attacks by the RSF and their allied militias, which Human Rights Watch has described as “having all the hallmarks of an organized campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians.” A local government official reported in early March that 22 children had died of hunger in Murnei, a town in West Darfur that was the site of horrific RSF attacks in June 2023.

In January, Doctors Without Borders raised the alarm on malnutrition in Zamzam camp in North Darfur, warning that “an estimated one child is dying every two hours.” A camp leader from Kalma camp in Nyala (South Darfur) told Human Rights Watch that 500 to 600 children and at least 80 older people have died in the camp since the start of the conflict because of what he believed was the result of lack of food and medical supplies. “People [are] dying every day,” he said. He said that the RSF has also been limiting the amount of food supplies entering the camp since it took control of the city in October.

In Khartoum, a communications blackout has forced hundreds of communal kitchens run by Sudanese emergency response rooms, a grassroots mutual aid network, to pause operations, leaving many people without food, and reports of people dying alone in their homes of hunger. “The shutdown has a significant impact on food access and distribution,” a member of one of the emergency response rooms in Khartoum told Human Rights Watch in mid-February, “it is happening while we are facing growing food insecurity and risk of famine in the capital.”

This is the first time Sudan has been spotlighted in this kind of an alert from the secretary-general to the Security Council. Guyana, Switzerland, the US, and other Security Council members have pledged to make combating food insecurity a priority for the UN’s most powerful body. 

“Council members should show leadership by holding open discussions to develop a plan that averts the risk of mass starvation in Sudan and imposing targeted sanctions on the individuals responsible for obstructing aid,” Kumar said. “The people of Sudan need more than words. They need food.”

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 15, 2024, 4:00 am
Click to expand Image An Afghan woman carries empty containers to fetch water in Nahr-e-Shahi district in Balkh province, Afghanistan, August 6, 2023.  © 2023 Ali Khara/Reuters

“The situation is getting worse every day,” Ahmad, a former journalist in Herat, Afghanistan, told me. “I don’t think anyone can afford to buy enough food anymore.”

Afghanistan has been in the throes of an economic crisis for more than two years, after donors cut foreign funding in response to the Taliban takeover in 2021 and suspended Afghanistan’s Central Bank from the international system. The Taliban's violations of women’s rights in areas including employment, education, and freedom of movement have exacerbated the situation, intensifying its effect on women and girls. The humanitarian response is incapable of addressing the crisis, especially because levels of humanitarian aid have decreased since 2023 as donors’ reduced aid in response to the Taliban’s actions.

According to the United Nations, in 2024, 23.7 million people – more than half of the country's population – will need humanitarian assistance. The statistics are startling: 69 percent of people do not have enough food; 67 percent have trouble accessing water, worsened by a prolonged drought linked to climate change; the economy has contracted by 27 percent; and only 40 percent of the population has access to electricity. On top of this, the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.

Women are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Alia, who used to work at a beauty salon in Kabul before the Taliban ordered their closure, told me: “After losing my job, I have no other means to afford my daily expenses. It’s obvious that women in Afghanistan are suffering the most in losing their rights and means to survive.”

In its 2024 humanitarian response plan for Afghanistan, the UN has requested $3 billion to address the growing crisis but has received less than 3 percent of the required funds.

Donors need to up their response to the appeal, but aid will not be enough on its own. Governments should support measures to normalize payments and other transactions through Afghanistan’s banking system; restore public services in the areas of water management, electricity, and agriculture; address income-related poverty; and improve climate adaptation.

They also need to work in a coordinated and unified way to ensure the Taliban are held accountable for their ongoing violations of the rights of women and girls.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 14, 2024, 5:22 pm
Click to expand Image Opening night of the 2018 London Human Rights Watch Film Festival at the Barbican. © 2018 Laura Palmer

(New York) –Human Rights Watch announced today that it would be closing its long-running film festival. Founded in 1988, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival showcased nearly 1,000 independent films, was presented in over 30 cities across the globe, and is the world’s longest running human rights film festival.

“It’s with sadness and deep regret that we have made the difficult decision to close the Human Rights Watch Film Festival,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “The film festival is a celebrated cultural institution that educated and inspired hundreds of thousands of filmgoers and filmmakers around the world over three decades, providing a critical space for connection, conversation, and action on human rights issues.”

The decision to close the festival was part of a wider restructuring due to financial constraints, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch Film Festivals will take place as planned across the United Kingdom and Ireland, opening on March 14, 2024, and across Canada starting on March 21.

Human Rights Watch is immensely proud of the talented film festival leadership and staff, who built partnerships across the human rights community and film industry. The festival established a mainstream platform for impactful films and in-depth conversations about human rights issues, with a priority focus on underrepresented perspectives from around the world.

The festival staff have been instrumental in pushing for increased accessibility standards in the film industry, resulting in three fully inclusive film festivals in the last two years. During the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that shuttered cinemas, the film festival team created a digital streaming site that tripled attendance figures, encouraged festival members to tune in for live conversations, and ensured that the public would not be isolated at home. The innovative site continued the festival’s work of creating spaces for dialogue, connection, and action on human rights issues.

“We owe the Human Rights Watch Film Festival’s success and impact to the longstanding commitment of our festival staff and consultants, volunteers, partners, the filmmakers, and of course our audiences,” Hassan said. “They helped to nurture the human rights storytelling movement that we see thriving today.” 

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 13, 2024, 9:53 pm
Click to expand Image Two women and a child huddle in sleeping bags on the forest floor after crossing the Polish-Belarusian border near Michalowo on October 6, 2021. © 2021 Maciej Luczniewski/NurPhoto via AP

A good starting point for the new Polish government to demonstrate it is serious about restoring the rule of law, which was eroded by the previous government, would be stopping the practice of migrant pushbacks at the country’s border with Belarus.

On March 8, the Polish Border Guard announced the establishment of search and rescue teams tasked to provide medical and humanitarian aid to migrants stranded in a forested border area.

The announcement followed a call in January by more than 100 local organizations for Poland’s new government to halt unlawful pushbacks at the border with Belarus.

While the new teams may help avert some of the deaths of migrants stranded between Belarus and Poland, it leaves the underlying problems untouched.

Since 2021, Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses against migrants by Polish border guards, including violent pushbacks to Belarus, which in at least 55 cases have led to deaths, including those of children. The previous Law and Justice government declared the area close to the Belarusian border a restricted zone, blocking humanitarian organizations’ access. Restrictions were lifted in June 2022, but humanitarian groups continued to face bogus charges of heading criminal networks and organizing illegal border crossings of migrants into Poland.

Once pushed back to Belarus, migrants have endured serious abuses by Belarusian border guards, including beatings, food and water shortages, and being prevented by Belarusian border guards from leaving the forested and closed military area close to the border.

In late September 2023, a Somali man told Human Rights Watch he was stranded in the border area on the Belarusian side for 40 days following multiple pushbacks by Polish border guards. He witnessed the death of a Somali woman who perished after falling ill due to the lack of food and clean water.

Putting a “humanitarian” face on pushbacks doesn’t make them lawful. Instead, Poland’s government should immediately restore legal order at the border by granting access to the Polish asylum procedure for those foreigners seeking it. It should repeal the unlawful border regulation that legalized pushbacks and implement numerous domestic court rulings finding the pushbacks to be unlawful. It should stop criminal prosecution and harassment of civil society activists and humanitarian workers aiding migrants at the border, and it should allow medical and humanitarian organizations access so that they can assist people in need.

Failing to do so will perpetuate an unlawful border regime that violates basic human rights and put people’s lives at risk.

Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 13, 2024, 6:42 pm
Click to expand Image View of a former mine pit, now flooded, at the old mine site in Kabwe. In the foreground is an area where small-scale miners still work today. © 2019 Diane McCarthy for Human Rights Watch

(Lusaka) – Zambia’s government is delaying urgently needed action to clean up severe lead contamination in the city of Kabwe, the Alliance for Lead-Free Kabwe, a coalition of Zambian and international civil society organizations, said today.

The government should draft a technical proposal and seek support from donor agencies and companies responsible for the pollution to undertake a comprehensive clean-up of the former Kabwe mine, one of the most heavily lead-polluted sites in the world.

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“It is inconceivable that 30 years after the mine’s closure, children in Kabwe still suffer lead poisoning and serious lifelong health impacts,” said Juliane Kippenberg, child rights associate director at Human Rights Watch. “The toxic mine needs to be cleaned up immediately to protect children’s health and lives.”

Kabwe is one of the world’s worst pollution hotspots because of contamination from a former lead and zinc mine established during the British colonial period. The mine was closed in 1994, but its toxic waste remains. Lead dust from its large, uncovered waste dumps blows across nearby residential areas, exposing up to 200,000 people to high levels of toxic lead. The situation is compounded by small-scale and informal mining activities at the former mine site.

In March 2022, President Hakainde Hichilema instructed the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment to establish a technical committee to “address and lead the process of comprehensive remediation” in Kabwe. However, after an initial informal meeting in June 2022, the technical committee was never formally set up. In 2023, the ministry announced its intention to make Kabwe a “Green City” where economic development takes place “on top of buried lead surfaces.” But it remains unclear how the ministry is planning to turn this vision into reality.

“We are disappointed by the government’s inaction,” said Namo Chuma, country director of Environment Africa Zambia. “The government should finally develop a tangible plan and time frame to tackle the toxic waste in Kabwe and consult civil society and affected communities in the process.”

Lead is a toxic metal with no safe level of exposure. It causes stunted growth, learning difficulties, memory loss, developmental delays, and many other irreversible health effects. It can also cause coma and death. Children and pregnant women are especially at risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists lead as one of 10 chemicals representing a “major public health concern.” According to medical research, over 95 percent of children living near the former mine in Kabwe have elevated lead levels in their blood, and half of them require urgent medical intervention.

In 2020, lawyers from South Africa and the United Kingdom filed a class action lawsuit in a South African court on behalf of affected children and women of child-bearing age in Kabwe. The lawsuit seeks compensation, a lead-screening system for children and pregnant women, and remediation of the area. The lawsuit contends that the mine was operated and managed by the company Anglo American between 1925 and 1974, while Anglo American argues it did not own or operate the mine, but only provided “technical services.”

In December 2023, the South African High Court refused to let the case proceed, describing it as an “unmanageable claim that would set a grave precedent.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs have announced they will appeal. Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies have a responsibility to provide remedies when they caused or contributed to adverse impacts.

With a World Bank loan, Zambia’s government has undertaken some limited efforts to address the contamination in Kabwe, It has tested and treated some children and cleaned up a small number of homes and a highly polluted canal. But it has failed to clean up the source of the contamination, which makes its measures unsustainable, and any gains quickly reversed.

“The people of Kabwe are entitled to better than this,” said Father Gabriel Mapulanga, director of Caritas Zambia. “Immediate action is needed to make sure that children in Kabwe can enjoy the right to a healthy environment.”

For the Alliance for Lead-Free Kabwe:

Advocacy for Child Justice Advocacy for Teen Mothers’ Education and Empowerment Caritas Zambia Centre for Environmental Justice Children’s Alliance Zambia Children’s Environmental Health Foundation Conservation Advocates Zambia Creative Thinkers Consulting Environment Africa Zambia Environment Savers of Zambia Human Rights Watch Keepers Zambia Foundation Lifeline Childline Zambia Media Network on Child Rights and Development Paralegal Alliance Network Prisoners’ Future Foundation Save Environment and People Agency          Zambian Governance Foundation Zambia National Education Coalition 
Author: Human Rights Watch
Posted: March 13, 2024, 1:00 pm

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