Human Rights Watch

A new report from Human Rights Watch documents how the Sri Lankan government is using the discredited Prevention of Terrorism Act against the minority Tamil and Muslim communities, and to suppress civil society groups.

Peng Shuai’s “controlled interview” during the Winter Olympics and a Xinjiang athlete at the opening ceremony are among the stories included in this daily brief of Human Rights Watch.

Kazakh authorities should immediately end all arbitrary arrests, including by releasing those still in custody, put a stop to all beatings and mistreatment of detainees, and halt the arbitrary prosecutions of peaceful protestors and activists for the exercise of their civil and political rights.

Around 243 groups from around the world urged governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in China in order not to legitimize the host government’s human rights atrocities.

Fazilhoja Arifhojaev was convicted of threatening public security by reposting and commenting on a social media post that had questioned whether it was appropriate for a Muslim to congratulate non-Muslims on their religious holidays.

These groundbreaking cases mark the first direct challenges to be filed before the ECtHR against Poland’s abortion law and the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling. Nine leading international human rights organisations have filed third-party interventions in these cases.

In 2021, Belarusian authorities redoubled their crackdown on civil society, shutting down hundreds of civic organizations and prosecuting and harassing human rights defenders and their families. This year is starting out no differently.

Under a new programme, the police would use hand-held devices to gather biometric information from people on a vast scale and cross check it against police, immigration, and private sector databases primarily for immigration purposes.