Human Rights Watch's Blog

Click to expand Image Iklass Ahmed, projected on screen, Founder and Coordinator of the Darfur Advocacy Group, addresses the Security Council during a meeting on Women, Peace and Security focused on conflict-related sexual violence, August 19, 2025. © 2025 Bianca Otero/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters

This month sees the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. Adopted in October 2000, Resolution 1325 established that women should be full, safe, equal, and meaningful participants in all discussions about their country’s future, including peace talks. Resolution 1325 has never been more important than it is today, as we face a global backlash against women’s rights and escalating wars and crises around the globe.

And yet, we are seeing a dangerous erosion of the basic principle 1325 stands for.

Women still have to fight for a seat at the tables where key discussions take place; the UN itself sometimes excludes women.

In 2020, then-UN undersecretary general Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka described 1325 as “one of the crowning achievements of the global women’s movement and one of the most inspired decisions of the United Nations Security Council.” But the Security Council members that unanimously adopted the resolution 25 years ago have often failed to uphold 1325. And the number of women’s rights defenders briefing the council has fallen dramatically, a trend worsened by the US immigration crackdown, which has blocked many potential speakers from traveling safely to New York, where the council meets.

Resolution 1325 has been stress-tested over the last 25 years. Subsequent resolutions detailed what full participation by women means, and how countries and multilateral bodies should ensure women’s participation and respond to gendered impacts of conflict. Well over 100 countries developed national action plans for how they would implement Resolution 1325.

All this effort helped prove what women in war zones already knew: women’s participation makes a difference. One comprehensive study found that when women are involved in peace negotiations, those processes are more likely to lead to agreement, and agreements are more likely to be implemented. In its 20 year review of Resolution 1325, UN Women wrote that research “comprehensively demonstrates that the participation of women at all levels is key to the operational effectiveness, success and sustainability of peace processes and peacebuilding efforts.”

If we want a peaceful world for ourselves and future generations, we should mark this anniversary by reminding policymakers everywhere of the unofficial slogan of the women’s movement fighting to uphold Resolution 1325: “No women, no peace.”

Click to expand Image Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon during their meeting in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. © 2025 Sergei Bobylev/Sputnik via AP Photo

(Brussels) –Tajikistan should deny entry to Russian President Vladimir Putin or arrest him if he enters the country, based on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for him, Human Rights Watch said today. The Kremlin announced that Putin is planning to travel to Tajikistan on October 9, 2025, to attend a Russia-Central Asia summit and a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

President Putin has been subject to arrest by the ICC since March 17, 2023, when the court’s judges issued warrants against him and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, over war crimes of unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia and Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine.

“Putin should be in The Hague to face the charges against him, not attending summits hosted by an ICC member,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “If it welcomes Putin, Tajikistan will be showing utter disregard for the suffering of victims of Russian forces’ crimes in Ukraine and for its own obligations as an ICC member.”

Tajikistan joined the ICC in 2002. Under the ICC’s founding treaty, Tajikistan has an obligation to cooperate with the court, including by arresting and surrendering any suspects who enter its territory. Tajikistan would be defying this obligation if it allows Putin to enter the country without arresting him. Without its own police force, the ICC must rely on states and the international community to assist in arrests.

Since the arrest warrant against Putin was issued, only one ICC member country, Mongolia, has hosted him, in September 2024. The visit was widely condemned, with states parties and regional organizations like the European Union speaking out in support of the court and registering their disappointment privately with Mongolian authorities.

On October 24, 2024, ICC judges determined that Mongolia had failed to fulfill its obligations as an ICC member by not arresting Putin and referred the matter to the ICC Assembly of States Parties for further action. The decision was confirmed on appeal. The assembly took note of the decision and decided to include issues of non-cooperation with the court as a standing item in the agenda for its future annual sessions.

In the past, ICC member countries haveavoided visits by individuals wanted by the court, including by relocating or rescheduling meetings or asking the government of the ICC suspect to send other representatives to meetings. In August 2023, Putin was expected to attend the annual leaders’ summit for BRICS––a group of states that includes both South Africa and Russia––in Johannesburg. But his visit was ultimately cancelled following pressure by civil society and a South African court decision reaffirming South Africa’s obligation to execute the ICC arrest warrant against him.

ICC members, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union should urge the Tajik authorities to uphold their obligations under the court’s treaty, Human Rights Watch said.

Along with forced deportation of Ukrainian civilians, including children, to Russia, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous violations by Russian forces since their 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine that should be investigated as potential war crimes. These include unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure; indiscriminate attacks including widespread use of prohibited weapons such as cluster munitions; and arbitrary detention, torture, and summary executions of civilians and of Ukrainian soldiers attempting to surrender. The court’s investigations have, so far, yielded arrest warrants against six individuals on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Over recent years, Tajikistan’s government has intensified its crackdown on dissent, jailing public figures, journalists, and bloggers. It also sought the deportation or extradition from other countries of people linked to a banned opposition party. Tajikistan’s close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia have not protected Tajik labor migrants in Russia from escalating xenophobic harassment, arbitrary arrests, and deportations.

In April, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations and opposition groups filed a complaint with the ICC against President Emomali Rahmon and senior government officials. The complaint alleges that between 2002 and 2024, Tajikistan’s government systematically committed crimes against humanity, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, forced deportations, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, targeting political opposition, and ethnic minorities.

“Allowing Putin’s visit in breach of Tajikistan's ICC obligations would further damage the country’s concerning human rights record,” Evenson said. “Tajikistan’s partners should press its authorities to uphold their commitment to support victims’ access to justice through the court, regardless of who the alleged perpetrators are.”

Click to expand Image Ismail al-Iskandrani. © Private

(Beirut) – Egyptian authorities detained prominent independent journalist Ismail Iskandarani over Facebook posts, Human Rights Watch said today. They should immediately and unconditionally release Iskandarani and establish an independent committee to review the detention of thousands of peaceful critics and release all those detained for peaceful speech, assembly, or association.

According to his lawyers, security forces arrested Iskandarani on September 24, 2025, at a checkpoint in Matrouh governorate only two days after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pardoned prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and five others. Iskandarani was previously convicted in an unjust military trial over his journalistic work and subsequently served seven years in prison between 2015 and 2022.

“Instead of using Alaa Abdel Fattah’s release as an opportunity to correct course, Egyptian authorities arbitrarily detained journalist Ismail Iskandarani after a lengthy Orwellian questioning over his Facebook posts,” said Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This is a bellwether moment for the Egyptian government and the only way out of its protracted crisis is to stop unlawfully detaining critics and journalists and release all those arbitrarily detained.” 

During the early hours of September 24, Iskandarani posted on Facebook that security forces stopped him at a police checkpoint near Matrouh. According to one of his lawyers, Mahienour El-Massry, a National Security Agency officer then seized Iskandarani’s phone, blindfolded him, and took him to an unknown location. After several hours, officers brought him to Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP), where, El-Massry said, prosecutors questioned him about 17 posts on his Facebook page. Human Rights Watch reviewed the posts in question and determined that, under human rights law, they constitute protected peaceful speech. 

El-Massry said prosecutors refused to let Iskandarani’s lawyers read the investigation file and charges but only explained them verbally. Prosecutors ordered Iskandarani detained for 15 days pretrial and charged him with “spreading false news,” “belonging to a terrorist organization,” and “using a website to promote ideas that incite terrorist acts,” El-Massry said. 

Human rights lawyer Khaled Ali, who is involved in Iskandarani’s case, told Human Rights Watch that Iskandarani was charged in state security Case No. 6469 of 2025, in which Said Eteik, a Sinai activist, has been detained since late August, also over a critical Facebook post. Ali said that authorities transferred Iskandarani to 10th of Ramadan Prison Complex, in Al-Sharqia governorate east of Cairo, and on October 5, an SSSP prosecutor remotely renewed Iskandarani’s pretrial detention for another 15 days through a videoconference session. Ali said lawyers were allowed to meet Iskandarani but without the ability to speak confidentially with him.

Human Rights Watch has documented the use of abusive video conference systems in Egypt since 2022 to conduct remote hearings for pretrial detention renewal without bringing detainees before a judge. This system severely undermines due process by preventing a judge from assessing the legality and conditions of detention as well as the detainees’ wellbeing. It also violates several fair trial guarantees, including the right to legal counsel.

Iskandarani’s lawyers expressed serious concerns over Iskandarani’s health in detention because he has diabetes and breathing difficulties. They said he requires a medical machine while sleeping, part of which was missing after being confiscated by National Security Agency officers. 

Authorities should end arbitrary detentions, Human Rights Watch said. Rather than piecemeal releases of peaceful critics through sporadic presidential pardons, President Sisi should promptly establish an independent committee consisting of judges, lawyers, and human rights defenders to review the situation of thousands of political opponents, critics, protesters, journalists, and women’s rights activists who have been languishing in jails for years. This committee should release everyone found to be detained unlawfully, including those who are being held simply for exercising their human rights of peaceful speech, assembly, or association. In contrast to prior initiatives, the committee should make decisions based on international human rights law and should operate independently from security agencies. 

Under Sisi’s government, Egypt has ranked among the world’s worst countries in regards to detained journalists almost every year since 2014, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, with more than 170 journalists jailed in the past decade. Authorities have long used vague and abusive charges such as “spreading false news” to imprison critics and stifle free speech. 

The Egyptian Constitution and international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, guarantee the right the right to free expression and a fair trial. International law prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention and requires states to bring anyone detained promptly before a judge (within 48 hours) and only use pretrial detention exceptionally, when necessary in individual cases. States must provide all detainees with a fair hearing before a competent, independent, and impartial judicial body without undue delay, and a right to appeal to a higher judicial body.

“By arresting peaceful voices like Iskandarani and Eteik, the authorities are demonstrating yet again that they have no real intention of ending unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression,” Magdi said. “Genuine reform begins by releasing the unlawfully detained en masse, not by arresting more people.”

Click to expand Image Chinese artists the Gao Brothers, Zhen and Qiang, with some of their "Miss Mao" pieces that feature life-sized, Pinocchio-nosed sculptures of Mao Zedong in their studio in Beijing, October 16, 2007. © 2007 David Grey/Reuters

(New York) – The Chinese government should drop the baseless charges against the artist Gao Zhen (高兟) and allow him and his family to return to the United States, Human Rights Watch said today. Gao’s family said the 69-year-old artist, a permanent US resident, is in poor health and had fainted in September 2025.

Chinese authorities are prosecuting Gao for the crime of “slandering China’s heroes and martyrs” for sculptures created over a decade ago that portray the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong in a provocative manner. The charges violate Gao’s fundamental right to freedom of expression, which is protected under international human rights law. If convicted, Gao faces up to three years in prison.

Click to expand Image “Mao’s Guilt” from the back. © Gao Brothers

“The Chinese authorities’ prosecution of Gao Zhen both violates his basic rights and indicates a step back toward China’s painful past,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Critique about Mao’s brutal legacy, once tolerated, now seems to be off-limits as President Xi Jinping tightens his ideological control.”

Gao was visiting family members in China on August 26, 2024, when police took him into custody in Yanjiao town, Sanhe city, Hebei province. The authorities have since been holding Gao in the Sanhe City Detention Center. The Chinese authorities have barred Gao’s wife from leaving the country, where she remains with their seven-year-old son, a US citizen.

Sanhe police took away 118 pieces of artwork, including sculptures, paintings, and photographs, from Gao’s studio in China on November 17, 2024, according to Gao Zhen’s brother and collaborator, Gao Qiang. The authorities allege that some of the Gao brothers’ works, including the “Miss Mao Series,” sculptures of Mao with breasts; “The Execution of Christ,” depicting a Chinese firing squad aiming at Jesus Christ; and “Mao’s Guilt,” a sculpture of Mao kneeling on the ground and expressing remorse, “distort and vilify former national leaders.”

Click to expand Image “Miss Mao.” © Gao Brothers

The crime of “slandering China’s heroes and martyrs” was introduced in 2021. Gao created the artwork in question between 2005 and 2009, long before the law came into effect.

Under President Xi, the Chinese government has tightened ideological control and increasingly cracked down on speech deemed “unpatriotic.” In 2023, a standup comedian, Li Haoshi (李昊石) made a joke about the People’s Liberation Army that led to a political firestorm when the authorities fined the company he worked for 14.7 million yuan (about US$2.1 million) for having slandered “China’s heroes and martyrs,” though he was not arrested.

The authorities have not yet announced a trial date for Gao, though it is expected to be in the next few months, according to a source knowledgeable about the situation.

Click to expand Image “The Execution of Christ.” © Gao Brothers

Gao’s family said that after Gao fainted, a doctor at the detention center said he may have arteriosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries, and that it could be “a precursor to a stroke.” Gao also suffers from a chronic back problem and had to sit in a wheelchair in previous meetings with his lawyer. He has been held in a crowded 40-square-meter cell with 14 other detainees. Despite his health problems, the authorities rejected his application for medical bail.

In China, few criminal suspects are given bail while awaiting trial, contrary to international human rights standards. Most suspects awaiting trial are held in overcrowded detention centers, receive poor food and rudimentary health care, and are not allowed to see their families.

Gao Zhen and his brother are originally from Jinan city, Shandong province. During the Cultural Revolution, their father died after being taken into custody for being a “counter-revolutionary.” The family was told that he had committed suicide.

The Gao brothers were able to exhibit their work in the 2000s, despite harassment from the authorities. Gao Zhen relocated to the United States in 2022 as he became increasingly concerned over the government’s deepening repression.

Following his arrest, 181 artists, writers, activists and scholars from China signed a petition calling for his release. In that letter, they drew parallels between Mao’s and Xi’s China: “The Gao Brothers’ father tragically lost his life during that time, and their family has yet to receive any explanation or justice. Today, the Sanhe Public Security Bureau has labeled Gao Zhen’s artistic creations as evidence of a crime, repeating the persecutions of the Cultural Revolution.”

Concerned governments should publicly raise Gao Zhen’s case with the Chinese government and press for his immediate and unconditional release. The US embassy in Beijing should seek access to Gao and urge the Chinese authorities to allow him to return to the United States.

“Gao Zhen is facing years in prison for holding up a mirror to China’s past,” Pearson said. “The Chinese government should break away from its abusive past practices, drop the charges against Gao, and immediately release him.”

Click to expand Image Syrian refugee children attend a class at a school in Mount Lebanon, October 7, 2016. © 2016 Mohamed Azakir/Reuters

The new government in Lebanon, formed this February under Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, has emphasized the importance of quality education for students in Lebanon and committed to providing all children in Lebanon, regardless of their background, with access to their right to education.

The new minister of education and higher education, Rima Karami, vowed to rehabilitate the Lebanese public school system and quality of education. In September, Prime Minster Salam said that “the children of Lebanon, regardless of origin or circumstance, must never be deprived of their right to learn.” Both have emphasized that education is a national priority needed to revitalize the country.

But in a disappointing move, on September 30, the government restricted access to education for many refugees. It continued last year’s mandate requiring that non-Lebanese students show valid residency permits or a valid ID issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in order to register for “second shift” classes in Lebanon’s public schools for the 2025-2026 school year. Generally, Palestinian refugee children, including those from Syria, attend UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools rather than public schools.

According to a spokesperson from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), last year at least 28,000 non-Lebanese children were effectively barred from public education because of the legal residency requirement.

While Lebanon initially maintained an open-door policy for Syrians seeking refuge, by 2015 the government began enacting stricter residency requirements and stringent criteria for renewal of residency permits. The red tape and high renewal fees have made it so only around 20 percent of Syrian refugees have valid residency status.

In May 2015, the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants demanded that UNHCR stop registering Syrian refugees in Lebanon. As of end of September 2025, UNHCR reported that only 815,000 of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon are registered. UNHCR reported that in 2024, 41 percent of Syrian refugee children did not attend primary school, and 81 percent of Syrian refugee children did not attend secondary school.

Lebanese leaders should stay true to their promises and ensure that all children in Lebanon can access quality education, regardless of their status in the country. Education is the best way to ensure the next generation of children, whether Lebanese or not, have a future. This is a right guaranteed to all children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. All children, regardless of their immigration status, have a right to education and should be able to go to school.

Click to expand Image Then-acting Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (right) welcomes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the 8th Singapore-Australia Annual Leaders' Meeting on June 2, 2023.  © 2023 Singapore Press via AP Images

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should urge Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to halt an execution scheduled on the day of their meeting in Canberra on October 8 for the Australia-Singapore Annual Leaders’ Meeting.

Singaporean authorities are planning to execute a 38-year-old Malaysian national, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, who was convicted in 2017 of trafficking drugs into Singapore. Pannir Selvam’s family was informed on October 3 that his clemency plea had been rejected and that his execution would take place just five days later. Singapore has already executed 11 people in 2025, 9 of them for drug-related offenses. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.

In addition, Singaporean authorities routinely target anti-death penalty activists using media censorship and anti-protest laws to stifle dissent. Singapore’s suppression of critical voices underscores the importance of governments like Australia speaking out on the death penalty and other human rights issues in their public engagements with the city-state.

Australia adopted a Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in 2018, pledging to advance the abolition globally through multilateral and bilateral advocacy. The strategy includes reducing executions for offenses, including drug-related crimes, that do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the Australian government has repeatedly failed to publicly raise the issue in annual leaders’ meetings with Singapore, though it is a close partner and global outlier on the issue.

Failing to speak out on this occasion, on the very day Pannir Selvam is scheduled to be executed, would highlight a troubling dissonance between the Albanese government’s stated commitment to rooting out the death penalty globally and its actions.

During his visit, Albanese should waste no time urging his Singaporean counterpart to halt Pannir Selvam’s execution and impose a moratorium on capital punishment. Australia’s commitment to human rights, including its longstanding opposition to the death penalty, should be made clear and forcefully at the meeting.

Quiet diplomacy is unlikely to stop Singapore from sending more people to the gallows.

Click to expand Image The United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. © 2024 Hannes Albert/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

The United Nations Human Rights Council on October 6 extended a project to gather evidence of human rights violations and war crimes associated with Sri Lanka’s civil war for at least two more years. The resolution adopted by consensus offers a ray of hope to victims of abuses and their families that they may one day see justice, despite the efforts of successive Sri Lankan governments to block accountability.

Sri Lanka’s civil war between the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government raged between 1983 and 2009. Both sides committed countless atrocities, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and recruitment of child soldiers. In the final months of the war, which ended in the LTTE’s total defeat, an estimated 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed when the LTTE used the population as human shields and the Sri Lankan army bombarded areas it had declared as “safe zones.”

Successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to acknowledge these crimes while blocking efforts at accountability, and have used state security agencies to intimidate and surveil victim’s families. The Human Rights Council established the UN Sri Lanka Accountability Project  in 2021 after the government backtracked on commitments to establish a hybrid justice mechanism to prosecute conflict-related crimes.

The current government of President Dissanayake, who was elected in 2024, has adopted a more moderate tone than some previous administrations, but continues to reject the UN project. While it has pledged to advance post-war “reconciliation” and prosecute some emblematic cases, little progress has been made, reminding victims of previous broken promises.

The Dissanayake administration needs to honor its promises to advance domestic truth-telling and accountability by demonstrating credibility through concrete confidence-building actions. At least 20 mass graves have been discovered in Sri Lanka, but none have yet been successfully investigated. The government should ensure that ongoing excavations at the Chemmani mass grave near Jaffna are successfully completed, including by enabling the provision of equipment for DNA testing.

The government should also order police, security and intelligence agencies to end the surveillance, harassment and intimidation of victim families, human rights defenders and journalists in the north and east. And it should make good on its promises to repeal repressive laws, establish an independent prosecutor, and prosecute emblematic cases.

While justice is denied in Sri Lanka, the UN’s evidence-gathering project remains essential to support potential prosecutions abroad under the principle of universal jurisdiction. The victims and their families are entitled to justice.

Click to expand Image The United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. © 2024 Hannes Albert/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

(Geneva) – The United Nations Human Rights Council on October 6, 2025, adopted a landmark resolution creating an independent mechanism to investigate past and ongoing rights abuses in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said today. The resolution puts the Taliban and all others responsible for serious crimes in Afghanistan on notice that evidence is being collected and prepared so they may someday face justice.

The resolution, led by the European Union, was adopted by consensus. The mechanism is expected to include a focus on the Taliban’s current abuses against women and girls, which amount to gender persecution. The body will collect and preserve evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other grave rights abuses; identify individuals responsible; and prepare files that can be used to support their prosecution in national and international courts. The resolution also further extended the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, whose monitoring and reporting remains essential and is complementary to the work of the new mechanism.

“Countries at the UN Human Rights Council have together sent a strong message of their resolve to ensure that those responsible for serious international crimes in Afghanistan now or in the past will one day face justice in court,” said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s crucial for the new mechanism to get up and running quickly so that it can begin to collect, prepare, and preserve evidence, and build files on those responsible for international crimes in Afghanistan.”

The resolution responds to calls by Afghan and international human rights groups to address entrenched impunity in Afghanistan. In August 2025, a coalition led by HRD+, a network of Afghan human rights defenders, with support from 108 Afghan and international organizations, reissued an appeal for the investigative mechanism after four years of campaigning. Over the previous year, UN experts and countries from various regions joined civil society groups appealing to the EU to take this step.

The investigative mechanism, in accordance with its mandate and the practice of two similar mechanisms on Syria and Myanmar, is expected to take a comprehensive approach to investigating international crimes. All individuals responsible for carrying out rights-abusive Taliban edicts and policies that violate international law, such as the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice law, would be subject to investigation, and the evidence will be collected, preserved, and prepared for future prosecutions.

The mechanism is expected to investigate actions by the Taliban leadership, provincial directors, governors, and other officials who are responsible, for example, for torture and other ill-treatment of people in custody. It will also target officials responsible for the denial of women and girls of their rights, notably to education, health care, and freedom of movement, which constitutes gender persecution.

The investigative mechanism’s scope is not limited to Taliban abuses but also covers those by officials of the former government, warlords, and members of international forces, non-state armed groups, and others responsible for serious abuses and violations in Afghanistan.

“The European Union has demonstrated principled leadership by putting forward this resolution for an investigative mechanism on Afghanistan,” Abbasi said. “By adopting the resolution by consensus, UN Human Rights Council member states have sent a powerful message against double standards for justice or a hierarchy of victims, and demonstrated growing international resolve to bring those responsible for international crimes to account.”

The UN secretary-general has been asked to put the body in operation with some urgency, finding a way to ensure that it can begin work on its core mandate despite the UN’s ongoing financial crisis. This is particularly urgent for women and girls, whose lives are so restricted every day in many ways under Taliban rule.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban officials on charges of the crime against humanity of gender persecution. The resolution directs the new mechanism to cooperate closely with the ICC and, particularly in light of US sanctions imposed on its officials and those seeking justice before the court, condemns “attacks and threats against the Court, elected officials, personnel and those cooperating with the Court.”

“UN Human Rights Council members have sent a clear message to victims, their families, and all those bravely fighting for justice in Afghanistan that their voices have been heard, and that their suffering is neither invisible nor erasable,” Abbasi said. “The UN secretary-general should ensure the investigative mechanism is promptly rolled out, and UN member states should ensure funding is made available for the mechanism to begin its work.”

Click to expand Image A person waves Yemeni flags during a ceremony marking the anniversary of the September 1962 revolution in Sanaa, Yemen. © 2016 Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters

(Beirut) – Houthi authorities arrested dozens of people in the last week of September 2025, as they have in past years, for peacefully celebrating or posting on social media about the anniversary of Yemen’s “September 26 Revolution,” Human Rights Watch said today. 

The holiday marks the establishment of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962. The Houthis, the de facto authorities who control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen believe that September 21, the day in which they took over Sanaa, should be celebrated instead.

“The Houthis seem to be expending far more resources on arresting people for harmless social media posts than they are on ensuring that people in territories their control have access to food and water,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should be protecting people’s rights, not silencing anyone commemorating a national holiday.” 

The Houthis should immediately release all those detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of assembly and speech as well as all others who remain in arbitrary detention, including the dozens of United Nations and civil society staff arrested and disappeared over the last year and a half, Human Rights Watch said.

Starting around September 21, the Houthis began arresting dozens of people in relation to the commemoration of the holiday. Fares al-Hemyari, a Yemeni journalist, posted on X that hundreds of protestors had been arrested in Sanaa, Amran, Hajjah, Dhamar, Al-Bayda, Ibb, and Taizz governorates. 

Human Rights Watch spoke to five people whose relatives had been arrested. Many others said they feared reprisals from the Houthis if they spoke to Human Rights Watch about the arrests. 

Among those arrested are dozens of activists: Oras al-Eryani, a writer and satirist; Abdul Majeed Sabra, a well-known lawyer; and Aref Mohammed Qatran and Abdulsalam Qatran, the brother and nephew, respectively, of Judge Abdulwahab Qatran. Many of them have not been able to contact their families or a lawyer, and the authorities have refused to let their families know where their relatives are, amounting to enforced disappearance.

A brother of one detainee said that his brother left their house on the evening of September 22 “to throw out the trash and buy some groceries” and never returned. After searching for him for two hours, some family members contacted Houthi security authorities, who would not provide any details about his case.

The brother said that the family were able to confirm “through multiple sources” that the Houthis’ Security and Intelligence Service was holding him. However, the brother said that his family was “not officially informed of his whereabouts [by authorities], nor were we allowed to visit or communicate with him, despite repeated promises.” 

He added that his brother has diabetes, increasing the family’s concern for his well-being.

Abdul Majeed Sabra, a prominent lawyer in Sanaa, told Human Rights Watch in 2024 that after he posted on social media that he would provide legal services to lawyers who had been detained in relation to September 26 commemorations, Houthi members “directly threatened” him. On September 25, 2025, Houthi security forces stormed Sabra’s office and arrested him.

According to one interviewee, Sabra was detained in relation to a social media post, in which he had written: “You [Houthis] deny Yemenis the right to express joy over their own September 26 Revolution—the one that restored their dignity and reintroduced them to the true faith, away from the myths of the Imamate—by simply posting a photo on social media, which you dismiss as treason and subservience to foreign powers." Sabra’s family doesn’t know anything about his whereabouts, according to a post on X by Ishraq al-Maqtari, a prominent human rights defender who has been following his case.

Abdulwahab Qatran, a prominent judge in Sanaa who himself was previously arrested by the Houthis, said that the Houthis arrested his brother, Aref, along with Aref’s son Abdulsalam, on September 21 without any charges. Judge Qatran said that three military vehicles and a taxi arrived at his brother’s house in Hamdan and told Aref and Abdulsalam to hand themselves over to the authorities, and that otherwise, “they would take the doors off and storm the house, so [Aref and Abdulsalam] handed themselves over.” 

The judge said that his brother and nephew were held first at Hamdan Security Complex but moved to an unrevealed location on September 22. The judge said he communicated with them through one of the prisoners’ phones. The last call the family had with Aref was on September 22, when he said he has sick and concerned about his life. 

The judge said that the authorities did not provide any legal document justifying the arrest, and that he is not aware of whether the authorities have charged them, but he believes the arrest is because that they were planning to commemorate September 26. Later, the Houthis arrested four more people from Qatran’s village for commemorating the holiday. 

Arresting a person without a warrant and clear charges is a violation under the Yemeni Criminal Procedures Law, article 132. Detaining a person without a basis in domestic or international law, as well as detaining them without promptly charging them, are violations of international human rights law. In their 2023 report, the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen stated that they had documented many cases involving arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture in Yemen, adding that “most violations investigated by the Panel were attributed to the Houthis.”

In 2024, Human Rights Watch found that dozens of people had been arrested in relation to the holiday, many without charge. In 2023, Sabra posted that the Houthis had arrested approximately 1,000 people in relation to the anniversary. SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, a Yemeni human rights organization, found that the Houthis had used excessive force against those peacefully protesting and celebrating. 

Houthi authorities have also arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared dozens of United Nations and civil society staff since May 31, 2024. Most recently, on August 31, the Houthis detained an additional 19 UN staff.

“The Houthis should stop arresting people for merely exercising their rights and expressing beliefs and opinions that don’t align with the Houthis’ ideology, and should immediately release all those they have arbitrarily detained,” Jafarnia said. 

Click to expand Image Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman attends the delivery of the judgement in the case against him before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, October 6, 2025. © 2025 Piroschka van de Wouw/AP Photo

(The Hague) – The first International Criminal Court (ICC) conviction of a former leader of the “Janjaweed” militias for serious crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region spotlights the need for international action to ensure accountability for crimes across the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

On October 6, 2025, ICC judges convicted Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (also known as Ali Kosheib) on 27 charges involving war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2003 and 2004 in 4 villages—Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar, and Deleig—in West Darfur. The judges also issued a decision outlining the timing for sentencing proceedings.

“The ICC’s long-awaited landmark conviction for serious crimes in Darfur provides the first opportunity for victims and communities terrorized by the Janjaweed to see a measure of justice before the court,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “With the current conflict in Sudan producing new generations of victims and compounding the suffering of those targeted in the past, the verdict should spur action by governments to advance justice by all possible means.”

Several other cases concerning crimes committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2008 have been brought before the ICC. They are the result of an investigation that followed the United Nations Security Council’s referral in 2005 of the situation in Darfur to the court’s prosecutor.

The Omar al-Bashir government in Sudan established the so-called Janjaweed militia, which worked alongside Sudanese government forces during a brutal counterinsurgency against rebel groups to carry out a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign.

The campaign targeted civilians from the Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups, from which rebel groups recruited. At the time, international attention was riveted on the region and the Security Council referral—the first of its kind—validated the court’s essential mandate, only two years after it opened its doors.

Human Rights Watch called for the ICC to investigate Ali Kosheib for his alleged crimes in Darfur in a 2005 report. ICC judges issued a first arrest warrant against Ali Kosheib in 2007, but he remained at large for over a decade. In 2013, Human Rights Watch documented Ali Kosheib’s involvement in the destruction of the town of Abu Jeradil and surrounding villages in Central Darfur. A second ICC warrant was made public after Ali Kosheib surrendered and was transferred to ICC custody in June 2020.

The judges convicted Ali Kosheib on charges including murder, rape, intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, pillage, destruction of the property of an adversary, forcible transfer of the population, outrages upon personal dignity, persecution, cruel treatment, and other inhumane acts. 

The verdict comes more than two years into the current conflict in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group born out of an effort by the government to integrate the Janjaweed into a formal structure. 

Both warring parties have committed war crimes, such as executing detainees and mutilating their bodies, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including in Khartoum, North Darfur, Gezira, and South and West Kordofan states, Human Rights Watch has found.

The RSF has committed crimes against humanity, including in an ethnic cleansing campaign in West Darfur in 2023 against ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab communities, and widespread sexual violence in Khartoum, the capital, since 2023. The RSF and its allied militias have also raped scores of women and girls in the context of sexual slavery in South Kordofan since September 2023.

The ICC prosecutor’s office signaled in January 2025 that it expects to request arrest warrants based on its current investigations into crimes committed since April 2023 in West Darfur. The ICC’s mandate remains limited to Darfur under the Security Council referral.

The UN-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan and the African Union’s Joint Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan are mandated to investigate current violations across Sudan, but they have no authority to prosecute. In the current conflict, no international body can prosecute international crimes committed in regions other than Darfur.

To hold those responsible to account, governments should back the ICC’s ongoing work while also supporting comprehensive justice pathways led by the Sudanese people to address crimes committed since April 2023, Human Rights Watch said. This should include seeking to expand ICC jurisdiction to all of Sudan, working toward an internationalized justice mechanism for Sudan, and encouraging cases in other countries’ courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

The verdict comes as the ICC is facing serious threats from those opposed to accountability, including the current Trump administration in the United States. The US never joined the court but was a clear supporter of the Darfur investigation across multiple administrations. Prominent US congressional leaders have applauded the ICC’s work in Darfur, and the US provided extensive financial support to efforts to document serious international crimes in Sudan.

The Trump administration, in a bid to thwart the court’s work in Palestine, has imposed sanctions against the ICCs officials, a UN human rights expert, and three Palestinian human rights groups. These sanctions threaten the court’s work, including in Sudan, where victims have waited for more than 20 years for justice.

The Ali Kosheib verdict is a critical reminder of the importance of the ICC as a permanent court of last resort, when all other avenues to justice are blocked, Human Rights Watch said.

Governments should strongly condemn US moves against the court, redouble their commitment to cooperate with and support the ICC, including by securing arrests and ensuring the court has adequate funding, and call for rescinding the US sanctions program.

Darfuris and activists in Sudan and across Africa long campaigned for the surrender of Ali Kosheib and other ICC suspects. Local communities and displaced Darfuris in Sudan demonstrated in support of Ali Kosheib facing justice and held vigils for victims of attacks for which he was alleged to be responsible.

Former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and two other former Sudanese high-level officials wanted by the ICC, including Ahmed Haroun, former state minister for humanitarian affairs and former governor of Southern Kordofan state, have yet to be handed over. The Sudanese authorities should immediately surrender al-Bashir and the others, Human Rights Watch said.

“Both parties to the conflict continue to commit atrocity crimes across Sudan, fueled by rampant impunity and claiming thousands of victims,” Evenson said. “ICC member countries and justice-supporting governments should make clear their support for the ICC and commit publicly to explore all avenues to close the accountability gap in Sudan, so that victims of today’s crimes will not have to wait two decades for justice.”