Human Rights Watch's Blog
November 21, 2025
EU-AU: Make Rights a Priority at Europe-Africa Summit
(Nairobi, November 21, 2025) – The African Union (AU) and European Union should put respect for human rights and international humanitarian law at the center of their partnership, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of the blocs’ seventh summit on November 24-25, 2025, in Luanda, Angola. Both regional blocs should redouble efforts to tackle conflict-related atrocities and strengthen institutions and norms protecting rights.
“Increasing polarization globally highlights the need for both the European Union and the African Union to live up to their core responsibilities,” said Allan Ngari, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The blocs should spare no effort to hold those responsible for atrocities to account and support strategies on both continents and elsewhere to respond to longstanding and emerging human rights challenges.”
Abusive armed conflicts have displaced millions of civilians as warring parties have carried out deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on them, resulting in deaths, injuries, and other severe violations.
Since April 2023, in Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting to control the country, and their allies have committed unlawful killings, torture and enforced disappearances, subjected women and girls to sexual violence, and blocked humanitarian access. Recent atrocities by the RSF in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher, are reminiscent of the group’s past crimes, including an ethnic cleansing campaign in West Darfur. The EU and the AU should urgently work together to advance and support robust initiatives to protect civilians in Sudan and close the accountability gap.
Throughout the Sahel, notably in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, Islamist armed groups have targeted civilians and caused extensive displacement. Government forces, at times with foreign fighters or pro-government militias, have led counterinsurgency operations that resulted in severe violations. The authorities have also cracked down on the political opposition, media, and peaceful dissent. The EU, which is debating a new approach to the Sahel, and the AU, which appointed a special envoy for the region, are in a strong position to jointly denounce atrocity crimes, call for robust protection of civilians, and press for investigations, accountability, and remedies for victims.
In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese forces and Rwandan forces with the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group have been committing serious violations of international humanitarian law, including mass killings, sexual violence, forced recruitment, forced labor and population transfers, and increasingly repressing civil society and media. Ongoing mediation efforts led by the United States and Qatar have not ended these abuses.
Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights each documented the killing of over 140 civilians, largely ethnic Hutu, by the M23 in Rutshuru territory in July 2025. The Wazalendo coalition of militias, supported by the Congolese government, also abused civilians in areas under their control. The EU and the AU should condemn crimes by all parties and call for an end to Rwanda’s and Congo’s support to these abusive armed groups. They should also press for the M23 and Rwanda to allow access for international investigators to areas that they occupy.
The EU and AU should act in multilateral forums to address serious abuses in armed conflicts around the globe, including Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and to ensure accountability for Russia’s grave abuses in Ukraine.
At the international level, the AU and the EU should ensure that global institutions have the resources and political support needed to carry out their missions, Human Rights Watch said, including adequate resourcing for the UN human rights pillar, which is chronically underfunded. The International Criminal Court is under extreme pressure from the US, which has imposed sanctions on several court officials, including African and European nationals, a UN expert, and civil society groups, and from the Russian Federation, which issued arrest warrants for court officials.
The EU and the AU should reaffirm support for the court and its global mandate and commit to protecting it from coercive measures. They should also press their own members, notably Hungary, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, to remain parties to the Rome Statute and encourage cooperation with the court.
The blocs should protect civilians from atrocities by supporting the adoption of an international treaty that would prevent and punish crimes against humanity. They should work to enable the broadest possible participation in the negotiations, including by legal experts, civil society groups, and victims associations that do not already have UN accreditation. The UN General Assembly laid out a multi-year roadmap for negotiations for a treaty, with the resolution adopted in December 2024.
The EU and the AU should also support the negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a historic process initiated in 2022 that could contribute to more equitable global tax rules to address pressing human rights challenges in both EU and AU countries and support human rights economies. The EU and the AU should also affirm support for and implement the landmark International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate change.
Finally, African leaders committed in July to dedicate the next decade to reparatory justice for Africans and People of African descent. To help realize the widely accepted right to reparation for lasting impacts of colonial atrocities, European governments should engage in human rights-based reparation processes. The AU should ensure that it collaborates with civil society in its efforts to establish frameworks for reparations that center on and empower communities.
“The Luanda Summit is an opportunity to translate both blocs’ commitments to human rights and international law into concrete actions,” said Philippe Dam, EU director at Human Rights Watch. “As civilians bear the brunt of brutal conflicts and multilateral institutions face attacks by states hostile to rights and international law, principled leadership from the AU and the EU is needed more than ever.”
November 20, 2025
Alarm Bells Go Off on Ethiopia
The fragile truce largely insulating civilians in northern Ethiopia from war crimes and other abuses may be unraveling. With many countries focused elsewhere, it is increasingly important that influential governments mobilize swiftly to prevent a resurgence of atrocities in the northern Tigray region that could spread further.
In recent weeks, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the Tigray region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of using its budget for military activities. The Ethiopian army chief called the party a “criminal clique” that needs to be eliminated. Tensions have risen since Ethiopian authorities and the TPLF repeatedly appealed—without success—for international mediation.
There have also been mounting tensions between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, which Ethiopia’s foreign minister alleged was colluding with the TPLF to wage war. For months, diplomats and analysts have been warning that provocations between the two countries could lead to renewed conflict in areas that have not had a chance to recover from previous fighting.
The 2020-2022 conflict in northern Ethiopia, which spread from Tigray to the Afar and Amhara regions, was marked by serious atrocities, claimed the lives of several hundred thousand people, displaced millions, and destroyed critical infrastructure. The Ethiopian government imposed a crippling siege on Tigray, while local officials and Amhara militias in Western Tigray carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Tigrayan population that amounted to crimes against humanity.
In November 2022, Ethiopian authorities and the TPLF signed an African Union-brokered truce. But as its monitoring mechanism largely failed to pay attention to human rights abuses, warring parties, including the agreement’s non-signatories, continued to abuse civilians in Tigray in violation of the agreement’s pledges to protect civilians.
Neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea have credibly prosecuted those responsible for the atrocities. The United Nations, capitulating to pressure from the Ethiopian authorities, failed to renew an international inquiry on Ethiopia in 2023, in favor of a domestic process that has all but stalled.
Now is the moment for diplomacy and de-escalation. The key guarantors of the truce—the African Union, Kenya, South Africa, and the United States—and Ethiopia’s partners should immediately mobilize to prevent further human rights abuses, and the AU needs to publicly report on violations of the truce, including against civilians.
The risk of renewed cycles of atrocities is all too real.
COP30 Should Accelerate Anti-Deforestation Efforts
This year’s United Nations climate summit (COP30) is taking place in Belém, gateway to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the summit by announcing a global investment fund to pay tropical forest countries to keep trees standing. Indigenous peoples have made their presence felt throughout, demanding recognition for their contributions as environmental defenders.
These events placed forests at the heart of the summit and raised expectations that it would advance efforts to protect climate-critical forests and the communities sustained by them.
At the national level, there’s been momentum. This week, Brazil finalized the process of formal legal recognition of four Indigenous territories.
In one of them, in Mato Grosso state, illegal ranchers threaten to encroach and convert the forest to pasture. The news has given renewed hope to the Manoki, the Indigenous group whose territory it is. “We will take our place in our territory with our heads held high, without fear, as our elders taught us,” Giovani Tapura, a leader of the Manoki Indigenous people, told Human Rights Watch.
Brazil also announced that it had advanced the process of formal recognition of the boundaries of another 23 territories. The evidence is clear, particularly in the Amazon region, that demarcated Indigenous and Afro-descendent territories register less deforestation than comparable areas.
But so far, the actual negotiations within the climate conference have not addressed commitments to stop deforestation and uphold the rights of forest peoples.
The latest draft of the COP30 outcome document doesn’t include a roadmap for forests even though countries previously agreed to end and reverse forest loss by 2030.
The COP30 outcome document should include a commitment for governments to begin work immediately on a time-bound roadmap to end forest loss as well as combat forest degradation.
Any forest preservation roadmap should also reflect an explicit commitment to advance Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights. In practice, this would translate into the legal recognition of customary land rights, combatting illegal invasions of traditional territories, strengthening governance of communally managed land, and investing in sustainable livelihoods for traditional communities. The roadmap should explicitly call for funding community-led conservation.
COP30 should mark a turning point for protecting climate-critical forests. Governments should develop a roadmap to end deforestation and advances rights.
Dominican Republic: Court Ends Security Forces Gay Sex Ban
(New York) – The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court has struck down provisions in the Codes of Justice of the National Police and the Armed Forces that criminalized consensual same-sex conduct by officers, Human Rights Watch said today. The ruling, made public on November 18, 2025, is a landmark victory for equality, ending a regime of state-sanctioned discrimination that violated the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) officers.
In Judgment TC/1225/25, the court held that article 210 of the Code of Justice of the National Police and article 260 of the Code of Justice of the Armed Forces violate constitutional guarantees to nondiscrimination, privacy, free development of personality, and the right to work. Both articles punished same-sex “sodomy” by officers with up to two years and one year in prison, respectively. No equivalent penalties existed for heterosexual sexual acts.
“For decades, these provisions forced LGBT officers to live in fear of punishment simply for who they are,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This ruling is a resounding affirmation that a more inclusive future is both possible and required under Dominican law.”
In an amicus curiae brief submitted to the court in August 2024, Human Rights Watch argued that the criminalization of same-sex conduct violates international standards, including the rights to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful interference with one’s private and family life and to one’s reputation or dignity, as emphasized by the United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In its ruling, the court emphasized that the criminalization of same-sex conduct in the security forces lacked “a legitimate constitutional interest or aims to strengthen and improve institutional efficiency.” Notably, the court found that “no regulation issued by state authorities or private individuals may diminish or restrict in any way a person’s rights based on their sexual orientation, an essential aspect of personal privacy and the free development of personality.”
The ruling aligns with a regional trend. In recent years, countries in the region, including Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the United States, have eliminated similar discriminatory laws and policies that criminalized same-sex conduct by officers.
Anderson Javiel Dirocie De León, one of the lawyers who brought the challenge, said: “This positive outcome represents the first case of general applicability advancing equality and dignity for LGBTI people in the Dominican Republic. There is still a long way to go, but it sets a historic precedent in the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
His co-counsel, Patricia M. Santana Nina, said: “This decision marks a decisive step toward ensuring that these institutions, as well as any public or private body, adapt their rules and practices to guarantee that no person is discriminated against or sanctioned for their sexual orientation.”
The Dominican Republic lags behind on LGBT and intersex rights compared with its Latin American neighbors, Human Rights Watch said. It lacks comprehensive civil antidiscrimination legislation, same-sex marriage or civil union rights, and gender identity recognition for transgender people, among other key protections.
In the Caribbean region, five Anglophone countries—Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago—still have laws on the books that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct, a relic of British colonialism. Consensual same-sex conduct remains criminalized in 65 countries, including Iran, Myanmar, and Sudan.
“President Luis Abinader and Congress should use the momentum of this landmark ruling to advance long-overdue protections for LGBT people,” González said. “By moving forward with laws addressing discrimination and violence, the Dominican Republic can align itself with progress in Latin America and demonstrate a genuine commitment to equality and dignity for all.”
November 19, 2025
West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli government’s forced displacement of the populations of three West Bank refugee camps in January and February 2025 amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 32,000 people reportedly removed have not been permitted to return to their homes, many of which Israel forces have deliberately demolished.
November 20, 2025 “All My Dreams Have Been Erased”Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank
Download the full report in English
Download the Summary & Recommendations in Arabic
Download the Summary & Recommendations in Hebrew
Annex: Response from the IDF International Press Desk
The 105-page report, “‘All My Dreams Have Been Erased’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank,” details “Operation Iron Wall,” an Israeli military operation across Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps that began on January 21, 2025, days after a temporary ceasefire was announced in Gaza. Israeli forces issued abrupt orders to civilians to leave their homes, including with loudspeakers mounted on drones. Witnesses said soldiers moved methodically through the camps, storming homes, ransacking properties, interrogating residents, and eventually forcing all families out.
“Israeli authorities in early 2025 forcibly removed 32,000 Palestinians from their homes in West Bank refugee camps without regard to international legal protections and have not permitted them to return,” said Nadia Hardman, senior refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 31 displaced Palestinian refugees from the three camps and analyzed satellite imagery and Israeli military demolition orders confirming the widespread destruction. Researchers also analyzed and verified videos and photographs of the Israeli military operations.
On January 21, Israeli forces stormed Jenin refugee camp, deploying Apache helicopters, drones, bulldozers, and armored vehicles to support hundreds of ground troops who forced people from their homes. Residents told Human Rights Watch they saw bulldozers demolishing buildings as they were being expelled. Similar operations took place in Tulkarem refugee camp on January 27 and in nearby Nur Shams camp on February 9.
The Israeli military provided no shelter or humanitarian assistance to displaced residents. Many sought shelter in the crowded homes of relatives or friends, or turned to mosques, schools, and charities.
A 54-year-old woman said that Israeli soldiers “were yelling and throwing things everywhere…. It was like a movie scene – some had masks and they were carrying all kinds of weapons. One of the soldiers said, ‘You don’t have a house here anymore. You need to leave.’”
Since the raids, Israeli authorities have denied residents the right to return to the camps, even with no active military operations in the vicinity. Israeli soldiers have fired upon people trying to reach their homes, and only a few have been allowed to collect their belongings. The military has bulldozed, razed, and cleared spaces for apparently wider access routes inside the camps, and have blocked all entrances.
Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery found that six months later, more than 850 homes and other buildings had been destroyed or heavily damaged across the three camps. The assessment focused only on areas of mass destruction that included buildings destroyed and severely damaged, often due to the widening of alleys and roads in the densely built camps.
October 14, 2024: © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. July 24, 2025: © 2025 Planet Labs PBC.
Satellite imagery recorded before and after the Israeli military raided Nur Shams refugee camp in February 2025 shows destruction within the refugee camp after six months of Israeli military operations. Before image: October 14, 2024 © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. After image: July 24, 2025 © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. Camp boundaries (2017): Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), accessed on September 5, 2025.
A preliminary satellite imagery assessment by the United Nations Satellite Center from October 2025, found that 1,460 buildings sustained damage in the three camps, including 652 that showed signs of moderate damage.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) established the three camps in the early 1950s to house Palestinians who were expelled from their homes or forced to flee following Israel’s creation in 1948. Those refugees—those displaced and their descendants—had resided there ever since.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable in occupied territory, prohibits displacement of civilians except temporarily for imperative military reasons or for the population’s security. Displaced civilians are entitled to protection and proper accommodation. The occupying power must ensure the return of displaced people as soon as hostilities in the area have ceased.
Israeli officials said in a letter to Human Rights Watch that Operation Iron Wall was initiated “in light of the security threats posed by these camps and the growing presence of terrorist elements within them.” However, Israeli authorities have made no evident attempt to establish that their only feasible option was the complete expulsion of the civilian population to achieve their military objective or why they have prohibited residents from returning, Human Rights Watch found.
Israeli officials have not responded to Human Rights Watch queries about when if ever Israel will allow the Palestinians to return. Finance Minister and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich said in February that if camp residents “continue their acts of ‘terrorism,’” the camps “will be uninhabitable ruins,” and that “[t]heir residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries.”
The authorities’ forced removal of Palestinians from the camps also amounted to ethnic cleansing, a non-legal term to describe the unlawful removal one ethnic or religious group from an area by another ethnic or religious group.
The raids were carried out while the spotlight has been on Gaza, where Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity—including forced displacement and extermination—and acts of genocide.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel, Israeli forces have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli authorities have increased their use of administrative detention without charge or trial, demolitions of Palestinian homes and building of illegal settlements, while state-backed settler violence and torture of Palestinian detainees are also on the rise. Forced displacement and other repression of Palestinians in the West Bank is part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
Senior Israeli officials should be investigated for the refugee camp operations and, where found responsible, appropriately prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including as a matter of command responsibility. Those who should be investigated include Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the Central Command commander who was in charge of West Bank military operations, and oversaw camp raids and demolition orders; Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who each served as Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli military; Minister in the Defense Ministry, Bezalel Smotrich, who sits on the security cabinet and also serves as Finance Minister; Defense Minister Israel Katz; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Click to expand ImageThe International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor and domestic judicial authorities under the principle of universal jurisdiction should investigate Israeli officials credibly implicated, including as a matter of command responsibility, in atrocity crimes in the West Bank.
Governments should impose targeted sanctions against Bluth, Zamir, Smotrich, Katz, Netanyahu, and other Israeli officials implicated in ongoing grave abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. They should also press Israeli authorities to end their repressive policies and to impose an arms embargo, suspend preferential trade agreements with Israel, ban trade with illegal settlements, and enforce ICC arrest warrants.
“Israel’s escalating abuses in the West Bank underscore why governments, despite the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, should urgently act to prevent Israeli authorities from escalating their repression of Palestinians,” Hardman said. “They should impose targeted sanctions on Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz, and other senior officials responsible for grave crimes against Palestinians and enforce all International Criminal Court warrants.”
Egypt: African Commission Should Act to Protect Rights
(Beirut) – The African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights should act decisively to address the dire, protracted human rights crisis in Egypt following its review of the situation in the country, 22 organizations said today. The commission has found Egypt in breach of numerous articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights but has not adopted a resolution on Egypt since 2015, despite the severe deterioration of Egypt’s human rights situation and the near-complete destruction of civic space.
The African Commission reviewed Egypt’s situation during its 85th session in October 2025, with the Egyptian government presenting a report covering 2019 to 2024. The report included false depictions of the human rights situation in Egypt and a blanket denial of abuses. The commission’s country rapporteur for Egypt also presented a report, which omitted widespread abuses and largely adopted government narratives.
“The Egyptian government painted a rosy picture of the dire human rights crisis in Egypt, while the African Commission’s country rapporteur adopted some of its narratives without scrutiny, dangerously amplifying them,” said Mohamed Lotfy, executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. “These misrepresentations make it all the more important for the commission to robustly address Egypt’s human rights crisis, the worst in decades.”
Flagrant and systematic human rights abuses in Egypt have been well-documented in numerous reports by independent Egyptian and international human rights organizations, United Nations and African human rights mechanisms, and even the government-appointed National Council on Human Rights, the organizations said.
The Egyptian government claimed in its report that it has no detained journalists or prisoners of conscience and that restrictions imposed on independent organizations, such as prohibiting them from conducting and publishing studies without permission, are to ensure “transparency and objectivity.”
In public sessions, the African Commission’s country rapporteur for Egypt rarely raised the acute human rights crisis and allegations of widespread abuses. She asserted that the 2023 presidential elections were held in a “peaceful” and “competitive” environment, contradicting well-documented evidence of repression, prosecutions targeting potential candidates and their family members, and Egypt’s effective criminalization of assembly, expression, and association.
The country rapporteur has asked the government to host an African Commission session in Egypt, without raising any concerns over the pervasive surveillance, security forces abuses, and crackdown on protesters. The repression has long been on display, including during the African Commission’s 2019 session in Sharm El-Sheikh and before and during the UN COP27 climate conference in Egypt in 2022.
In December 2024, the country rapporteur made an unannounced official visit to Egypt, which she described as an “information [familiarization] and advocacy visit.” However, she apparently did not meet with any independent human rights organizations before, during, or after the visit. In May 2025, the rapporteur published a report from the visit, which is no longer available on the commission’s website, repeating government narratives unchallenged, such as that “any person accused in a criminal case is entitled to all the rights stipulated in international conventions, especially the right to defense.” Many international and Egyptian human rights groups have raised concerns regarding the rapporteur’s visit and report publicly and in letters to the African Commission.
In the period covered by the commission’s review, the Egyptian government has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward dissent, virtually eliminated public space, and effectively criminalized the rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and association. Tens of thousands of activists, journalists, human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, peaceful protesters, labor unionists, and academics have been detained or prosecuted merely for exercising their rights. The government has harassed, detained, and prosecuted family members of critics, including critics living abroad.
Dangerously abusive constitutional amendments introduced in 2019 have severely undermined the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, and have further inserted the military into public and political life in unprecedented ways. New laws have further undermined basic rights, such as the 2019 law on associations and the 2024 asylum law. The government has failed to meaningfully amend existing abusive laws, such as the 2013 law restricting peaceful assembly, the 2018 cybercrimes law, the 2018 media regulation law, and the 2015 counterterrorism law.
The government has also failed to fulfill socioeconomic rights. Spending on education has effectively been reduced to the lowest level in many years. The government’s budget allocation for health care is well below the constitutional minimum and international benchmarks. Cash assistance programs cover fewer than one-third of those living in or near poverty, even according to official numbers.
The dire human rights crisis in Egypt has warranted four African Commission resolutions since 2013, in which it denounced violations such as the “severe restrictions imposed on journalists and media practitioners and their arbitrary arrest, detention and killing for carrying out their work,” as well as “disregard to regional and international fair trial standards [and] the unlawful imposition of mass death sentences.” The Egyptian government has failed to implement the vast majority of recommendations in these resolutions. International and Egyptian organizations met with several members of the African Commission during its 85th session to raise these human rights concerns. Several commissioners reflected a number of concerns in their public interventions.
Egypt has further failed to implement several final decisions in which the commission found it to be in breach of its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including three decisions adopted during the period under review since 2019.
The African Commission should take robust, decisive measures to highlight the ongoing human rights crisis in Egypt and protect the rights of Egyptians, the organizations said. It should ensure that the current review and concluding observations include an evidence-based assessment of Egypt’s human rights crisis and issue public statements, urgent appeals, and letters to the government raising systematic abuses and the need to repeal and amend abusive laws.
In light of the government’s failure to implement the commission’s previous resolutions on Egypt, it should issue a new resolution calling for investigations of abuses, accountability, and reparations for victims. The African Commission should also establish a follow-up mechanism under its Rule 112 to monitor Egypt’s implementation of recommendations and to engage with victims, civil society, and the state on concrete remedial actions. The commission, through its Working Group on Communications, must urgently address Egypt’s failure to implement remedies ordered in final decisions on individual cases and refer the matter to the African Union Executive Council.
It should use its early-warning mandate under Article 58 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to draw the African Union Peace and Security Council’s attention to the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt, particularly the risk of mass violations linked to impunity in detention and counterterrorism operations.
The African Commission should publicly commit to monitoring and speaking out about any such threats or restrictions. It should ensure that any country visit includes sufficient consultation with victims of abuses and Egyptian and international human rights organizations as well as credible government guarantees of confidentiality and safety for all those involved.
In case there is a bid to hold a session in Egypt, the African Commission should require the government to offer concrete guarantees that it would uphold and protect the safety and freedoms of all participants and the media. Participants must be able to freely enter the country, and the government must not create adverse consequences or retaliate for any involvement with the session. Critical Egyptian organizations must be allowed access without intimidation or reprisals.
“The African Commission has plenty of tools it can use to highlight and address the dire human rights situation in Egypt and ongoing flagrant abuses,” said Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “At the very least, the commission should ensure that the government narrative is properly scrutinized.”
Signatories:
Cairo Institute for Human Rights StudiesCommittee for JusticeDemocracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)Egyptian Commission for Rights and FreedomsEgyptian Front for Human RightsEgyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF)Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)EgyptWide for Human RightsEl Nadim CenterEuromed Rights NetworkHraak for Change and Youth EmpowermentHuman Rights WatchHuMENA for Human Rights and Civic EngagementInternational Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights DefendersInternational-Lawyers.OrgLaw and Democracy Support Foundation e.V. (LDSF)Ligue tunisienne des droits de l’hommeREDRESSRefugees Platform in Egypt - RPESinai Foundation for Human RightsTheir Right – To Defend Prisoners of ConscienceWorld Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights DefendersNepal: Unlawful Use of Force During ‘Gen Z’ Protest
(New York) – Security forces in Nepal used disproportionate force against youth-led protests on September 8, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. The interim government led by former chief justice Sushila Karki, which took charge after the prime minister was forced to resign due to the protests, should investigate the excessive use of force as well as arson and mob attacks on individuals and buildings the following day, September 9, including those who may have ordered any unlawful acts.
Human Rights Watch found that police indiscriminately fired on protesters multiple times over three hours, killing seventeen people in Kathmandu who had been demonstrating against corruption in politics and a sweeping social media ban imposed four days earlier at a “Gen Z” protest in the capital, Kathmandu, on September 8. This sparked a second day of violence on September 9, but security forces appeared to fail to act when groups of people, some apparently not linked to the Gen Z protest, set fire to prominent government buildings; assaulted politicians, journalists, and others; and attacked schools, businesses, and media companies.
“The recent violence in Nepal included serious human rights violations, and those responsible should be held accountable, whether they are security forces or political actors,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should ensure that the investigations are independent, time-bound, and transparent, and that no one found responsible for breaking the law is unfairly protected from proper prosecution.”
The Karki government has created a judicial commission of inquiry tasked with investigating the deaths of at least 76 people killed nationwide in the 2 days of violence, around 47 of them in Kathmandu, including 3 policemen. The Karki government should recognize and address corruption and the failure to ensure rights, such as an adequate standard of living, which spurred the youth protests, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights interviewed 52 witnesses, victims, journalists, medical professionals, politicians, and sources close to the security forces; verified photographs and videos posted to social media or shared with researchers; and visited hospitals and the scenes of protests and arson attacks. The research focused on Kathmandu.
On September 8, between around 12:30 and 4 p.m., police used lethal force to disperse young people after they gathered around the parliament, shooting people in the head, chest, and abdomen. Witness accounts and analyzed footage do not show the grave and imminent danger to life that would justify the intentional use of lethal force.
Participants, informed of the protest on social media including the communication platform Discord, began gathering around 9 a.m., and by 11 a.m. the crowd had grown significantly. As protesters advanced toward parliament, some overran the single barricade on a street leading to the parliament. Police used tear gas, water cannons, and batons to disperse them. Protesters gathered in large numbers around parliament’s main gate. Some threw stones at the police. At around 12:30 p.m., the government ordered curfew in the area, but protesters and journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch were not aware of any announcement.
Close to 1 p.m., “things became really bad,” said a journalist who heard gunfire and sheltered with a colleague near the parliament compound’s front wall. “A bullet whizzed between me and another journalist.” None of the witnesses interviewed heard any warnings before police used lethal force.
Police gunfire continued intermittently for hours. At around 1:40 p.m., police shot a 20-year-old university student through the shoulder. “When I was shot, there was no violence,” the student said. “It was very peaceful. Out of nowhere, they started firing.” Her surgeon confirmed her injuries.
On the afternoon and evening of September 8, a protester said a police unit he identified as the Special Task Force detained him along with 33 other people on parliament’s grounds. He said they were beaten and threatened. They were only released the following afternoon.
On September 9, protesters across the city attacked police stations, looted weapons, and forced police to flee. Three policemen were killed in mob attacks, police officials and pathologists who conducted postmortems said. In many places, members of the public participated spontaneously in arson and other attacks.
Mobs severely beat politicians and set their homes on fire. Some, including the then-prime minister, had to be rescued by military helicopter. Key government buildings, including the parliament, the presidential palace, federal offices, and the Supreme Court, were set ablaze. Schools, hotels, and private properties were also set on fire. Thousands of prisoners were freed after attacks on jails.
Several witnesses alleged that some mob attacks were selective and questioned why security forces did not do more to stop them. “The attacks were very targeted,” a businessman said, noting that neighboring businesses were typically left unscathed. Numerous witnesses said that security forces were largely absent as arson spread across the city on September 9, failing to protect individuals and properties under attack.
Witnesses and analysts interviewed by Human Rights Watch or quoted in the media said they suspected that the violence may have been influenced by “infiltrators” affiliated with various political movements. The criminal justice authorities should investigate any credible allegations of criminal acts contributing to the violence, Human Rights Watch said.
Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned on the afternoon of September 9. That evening, President Ram Chandra Poudel issued a statement urging calm. The arson continued until around 10 p.m., when the army was deployed. The army chief, Ashok Raj Sigdel, summoned prominent members of the Gen Z movement, as well as some politicians, for discussions. On September 12, “Gen Z” representatives, after a consultation with supporters on the Discord platform, reached an agreement with the president to dissolve parliament and appoint Karki as head of an interim government that would conduct fresh elections.
Pathologists at a Kathmandu morgue, which received 47 bodies over the two days, told Human Rights Watch that they determined 35 cases of death had been due to “high velocity gunshot wounds” to the head, neck, chest, or abdomen. Staff in various hospitals said they received hundreds of injured patients.
Police entered the grounds of a hospital on September 8 and charged staff and patients with batons, injuring a staff member, a hospital official said. Protestors attacked ambulances on both days. Journalists were injured by kinetic impact projectiles fired by police on September 8 and protesters attacked media premises on September 9.
A retired senior police official said police had failed to follow procedures for dispersing protests and the use of lethal force. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms prohibits the use of firearms except in cases of imminent threat of death or serious injury. Intentional lethal use of firearms is permitted only when it is strictly unavoidable to protect life. Under Nepali law, security forces, even when authorized to use lethal force to restore order, must issue warnings and prevent fatalities.
The commission created to investigate the events of September 8 and 9 should examine the role of security forces, credible allegations of infiltration, and criminal acts contributing to violence, Human Rights Watch said. As of November 10, police had arrested 423 people allegedly responsible for violence on September 9, but were not known to have taken action against officers who unlawfully opened fire on protesters on September 8.
“The authorities should recognize that widespread impunity for human rights violations in the past helped enable the violence that occurred this time in Nepal,” Ganguly said. “It is crucial to reverse the decades-long tendency by successive governments in Nepal to bury investigations and stall prosecutions, and to bring about accountability and security sector reform.”
September 2025 Violence in Nepal
Human Rights Watch has long documented the failure to ensure accountability for human rights violations in Nepal, including during previous protests.
Increasing discontent, particularly among young Nepalis, followed a social media campaign exposing the luxurious lifestyle of the political elite. It expanded into widespread anger over socioeconomic inequality, corruption, lack of governance due to disagreements among the political parties, and the failure to bring accountability for rights abuses.
The September 8 protest in Kathmandu began peacefully but became disorderly when protesters overran a police barricade near the parliament building. Protests also occurred in other parts of the country. Security forces used lethal force and killed 17 protesters in Kathmandu, as well as 2 outside the capital, and injured hundreds.
On September 9, many people came out to protest the killings. Among them were individuals and groups who almost immediately engaged in physical attacks and arson that targeted the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, as well as other institutions, schools, businesses, and media offices. Dozens were killed and injured, including six people burned to death in a supermarket attacked by arsonists, as security forces failed to ensure protection.
Researchers analyzed and verified 50 videos uploaded to social media platforms. Human Rights Watch has not included links to the online videos due to their graphic nature, but has preserved the visual evidence.
September 8
On September 4, the government of K.P. Sharma Oli announced a sweeping ban on 26 social media platforms and messaging apps that had failed to register with authorities following an August 25 cabinet directive. The government claimed the ban was necessary for tax and regulatory purposes, but many Nepalis said they believed that it was an attempt to silence criticism.
One of the organizers of the September 8 protest said the ban “triggered us a lot.” She described the protest movement as purposefully “leaderless,” coalescing rapidly between September 5-7, especially on the communication platform Discord. Discord servers—online communities on specific topics—formed to oppose the ban quickly swelled to include tens of thousands of members. Although Discord was among the banned platforms, it and others remained accessible using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
A person close to the movement, who joined a key Discord server early on, said that membership “really started picking up after the protest was announced” for September 8. Although peaceful protest was the dominant theme, this person said, some on the platform advocated violence: “The idea that there would be infiltrators was already there.” Several interviewees, including informed analysts and witnesses, said they believed that supporters of various political groups deliberately instigated disorder.
On September 8, thousands of young protesters began to gather between 9 and 11 a.m. at Maitighar Mandala, the typical assembly point for protests in the city, two kilometers west of parliament. Organizers had obtained permission for the protest and planned to march toward parliament as far as a police barricade 400 meters west of the building.
Click to expand ImageThe protesters demanded that the government lift the social media ban and address endemic corruption. Witnesses described a “joyful” atmosphere at the outset. Organizers, some of whom planned to give flowers to the police, believed that many had never attended a protest before. The crowds built up, and according to a journalist: “The mass was getting bigger and bigger. It was suffocating, so many people were there.” At around 11 a.m. they began to march toward parliament.
An organizer said that when the protesters reached the barricade, “we saw that they did not have enough police to control the crowd.” A police officer with knowledge of the operation said that police had underestimated the size of the gathering, and this failure of intelligence and preparation may have contributed to subsequent events. A retired senior police officer noted that it should have been possible to manage the protest without using lethal force. “For me, it was a fiasco,” he said.
Click to expand Image Demonstrators gathered outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu on September 8, 2025, condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government. © 2025 Prabin Ranabhat /Getty ImagesNepal’s parliament occupies one corner of a four-way junction called Naya Baneshwor Chowk. While the police had attempted to close the protest’s main route toward parliament, the other roads leading to the junction remained open.
Click to expand ImageAt around 11:30 a.m., based on drone footage verified by Human Rights Watch, the crowd toppled the police barricade. The footage shows the main crowd of protesters approaching the barricade from the west, while others approached from the direction of parliament and helped to pull it down, allowing those coming from the west to continue toward parliament. Others appear to have walked around the barricade.
Hundreds of protesters ran toward parliament as police retreated beyond a water cannon vehicle to form a line in front of the parliament gate. Drone footage shows the water cannon vehicle reversing while spraying water at protesters, many of whom fall to the ground. Witnesses said the police also fired tear gas and kinetic impact projectiles.
Click to expand Image Protesters topple a police barricade blocking the route to parliament in Kathmandu, Nepal, September 8, 2025. © 2025 Sunil Pradhan/Anadolu via Getty ImagesA police officer who was on the scene said that officers opened fire with lethal force five minutes after the District Administration Office declared an emergency curfew in the area at around 12:30 p.m. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video showing the Nepal Police and paramilitary Armed Police Force (APF) firing at protesters just in front of the main parliament gate. Another video shows officers inside parliament grounds, 40 meters from the wall, firing military rifles in the direction of protesters.
A protester who was among those who pushed through the barricade, and was later shot in the leg, said: “When we were in front of parliament, they shot metal bullets. Maybe some of our friends threw stones. But our friends threw stones, they shot [bullets].” He estimated that seven meters separated police and protesters when the first shots were fired.
A 20-year-old woman said that after hearing that two people had been shot dead, she and others went to plead with the police to use restraint. “We were not there for any violence,” she said. Soon after, at around 1:40 p.m., she decided to go home. She said she was on the opposite side of the road from parliament, roughly 45 meters away, with her back turned, when she was shot through her shoulder.
Another protester said that he arrived at the Naya Baneshwor junction around 1:30 p.m. and stayed for two hours. He saw protesters transporting injured people to hospitals. He saw police officers firing guns from positions on the street in front of the main gate, and others firing tear gas from beside the wall of parliament between the gate and the junction. “During the two hours I was at the intersection, people were getting shot in their hands, legs,” he said.
One video captures the moment a protester who posed no apparent threat was shot on the street near the southwestern corner of the parliament. A boy in school uniform—later identified online as 17-year-old Shreeyam Chaulagain—is walking away from the parliament, clapping his hands above his head. A gunshot rings out. The boy’s head snaps forward, and he collapses. The shadows in the video indicate he was shot around 2 p.m. Another video filmed shortly after shows other protesters trying to carry him away and stem the blood flowing from the back of his head. He did not survive.
A senior official at the Civil Service Hospital said it treated 221 patients injured in the protest on September 8. Three died at the hospital. Staff at the National Trauma Center said they received 8 patients who were dead or later died and 73 who were injured. The Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital received over 30 casualties that day, mostly gunshot wounds and injuries from kinetic impact projectiles. Other hospitals also treated casualties.
Between 3 and 3:30 p.m., a witness said he and another man led a large group forward to push police on the road back toward parliament. When they reached parliament, the police went inside the gate. “We were all there with our hands up, and we were trying to talk to the police,” the witness said. “We were saying: ‘Don’t shoot us, let’s do it peacefully.’ And then maybe three minutes later, somebody started throwing stones from the back, and then these other guys climbed on top of the army truck [parked beside the gate] and they started shaking the gates. I guess the police got spooked.”
He was two to three meters from the police, with the gate in between, when the police opened fire. He identified the police by their uniforms as members of the APF and the Nepal Police’s Special Task Force (STF). “They literally aimed at us and started shooting,” the witness said.
The witness said he attempted to shelter behind the barricade with another man, who had been shot in the lower leg. He heard the metal barrier ring twice when gunshots struck it. Researchers verified a video, uploaded to Facebook, that captures the moment the police opened fire as protesters were hiding behind a barricade and an ambulance a dozen meters from the main parliament entrance. Two gunshots are heard. One protester falls to the ground and a second, later identified as Dipendra Basnet, hangs motionless on the rail of the barricade, blood streaming from his head. Basnet survived.
Security forces detained at least 34 protesters, held them inside the parliament compound, then transferred them to a police station at around 10 p.m. The protester who sheltered behind the barricade said that moments later, STF officers in riot gear came out of the gate, took him into custody, and brought him inside the parliament complex. He said that police personnel beat him with batons, bruising his back and shoulders. He said that one officer threatened to shoot the detained protesters, while others smashed their phones and destroyed their identity documents. The protesters were released the following day.
On the evening of September 8, the home minister resigned, expressing regret, and the social media ban was lifted.
September 9
In the morning, many Gen Z protesters returned to parliament. Although the police used tear gas and lethal force, protesters were able to enter and occupy the parliament building. A member of the Gen Z movement said she entered the building at around 1:30 p.m., but left after hearing that the prime minister had resigned.
The parliament building was later set on fire by unidentified people.
The arson attacks on September 9 documented by Human Rights Watch include some that may have been spontaneous expressions of public anger and others that indicate a planned and targeted use of violence. Witnesses and analysts interviewed agreed that while the crowd on September 8 was overwhelmingly composed of young protesters, on September 9 others also appeared to be involved in violence and arson.
An automated SMS message received by many mobile phone users at 12:20 a.m. on September 9, reportedly sent from an account operated by a local government in Myagdi district which claimed to have been “hacked,” and seen by Human Rights Watch, reads: “Only the blood of politicians who spilled the blood of innocent children will bring peace to Nepal.” Witnesses who spoke to Human Rights Watch and news reports described some social media and Discord posts encouraging or directing people to attack specific properties.
In the course of the day, people overran all but a few police stations in the city and looted weapons. Three police officers in Kathmandu were beaten to death by mobs, pathologists told Human Rights Watch. A police source said that the first station attacked was in Harisiddhi, a southeastern suburb of the capital. Researchers geolocated a photograph of the police station surrounded by smoke that was posted on Facebook at 11:34 a.m.
Witnesses said that some targets were clearly selected in advance. In Harisiddhi, a large group of people who do not live in the area forced their way into a housing complex, disabling CCTV cameras, and attacked the rented home of a junior government minister, said a witness who lives in the complex. “We have no idea how they knew that this person lives there because we did not know that he lives there,” she said.
At around 11 a.m., a group attacked Ullens School in Khumaltar in the southern part of the city, a private school that many Nepalis said they believed is associated with then-Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba. A geolocated video posted on Facebook at 11:06 a.m. shows large plumes of smoke coming from the school. A staff member said the attack left the facilities “all burned, destroyed.” A second school operated by Ullens, in Bansbari in the northern part of the city, was attacked at around 12:30 p.m., the timestamp on geolocated videos posted to Facebook and TikTok showed. Videos posted in the hours that followed show burned out school buses and other destruction.
Between 1:30 and 2 p.m., 10 to 15 men armed with sticks, knives and gasoline vandalized the headquarters of Kantipur Television, a major private news channel, said the channel’s staff. Protesters assaulted four staff members. The attackers set fire to vehicles parked outside the studios and pushed a burning scooter inside, causing damage that took the channel off the air for 70 hours. The offices of Kantipur Group’s two daily newspapers, at a separate location, were evacuated at around 12:30 p.m. Staff believe that a mob set fire to that building between 3:30 and 4 p.m. The offices of another newspaper, the Annapurna Post, were also burned.
In the early afternoon, groups attacked government buildings including the Supreme Court and Singha Durbar, which houses the office of the prime minister and other departments. A witness said that the groups, some “very aggressive,” began arriving in the area between 12:30 and 1 p.m.
Click to expand ImageAround 2 p.m., several witnesses said, groups gathered outside the Supreme Court. A lawyer who was inside the court, as well as a journalist and bystander who were outside, saw men entering the building between 2 and 2:30 p.m., removing large volumes of files from cupboards and burning them in the parking area. Shortly afterward, the Supreme Court building was set ablaze. The attorney general’s office next door was attacked and records reportedly destroyed.
A photojournalist recorded 10 to 15 men carrying guns outside the gate of Singha Durbar, who then entered the complex. A man who ordered him not to take photographs assaulted him.
At Singha Durbar, several witnesses described a “biker gang” among the arsonists, armed with weapons such as khukuris (large knives) and iron rods. A witness saw these men make firebombs using fuel from their motorcycles, with which they set fire to the principal building.
Numerous businesses and homes of businesspeople were attacked, while neighboring properties including similar businesses were left unscathed.
By 4:25 p.m., the presidential palace, Shital Niwas, was on fire. A person who participated in the attack and was accidentally injured in the burning building said that a small number of soldiers deployed at the gate had been unable to prevent them from entering. The same man had earlier been present when the prime minister’s official residence at Baluwatar was burned. He said the police posted at Baluwatar said: “‘We won’t shoot at you,’ and 10 to 15 minutes later they opened the gate,” allowing them to enter.
Staff at the Teaching Hospital said they received most casualties on the second day in the afternoon, including nonfatal gunshot injuries at around 5 p.m. at the location in Maharajganj where policemen were beaten to death. Later, patients arrived with smoke inhalation injuries. According to a doctor, the Civil Hospital received 220 patients on September 9, including 3 shot dead outside parliament before it was overrun by protesters.
Taliban’s Mandatory Burqa in Herat Assaults Women’s Autonomy
The Taliban in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat have recently banned women doctors, patients, and healthcare workers from entering hospitals without wearing a burqa. On November 10, 2025, authorities prevented Shabnam Fazli, a female surgeon, from entering a major hospital in the provincial capital and detained her for several hours, allegedly for not wearing a burqa.
The requirement of a burqa, a full-face and body covering, immediately affected access to health care: Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) observed a 28 percent drop in urgent admissions during the first few days. The restriction has reportedly been expanded to all government institutions and women teaching in primary schools in the province.
These restrictions assault women’s autonomy and violate their rights to freedom of movement, employment, and health services, among others.
In response, activist groups in Herat, Kabul, and in exile have staged symbolic protests, setting their burqas on fire. Some danced and recorded messages demanding freedom, such as: “We burn this not out of hatred, but for freedom. There is no power stronger than a woman’s will for free life”; “A woman’s body is not a site for [playing] politics”; “Your silence helps the Taliban”; and “I’m a woman, not a shadow, don’t cover my voice…. Behind this garment is a woman who continues to dream!”
Forced hijab is part of the Taliban’s policy of controlling women’s bodies to make women invisible. Afghan women and United Nations human rights experts have called this “gender apartheid.”
The crackdown in Herat reflects a broader pattern. In May 2022, the Taliban ordered women throughout the country to wear burqas or black hijabs that cover their faces. Mahram, women’s male guardians, were made liable for enforcing these rules, and women outside their homes were required to be accompanied by a mahram.
In August 2024, the Taliban issued the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a formal morality codethat prohibits women’s voices from being heard outdoors. The Taliban’s morality police have increasingly arrested and detained women for dress code violations.
Every new Taliban restriction pushes women further into isolation and exclusion. Women in Herat and across the country are resisting in every way they can. Governments should answer their call and urgently act to hold the Taliban accountable until Afghan women’s freedom is restored.
US Preterm Birth Worsening, Including in Petrochemical Polluted Louisiana
March of Dimes issued their annual report on US rates of preterm birth on November 17. The findings are a gut punch.
Rates worsened between 2023 and 2024 in 21 states. Preterm birth rates among babies born to Black women climbed to 14.7 percent, 1.55 times higher than the rate for white moms. For the fourth year running, fewer pregnant people began prenatal care in the first trimester in 2024 than the year prior.
In Louisiana, the hike in preterm rates is especially grim because the state has long had some of the worst in the country. In 2024, 14 percent of Louisiana’s babies were born too soon: an increase from 13.4 percent in 2023 and higher than ten years ago. Racial disparities are striking: 17.4 percent of Black women’s births in Louisiana are preterm, compared to 11.6 percent of white women. Nationwide, 10.4 percent of births are preterm.
Louisiana is in a reproductive rights crisis. More than a quarter of all parishes are maternity deserts, areas without access to birthing facilities or maternity care providers. Abortion bans have also driven down access to prenatal care in the first trimester in part because healthcare providers fear getting into trouble if a patient’s miscarriage is misinterpreted as an abortion.
But as a 2024 Human Rights Watch’ report showed, high rates of preterm births and low birth weight births, in addition to other outcomes, were found to be connected to petrochemical pollution in Cancer Alley and other heavily-industrialized parts of the state, including in predominately Black communities. That report featured a study that found a 25 percent higher risk of preterm birth in census tracts with the highest levels of air pollution compared to unpolluted tracts.
Advocacy by environmental justice organizations made significant progress in fighting state and federal failures to adequately regulate industry and provide health information about petrochemical harms, but the Trump administration is rolling back crucial regulations including those that apply to pregnancy-harming pollutants like benzene, which is present in Cancer Alley.
Everyone in the US should be concerned that these statistics might worsen further still.
Thailand: Rights Priorities for New Government
(Bangkok) – The new Thai government should reverse the trend of past administrations and take concrete action to uphold human rights, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on November 12, 2025. Anutin took office on September 7 following a parliamentary election and royal endorsement.
“The Anutin government should make human rights a priority and demonstrate a commitment through swift and effective action,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should revoke abusive laws, end the repression of fundamental rights, and exonerate all those prosecuted for peacefully expressing their views.”
Since the 2014 military coup, Thai authorities have imposed tight restrictions on viewpoints critical of the government and dissident opinions. They have prosecuted nearly 2,000 people for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful public assembly. At least 284 people have been prosecuted on draconian lese majeste (insulting the monarchy) charges. The authorities have often held critics of the monarchy in pretrial detention for months without access to bail.
The Thai government should reform the lese majeste law, adopt a moratorium on prosecution and pretrial detention under the current law, and ensure that any amnesty bill adopted by parliament includes amnesty for critics of the monarchy, Human Rights Watch said.
The government should also immediately dismiss all pending Covid-19 restriction-related charges. The nationwide enforcement of emergency measures to control the spread of Covid-19 was lifted in October 2022, but at least 1,469 people are still being prosecuted under the charges related to those measures.
The killing and enforced disappearance of human rights defenders and other civil society activists remains a serious blot on Thailand’s human rights record. Cover-ups have effectively blocked efforts to pursue justice, even in high-profile cases, such as the ethnic Lahu activist Chaiyaphum Pa-sae, the ethnic Karen activist Porlajee Rakchongchareon, and the Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit.
The authorities have failed to protect rights defenders from reprisals by government agencies and private companies using strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as SLAPPs). The Thai government should immediately curb the abuse of the judicial system to harass and punish critics and whistleblowers.
In November, United Nations human rights experts expressed concerns about reports of death threats and online attacks against Senator Angkhana Neelapaijit, a former national human rights commissioner, and Human Rights Watch adviser Sunai Phasuk as a result of their comments regarding possible international humanitarian law violations in the recent Thailand-Cambodia border conflict.
Prime Minister Anutin should enforce measures to end torture and enforced disappearance in line with the law on the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance. Numerous allegations of police and military torture and other ill-treatment have gone unpunished.
None of the outstanding cases of enforced disappearance have been resolved, including cases of nine exiled Thai dissidents who were abducted in neighboring countries during the previous government of Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has raised concerns about enforced disappearances in the context of transfers of dissidents between Thailand and neighboring countries.
Thai authorities in recent years have violated the international prohibition against refoulement, that is returning refugees and asylum seekers to countries where they are likely to face persecution, torture or other serious ill-treatment, or a threat to life. Thai authorities have forcibly returned asylum seekers and refugees from Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Turkey, Vietnam, and other countries. This inhumane practice undermines Thailand’s reputation as a safe haven for people fleeing war and persecution.
In February, the government of then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sent 40 Uyghur men to China, where they could face torture, arbitrary detention, and long-term imprisonment. After the murder of a former Cambodian opposition parliament member, Lim Kinya, in Bangkok in January, many critics of the Cambodian government living in Thailand have expressed concern for their safety.
The Thai government should be commended for a new policy that went into effect on October 1 allowing Myanmar refugees in camps along the Thai-Myanmar border to work legally. The Thai government should introduce a protection framework for more recent arrivals from Myanmar, whether they are in border areas or elsewhere in Thailand.
“Prime Minister Anutin has a chance to chart a new path for Thailand by ending ongoing human rights abuses,” Pearson said. “The new Thai government should quickly adopt a clear plan to address human rights issues and implement it.”
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