By Omar Shakir | Israel and Palestine Director | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Forcible takeovers of homes, brutal suppression of demonstrators, places of worship under assault, identity-based communal violence, indiscriminate rocket attacks, children killed in strikes: what to make of the dizzying headlines out of Israel and Palestine in recent days? Without doubt, […]
Killing Schoolgirls in Afghanistan: Fundamentalist Attackers Target Girls Leaving Kabul High School
By Heather Barr | Interim Co-Director, Women’s Rights Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Scenes from Sayed ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul, Afghanistan, where as many as 85 people including many schoolgirls were killed in an attack this weekend, should break anyone’s heart. They certainly broke mine. In 2017 a filmmaker and I […]
From Myanmar to Israel, what are the Offenses of ‘Apartheid’ and ‘Crimes Against Humanity?’ and How can we Make sure they are Prosecuted?
By Clive Baldwin | Senior Legal Adviser | – ( Human Rights Watch) – The use of the word ‘apartheid’ in its legal meaning can sometimes, but not always, generate considerable power and attention. The related crime against humanity of persecution never seems to attract the same interest. Our finding in 2020 that the Myanmar […]
US Resuming Arms Sales to United Arab Emirates is Disastrous, Given its Wars on Yemen, Libya
By Afrah Nasser | – Yemen Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – United States President Joe Biden called in early February for “ending all American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” At the time, I, like many human rights advocates who have been […]
President Biden Needs a Middle East-Wide Human Rights Policy
Published in: Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) By Iran Researcher Tara Sepehri Far | @sepehrifar @sepehrifar On the campaign trail and during his first three months in office, President Biden promised a US return to a multilateral foreign policy that supports human rights. That is an important vision for the Middle East, a […]
Biden lifts outrageous US Sanctions on Int’l Criminal Court; now it should Join Treaty of Rome on Human Rights
Human Rights Watch – (Washington, DC) – US President Joe Biden’s cancellation of punitive sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) removes a serious obstacle to the court’s providing justice to the victims of the world’s worst crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 2, 2021, Biden revoked a June 2020 order by then-President […]
Israel’s Discriminatory Vaccine Push Underscores Need for Action on behalf of Palestinians
Human Rights Watch Statement – Item 7 General Debate ( Human Rights Watch ) – As millions of Israelis slowly return to normalcy, with the majority of citizens vaccinated, millions of Palestinians just a short distance away in the occupied territory return to lockdown, with the prospect of mass vaccination nowhere in sight. The Israeli […]
World Leaders, including President Biden, need to Step up on Yemen, before Millions Die
Afrah Nasser | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Imagine what it is like to live in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis: You are in a daily struggle for survival and you don’t know where your next meal will come from. This is the reality for many in Yemen, where an unmitigated humanitarian emergency fueled […]
Saudi Arabia: Proposed Reforms Neglect Basic Rights: Ongoing Repression, Absence of Civil Society Impede Progress
( Human Rights Watch) – (Beirut) – Saudi Arabia recently announced a series of important and necessary reforms, but ongoing repression and a lack of respect for basic rights are major barriers to progress, Human Rights Watch said today. The repression of independent civil society and critical voices that can provide objective feedback decreases the […]