Articles by Human Rights Watch
US citizen Xiyeu Wang serving 10-year term in Iran threatened in prison
Iranian authorities arrested Xiyeu Wang in 2016 and sentenced him to 10 years in prison for doing historical research on Iran’s Qajar dyansty.
Poland no friend to women
In October, police in several Polish cities raided the offices of two nongovernmental organizations that support domestic violence victims and promote women’s rights. The official rationale for the raids was a search for evidence linked to alleged wrongdoing by the previous government’s Ministry of Justice. But the timing was suspicious.
Silencing ‘secrets’ in Guinea, information vs HIV, #FreeMartha and goodbye Mugabe: November in Africa
Major strides towards fighting impunity in The Gambia, US journalist Martha O’Donovan charged with subversion in Zimbabwe as Mugabe resigns, Guinea’s clampdown on free expression, and more in our November roundup of free expression issues in Africa.
When the Supreme Court dissolves democracy
Cambodia’s government-controlled Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP, the main opposition party, and banned 118 of its members.
5 years of ‘foreign agents’ law devastates environmental groups in Russia
Interviews with directors of current or defunct environmental organizations across Russia reveal that at least 14 environmental nongovernmental organizations have stopped work rather than continue to operate while labelled a “foreign agent.”
15-year-old peaceful protester beaten, detained in DRC
15-year-old Binja Happy Yalala was beaten by police who accused her of being a sorcerer and detained her for over 10 hours. Her actual “crime” was that she had participated in a peaceful march.
Implementation of the Kremlin’s law on “undesirable organisations” reaching farcical proportions
A court in Moscow fined the Andrei Rylkov Foundation group for involvement with an “undesirable organisation”. The charges stem from a 2011 hyperlink on the group’s website to a publication on the website of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which Russian authorities banned two years ago.
“Traditional values”: A potent weapon against LGBT rights
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya. The rounding up of gay men and transgender women in Azerbaijan. A reported registry of gay men and lesbians in Tajikistan. Are these random initiatives or a deeper trend taking place in former Soviet countries?