Human Rights Watch

1. Cameroon Grapples with Gender-Based Violence, Increased Femicides

   Click to expand Image Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, Minister of Women's Empowerment and the Family, at the International Day of Rural Women celebrations in Nguibassal, Centre Cameroon, October 17, 2022. © 2022 Giordanno Brumas/SOPA Images/Sipa via Getty Images

   
   Several women were killed, including by current or former partners in Cameroon between August 6 to 26, some in the presence of their children. These killings are the latest signs that women in Cameroon, including domestic violence victims and survivors, have little protection or access to justice.

   The Ministry for the Promotion of Women and the Family (Ministère de la Promotion de la Femme et de la Famille or MINPROFF), tasked with creating, implementing, and reviewing policies that protect women’s rights, has acknowledged a surge in reported femicides since 2023, and warned that the government’s figures represent the “tip of the iceberg.” 

   Femicide is the intentional killing of women and girls with a gender-related motivation, according to the United Nations. Femicides are the most brutal manifestation of violence against women and girls. In Cameroon, violence against women and girls, including domestic violence, is widespread and rooted in entrenched gender inequality, discriminatory laws, and weak institutions, exacerbated by the government’s chronic underinvestment in prevention and survivor support. Accountability is limited, reinforcing a climate of impunity.

   The government has pledged repeatedly to take action. In 2022, it adopted both a national strategy to combat gender-based violence and a national gender policy. Madame Abena Ondoa neé Obama Marie Thérèse, the minister of MINPROFF, told parliamentarians in June that her ministry was finalizing a bill to create a standalone criminal offence of gender-based violence and strengthen legal protections on women’s rights. While a national security meeting convened by the president in August discussed the increase in femicide cases, none of these steps have resulted in clear or immediate measures to remedy the situation. 

   The government should urgently turn its talk into action. It should set up a coordinated taskforce across relevant government agencies including MINPROFF, Justice, Defense, National Security, Territorial Administration, and Finance, and fully fund initiatives to prevent gender-based violence and assist women. It should increase the number of domestic violence shelters across all regions and ensure that there is adequate staffing to accompany victims and survivors in accessing healthcare, support, and justice. The government should also examine and remove barriers women face in seeking protection orders, and arrest and prosecute perpetrators of violence.

   The Cameroon government has made a lot of promises to women. It’s time to keep them.

2. Federal Presence at US Polls Could Intimidate Voters

   Click to expand Image Voters fill out their ballots at a polling station in New York City on Election Day, November 5, 2024. © 2024 Leonardo Munoz/ AFP via Getty Images

   The United States Justice Department announced plans earlier this month to deploy at least 1,000 federal officers to polling places during the upcoming midterm elections. 

   While such deployments are not without precedent, federal officers previously deployed during elections have been tasked with enforcing federal statutes that protect the right to vote and prohibit voter intimidation and suppression. This time, the Trump administration has cast the effort in a manner that is likely to intimidate naturalized immigrant and non-English speaking communities. Letters sent to local officials warned that they face criminal charges for allowing non-citizens to vote, coinciding with the administration’s advancement of largely debunked claims of widespread non-citizen voting in US elections. US Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Millin have also endorsed the notion of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other federal agents to polling locations.

   It is illegal under US law for federal agents to engage in voter intimidation. While the administration suggests that ICE deployment to polling stations will not affect eligible voters with legal status, there is ample reason to think otherwise. According to the ACLU, at least 155 US citizens across eight states in 2025, including 32 children, were either detained, targeted, or subjected to immigration enforcement misconduct, including use of force.

   In recent weeks, ICE agents have been present at a New York polling station and a constituent town hall held in Minnesota. The agency’s implication in numerous rights abuses aimed at protesters in recent months exacerbates the risk that the proposed federal presence at polling places could lead to voter intimidation. This is particularly true for non-white US voters, who are more likely to be stopped or detained by ICE.

   Local and state officials in the US should remain on high alert for voter intimidation and take measures to ensure every eligible voter has effective access to the democratic process—as required under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

   Other governments and international human rights mechanisms should condemn any efforts by the US government to intimidate voters or otherwise violate their rights.

3. China: Decade of Impunity for Crimes Against Uyghurs

   Click to expand Image A Uyghur man outside of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar city in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, July 13, 2023. © 2023 Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

   (New York) – The Chinese government’s decade-long severe repression against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, amounting to crimes against humanity, deserves a stronger response from the international community, Human Rights Watch said today. 

   Ten years after the Chinese Communist Party sharply escalated abuses against Uyghurs in the far western Xinjiang region, the crackdown on rights remains severe. Current evidence shows continued mass arbitrary detention, unjust imprisonment, mass surveillance, cultural and religious erasure, restrictions on travel and communication, and pressure on Uyghurs abroad, even as Chinese authorities promote a public image of normalcy in Xinjiang. State-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang affects the global supply chains, in sectors including automotive, solar panels, apparel, seafood, agricultural products, and critical minerals. 

   “Rather than ending its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and bringing justice for hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs whose lives have been destroyed, the Chinese government persists in its atrocities and silences critical voices, even abroad,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The international community’s earlier strong response has fizzled, allowing the Chinese government to shamelessly promote a false sense of normalcy in the region.”

   Xi Jinping’s “strike hard campaign against violent terrorism” (严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动) began in Xinjiang in 2014. Repression escalated sharply with the August 29, 2016, appointment of a former Communist Party chief, Chen Quanguo, in Xinjiang. The campaign culminated in the arbitrary detention of an estimated one million Uyghurs in “political education” camps. Chen Quanguo had previously served as party secretary in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

   Since then, although some of these camps appear to have closed, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims remain in prison, according to available official figures. They include prominent public figures such as Ilham Tohti, Rahile Dawut, Gulshan Abbas, Yalqun Rozi, and Ekpar Asat. Xinjiang appears to have the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size, according to a May 2026 Financial Times analysis.

   More than 140,000 children in southern Xinjiang were separated from their parents between 2017 and 2018, in large part due to arbitrary detention, according to a July 2026 analysis and estimate by an international group, Xinjiang Victims Database. Some children were held in state-run orphanages. The situation for these children remains unclear. 

   Many Uyghurs living abroad are unable to contact their families—including their children—in China. Authorities maintain severe restrictions and controls on Uyghurs who seek to travel abroad while permitting select Uyghurs in the diaspora to make restricted visits to Xinjiang. Some who returned have said that the authorities pressed them to provide information about activists abroad. Chinese authorities engage in transnational repression to silence Uyghurs living abroad.

   Beijing dismisses all calls to end its severe repression in Xinjiang, insisting during top leaders’ official visits to the region that measures to “safeguard social stability” are priorities. 

   Some governments have taken important steps to respond to these abuses over the past decade. In 2021, the US government enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which establishes a presumption that goods made wholly or in part in Xinjiang are linked to forced labor and bars them from being brought into the US. The EU has also enacted an import ban on products produced with forced labor. 

   In 2021, the US, the European Union, the UK, and Canada imposed targeted sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for abuses in Xinjiang. Other governments, including Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan, have shielded Beijing from scrutiny at the UN; and governments including Thailand have deported Uyghurs to China despite the grave risks of torture and other abuses they face upon return. In 2023, in response to such forced returns, Canada committed to resettle 10,000 Uyghur refugees. 

   On August 31, 2022, the UN Human Rights Office released a landmark report concluding, based on extensive research and analysis, that grave abuses in Xinjiang “may constitute … crimes against humanity.” Beijing dismissed the UN report. 

   The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, acknowledged, in August 2024, that “many problematic laws and policies remain in place” in Xinjiang. In February 2026, he expressed “regret[s]” at China’s “lack of follow-up … on previous recommendations and on accountability.” In June 2026 he similarly expressed concerns over China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which formalized existing policies to erase minority rights. 

   His office has not, however, provided substantive public updates on its ongoing monitoring of the region since 2022. Rights groups have been encouraging him to take a firmer line with Beijing and to follow up forcefully and publicly on the recommendations made by his office, given the gravity of their own conclusions, and acknowledgment of the lack of progress. 

   As Türk enters his second term as high commissioner, with no discernable progress four years after the publication of his office’s landmark Xinjiang report, he should heed the calls of Uyghur victims and their families to take a more robust approach. 

   Governments should also do more to hold the Chinese government accountable for its ongoing repression in Xinjiang. Countries from all regional and political groups should work together to issue a strong joint statement at the upcoming session of the UN Human Rights Council condemning Chinese government’s crimes against humanity. They should convene a dedicated discussion on the situation in Xinjiang, to follow up on the recommendations of the 2022 report.

   More governments, including Canada, Australia, the UK, and Japan, should also adopt legislation prohibiting the imports of goods linked to forced labor, including measures specifically targeting goods from Xinjiang. The EU should ensure that Xinjiang is listed as a high-risk area in its forthcoming forced labor database. Governments should also adopt measures to protect their citizens and residents from Beijing’s acts of transnational repression, Human Rights Watch said.

   “Over 10 years of repression in Xinjiang, governments have done far too little to hold the Chinese government accountable for its abuses,” Uluyol said. “Governments should use all tools at their disposal to press Beijing to end its crimes, including by enacting and enforcing forced labor import bans to counter Uyghur forced labor, and imposing targeted sanctions against officials responsible for abuses in Xinjiang.”

4. Ecuador: New Adoption Law Entrenches Bias

   Click to expand Image Ecuador's National Assembly in Quito on October 23, 2024.  © 2024 Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images

   A new adoption law in Ecuador contains discriminatory provisions targeting lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and threatens to strip many parents of transgender children of their parental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. 

   The Reform Law of Various Legal Bodies for the Streamlining of Adoption, which entered into force on August 14, 2026, purports to remove inefficiencies in adoption processes and reduce the amount of time children spend in institutional care. But the law compounds an existing ban on adoption by same-sex couples by explicitly barring single lesbian, gay, and bisexual people from adopting. It also makes a parent’s “promotion” of gender-affirming medical care for a transgender child grounds for the loss of their parental rights.

   “Improving the adoption system is a legitimate legislative goal, but it should not be used as a pretext to entrench discrimination and undermine children’s health,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By legislating on the basis of bias and misinformation rather than evidence, Ecuadorian lawmakers are endangering children and perpetuating stereotypes based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.” 

   Ecuador’s National Assembly approved the legislation on July 28 by a vote of 118-0, with 25 abstentions. President Daniel Noboa communicated his assent to the legislature on August 13. 

   While marriage equality is legal in Ecuador, the Constitution already discriminates by providing that adoption is not available to same-sex couples. The new law broadens the reach of that discrimination by providing that single adopters must be heterosexual. Previously, the Children and Adolescents Code prioritized married heterosexual couples over single people but did not, in the provision governing adoption principles, expressly limit single adopters to heterosexual people. 

   Sexual orientation bears no relationship to a person’s ability to provide a safe, stable, and loving home to a child. Any blanket exclusion based on sexual orientation, replacing individualized assessments of prospective parents, is contrary to the new law’s own stated commitment to the best interests of the child and violates international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said. 

   The discriminatory provisions targeting parents of transgender children are also sweeping. The law describes parental support for medical, surgical, or pharmaceutical procedures intended to “modify the biological sex” of a child as conduct that can justify stripping parents of their legal relationship with their children. If both parents lose parental authority and no eligible relatives can assume care, the law provides a pathway for the child to be declared eligible for adoption. Its formulation could encompass a wide range of health care and could deter families from seeking medical advice or supporting their trans children out of fear of state intervention, Human Rights Watch said.

   The law clarifies that these provisions do not apply to parents who decide on “normalizing” medical intervention on behalf of children born with diverse sex characteristics. Parents whose children undergo those surgeries should not be at risk of losing their parental rights either, but neither should those procedures be tacitly encouraged, Human Rights Watch said. 

   Those surgeries, usually performed in infancy or early childhood, thus without the child’s consent, are often medically unnecessary and carry risks of scarring, loss of sensation, lifelong sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence, psychological trauma, and permanent sterilization. Human Rights Watch has urged governments to ban such surgical procedures when they carry a meaningful risk of harm and can be safely deferred. 

   The new law comes amid broader attacks on transgender children’s rights in Ecuador.

   In March 2025, President Daniel Noboa signed a public commitment stating that his government would not include what it called “gender ideology” in educational materials or permit “sex changes” for children. The commitment followed controversy surrounding a Constitutional Court judgment requiring education authorities to protect LGBTI students from discrimination. Then-Education Minister Alegría Crespo publicly said the ministry would not implement measures based on “gender ideologies.” 

   In March and April 2026, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court affirmed the rights of transgender adolescents, holding that officials cannot automatically deny people under 18 the ability to modify the gender marker on identity documents solely because of their age. In response to the first ruling, a commission of Ecuador’s National Assembly began what it called an “oversight” process to analyze the effects of the ruling. This unfolded amid broader government attacks against judges and other government actions that threatened to undermine judicial independence. 

   International and Inter-American human rights standards prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics, including with respect to parental rights. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has held that states must provide procedures for legal gender recognition that respect a person’s self-defined gender identity, including for children and adolescents in accordance with their evolving capacities. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also called on states to ensure equal access to comprehensive health services, including gender-affirming care, as well as informed consent with respect to intersex “normalizing” surgeries.

5. Not Even Risk of Torture Deters Trump Administration Deportations

   Click to expand Image US officials deporting people to Mexico at the McAllen-Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge, McAllen, Texas, March 13, 2026. © 2026 Felix Marquez/AP Photo

   A US federal judge ordered the US government on August 21 to take back a Mexican man the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had deported to Mexico based on a diplomatic assurance from the Mexican government that he wouldn’t be harmed. An immigration judge had previously found the man to have a significant chance of being tortured if returned to Mexico and thus granted him “deferral of removal.”

   According to a New York Times report, the man had helped US law enforcement authorities by testifying against Mexican cartels, testimony that would put his life in danger if returned. Given the brutal power of the cartels, the Mexican government’s assurances in this case are downright phantasmic.

   In fact, diplomatic assurances regarding torture are not worth the paper they’re printed on. These are formal promises by one government to another about how well they will treat a person being deported or extradited. Torture is a serious crime, often taking place in dark corners: police station basements, prison holding cells, or remote border checkpoints. Nearly all countries – 176 in total – have signed the Convention against Torture and no government admits to torturing or condoning torture.

   Previously, the Trump administration told US courts that the Venezuelans it sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador would not be tortured because of Salvadoran government assurances that it wouldn’t torture them. Our report, “You Have Arrived in Hell,” described in detail the torture they experienced.

   DHS went to extraordinary lengths to deport the man. According to the Times report, after failing a number of times to remove him through various deportation channels, including deporting him to Guatemala, the Trump administration allegedly served him with a termination notice of his deferral of removal after the State Department received the Mexican government’s assurances. He was deported to Mexico on August 1 and is now in hiding out of fear that “the cartels that he provided information against will find him and torture or kill him before he can return to the United States,” according to the August 21 court order.

   As this man huddles in fear and the Trump administration prepares to send hundreds of thousands of Haitians to another country beset by severe violence, the government’s callous disregard for the lives of the people it deports cannot be papered over with so-called diplomatic assurances.

6. Bolivia’s NGO Registry Threatens Human Rights Work

   Click to expand Image Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz (left), meets with activist Amparo Carvajal before entering the offices of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB), in La Paz, Bolivia, November 20, 2025. © 2025 Juan Karita/AP Photo

   Bolivia’s government published two decrees in early August that threaten the right to freedom of association and the work of human rights defenders. 

   One decree states that non-governmental organizations must register with the Vice-Ministry of Public Investment and External Financing before carrying out any project that involves “technical or financial cooperation,” regardless of the source of funding. Organizations must renew their certification every three years and complete an annual update.

   The same Vice-Ministry will be charged with evaluating whether the organization’s objectives align with the “country’s development plans.” If it deems them unaligned, the Vice-Ministry can order unspecified “corrective measures”.  

   Bolivian officials have framed the new registry as part of a broader modernization effort and have cited the Financial Action Task Force’s (GAFI) anti-money laundering standards as justification. However, the decree goes much further than reasonable measures to ensure transparency and prevent money laundering.

   Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, Bolivia is required to respect the rights to freedom of association and expression. Any restrictions on these rights must be clearly defined, and necessary and proportionate to achieve a legitimate goal, such as protecting the rights of others.

   The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Asembly and Association has noted that associations should, in general, be “free to determine their status.” The Rapporteur has also said that suspension or dissolution of a an association should only be possible in exceptional cases, when there is a “clear and present danger” and less restrictive measures would not be sufficient.

   The Bolivian government should overturn these decrees or at minimum, ensure that their implementing regulations, which have yet to be approved, allow NGOs to operate without undue restrictions. NGOs have a crucial role to play in any rights-respecting democracy.

7. Zambia: Closing Courts Curbs Access to Justice

   Click to expand Image Zambian opposition leader and National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP) presidential candidate Brian Muntayalwa Mundubile speaks to members of the media after casting his vote in Lusaka, Zambia, August 13, 2026. © 2026 Moses Mwape/Reuters

   (Johannesburg) – Zambian authorities suddenly closed and cordoned off the courts without credible explanation on August 24, 2026, effectively blocking the filing of any legal challenges to the results of the August 13 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately allow the courts to reopen.

   Zambian police stated that the closures were an “intelligence-led and preventive measure,” without providing details. A notice from the chief administrator of the judiciary to court staff, seen by Human Rights Watch, said the court premises were closed “for security reasons.” The notice said guidance on opening the courts “will be issued in due course, once the situation is contained.” The courts’ closure coincided with the deadline to file any legal challenges to declaring the incumbent, President Hakainde Hichilema, the winner. 

   “The courts play a vital role in protecting the rights guaranteed under Zambia’s constitution for resolving election-related disputes,” said Allan Ngari, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Measures that effectively deny the opposition crucial access to the courts to challenge the conduct and validity of the presidential election are a blow to the administration of law, transparency, and due process in Zambia.”

   Under article 103 of the Constitution of Zambia, court challenges to election outcomes must be filed within seven days of the declaration of results. Challengers may petition the Constitutional Court to nullify the election of the declared winner on the grounds that the person was not validly elected; or that a provision of the constitution or other law relating to presidential elections was not complied with.

   The Electoral Commission of Zambia declared President Hichilema the winner on August 18. The official tally had him winning 60.7 percent of the vote, with 38 percent for his opponent, Brian Mundubile. Following the announcement, Mundubile alleged “serious irregularities, inconsistencies and circumstances surrounding the conduct, counting, transmission, and declaration of results” and said he would challenge the results in court. 

   From the declaration of the results on August 18, the last day on which a petition challenging the results of the presidential election could have been lawfully filed was August 24.

   Closing the courts under the circumstances raises serious concerns, particularly for the administration of justice in Zambia, Human Rights Watch said. 

   One lawyer told Human Rights Watch that he arrived at the High Court in Lusaka on the morning of August 24 to find the premises cordoned off by heavily armed police officers, who ordered him to leave.

   A statement signed by seven Zambian civil society organizations said sealing off court premises across the country and suspending judicial services entirely had deprived Zambians of their constitutional right to file an electoral challenge and have it heard. The organizations stated that “the right of access to the courts is meaningless if the courts can simply be closed at the precise moment citizens most need them.”

   The Law Association of Zambia raised concerns, in a media statement, that beyond the memorandum to judiciary staff, the authorities had provided no explanation or justification for closing the courts. All of this fuels concerns that the real reason for closing the courts was to frustrate the right of aggrieved parties to challenge the election results, Human Rights Watch said.

   Under international human rights law, Zambia is required to uphold the independence of its courts. The judiciary should be free from “improper influences, inducements, pressures, threats, or interferences.” Human rights law also requires Zambia to offer effective pathways to a remedy for human rights violations, which requires meaningful access to justice, including through the courts.

   “Any security measures affecting the courts should be strictly necessary, proportionate, and time-limited, while preserving access for urgent filings,” Ngari said. “No one should be denied an effective remedy because the courts were unavailable during a constitutionally prescribed filing period. Meaningful access to an independent judiciary is essential to public confidence in Zambia’s electoral process and the rule of law.”

8. Mayotte's Future Depends on Education, Not More Restrictions on Migrant Rights

   Click to expand Image Children walk past modular classrooms built after Cyclone Chido, at the nursery and elementary school of Majicavo-Lamir village on the French overseas territory of Mayotte, on August 18, 2025. © 2025 Marine Gachet/AFP via Getty Images

   Students return to school this week in France’s overseas department of Mayotte. For most, the start of the academic year is a return to overcrowded schools that are often ill-equipped to meet their basic needs, and an education system that continues to fail thousands of children.

   A devastating cyclone in December 2024 worsened already persistent deficiencies in Mayotte’s education system. Efforts to rebuild classrooms have not successfully addressed these challenges, and many schools continue to operate on rotation systems. Even before the cyclone, thousands of children were excluded from education, a consequence of burdensome enrolment procedures and other barriers. At the start of the 2025 school year, the Mayotte Observatory on School Exclusion found that more than 15,000 school-age children were not in school, continuing a worrying upward trend. Others attend schools in conditions that fall short of basic standards, including access to water, sanitation, nutritious food, and a safe learning environment.

   Rather than addressing these persistent failures, political leaders have blamed Mayotte’s structural challenges on migration. Immediately after the cyclone, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to restrict undocumented migration, mainly from Comoros and East Africa. Just before students returned to school this week, Edouard Philippe, a former French Prime Minister and a 2027 presidential candidate, declared that he would suspend access to asylum droit du sol, the principle of citizenship by birth on French territory, and immigration based on family ties in Mayotte.

   These proposals are presented as solutions to the many challenges facing France's poorest department. Yet many of Mayotte's difficulties stem from longstanding structural inequalities, chronic underinvestment in public services, and exceptional laws that apply only on the island, including restrictive citizenship and immigration measures. Such policies have done little to improve living conditions or address the lack of access to housing, water, electricity, healthcare, and education faced by many residents, including children. They also raise serious legal concerns, as they conflict with protections guaranteed under French constitutional law, European Union law, and international human rights standards.

   As Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu begins two days in Mayotte, French authorities should move beyond migration-focused rhetoric and announce concrete measures to guarantee economic and social rights for all residents. Ensuring every child can go to school would be a far more meaningful investment in Mayotte's future than further restricting fundamental rights.

9. Houthis Prosecute UN, Civil Society Staff in Yemen

   Click to expand Image The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, meets with local officials in Taizz, Yemen, February 12, 2024. (C) 2024 Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP via Getty Images

   Houthi authorities transferred at least six detainees to the Specialized Criminal Prosecution in Sanaa on August 23. Among them is a United Nations employee, a UN consultant, and three people who worked with international and local nongovernmental organizations.

   It’s the latest move in the Houthis’ campaign of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances of dozens of UN staff and employees of Yemeni and international civil society organizations that began on May 31, 2024.

   Dr. Ali Al-Mudhwahi is one of the six detainees whose case was transferred. At the time of his arrest, he was a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) consultant and was also an advisor to the Houthi’s Ministry of Public Health and Population, according to his wife, Safiah Mohammed. Authorities have subjected him to “solitary confinement, torture, and severe psychological pressure” throughout his detention, he told his wife via phone. The Houthis—who are against vaccinations—have tried to force him to confess that vaccines were “nothing but espionage tools” and that he was “a spy recruited by the World Health Organization,” his wife shared with Human Rights Watch.

   Human Rights Watch has documented the detention campaign since June 2024. Of the many dozens who’ve been arrested, authorities did not provide arrest warrants to most, and the Houthis forcibly disappeared many detainees for months. The Houthis, who have a long track record of torturing detainees, have denied them adequate access to lawyers, family members, and medical care, including some with serious medical conditions.

   Yemen’s Criminal Procedures Law requires judicial officers to immediately hear a detainee’s statement and refer the detainee, along with the arrest report, to the public prosecution within 24 hours. The law further requires prosecutors to decide on the detainees’ case within the following 24 hours, or the detainee must be released immediately. The Houthis’ prolonged arbitrary detention of humanitarian workers without prompt referral to prosecutors or meaningful judicial review violated these basic safeguards. International human rights law also requires detainees to be brought promptly before a judge or equivalent to rule on the legality of their detention, and to be charged promptly or released. Their failure to provide basic due process protections undermines the legitimacy of any subsequent proceedings, including the current interrogation before the Specialized Criminal Prosecution.

   Judicial institutions under Houthi control, including the Specialized Criminal Prosecution, should comply with Yemeni and international law and order the release of all those arbitrarily detained.

10. Türkiye: European Court Orders Rights Defender’s Immediate Release

    Click to expand Image Osman Kavala © 2017 Private

    (London, August 25, 2026) – The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights today delivered a landmark judgment in the case of Osman Kavala, the human rights defender and civil society leader unlawfully imprisoned in Türkiye since November 2017. The court ruled that Kavala's continued detention is unlawful and found that his rights to fair trial, freedom of expression, and association have been violated. The court also found that his aggravated life sentence amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment and that the Turkish authorities acted in bad faith by keeping him in detention unlawfully. The court concluded that he was convicted for the ulterior purpose of punishing and silencing him, and to prevent his human rights work. The court ordered his release at the earliest possible date and that his conviction be quashed.

    Human rights organizations Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, and the Turkey Litigation Support Project submitted a joint intervention to the court on the core rights issues at stake in the case. Amnesty International declared Osman Kavala and his six codefendants prisoners of conscience in June 2022.
    
    “Today, in its latest ruling, the European Court of Human Rights has comprehensively established that Osman Kavala has been languishing in prison for almost nine years on the basis of a politically motivated trial,” said Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. “Türkiye has defied two previous binding rulings from the court in his case. This obstruction of justice must end. Türkiye’s authorities, including judicial and prosecutorial, must act to free Osman Kavala immediately and unconditionally.” 

    In what became known as the “Gezi Park trial,” Kavala was sentenced on April 25, 2022, to life in prison without parole for “attempting to overthrow the government” alongside codefendants who received 18-year terms for “aiding the attempt to overthrow the government” during protests in 2013. The Turkish authorities should immediately release Osman Kavala and set aside his conviction in line with both Türkiye’s international legal obligations and the Turkish Constitution, the groups said.

    In its latest judgment, the European Court examined the entirety of the Gezi proceedings, in which the prosecution falsely alleged that the 2013 peaceful protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park were an attempt to overthrow the government. The court assessed the indictment, the charges, the purported evidence, the trial, the appeals, and the conviction against the European Convention on Human Rights’ fair trial guarantees. It found that the entire basis of Kavala’s deprivation of liberty and eventual conviction was “a flagrant denial of justice.” The court also recognized the structural shortcomings which undermine the independence and impartiality of the judiciary in Türkiye and ordered measures be taken to remedy them.

    “Europe's highest human rights court has confirmed beyond doubt that Kavala’s arrest, detention, prosecution, and conviction as part of the Gezi trial was politically motivated and completely flawed from start to finish,” said Ayşe Bingöl Demir, director at the Turkey Litigation Support Project. “The systemic failures that made possible the violations of his rights since his arrest in October 2017 have been exposed once again.” 

    This is the third time the European Court has ruled on Kavala's situation. In December 2019, the court found that his detention violated his right to liberty and that it pursued the ulterior purpose of silencing him as a human rights defender. The court ordered his immediate release. In July 2022, in its second ruling on the case, the court found Türkiye in breach of its obligation to abide by the 2019 judgment. 

    The European Convention system for human rights protection now faces a defining test, the groups said. Despite these rulings, the Council of Europe has yet to take meaningful action to ensure Türkiye's compliance with the court’s judgments in the Kavala case. 

    “Türkiye was among the first states to join the Council of Europe and become a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, thereby agreeing to uphold and protect the rights it enshrines and implement the binding judgments of its court,” said Temur Shakirov, director of the Europe and Central Asia program at International Commission of Jurists. “It must now honor those obligations, and the Council of Europe needs to act to ensure it does.” 

    The Committee of Ministers (the Council of Europe's decision-making body) is charged with supervising execution and compliance with the court’s judgments. In the face of such serious and continuous lack of compliance, the Council of Europe, its Parliamentary Assembly, and secretary general also need to take every necessary measure and use all the appropriate tools available to secure the implementation of these judgments to ensure that Osman Kavala is finally released from prison. The Council of Europe and its member states should recognize the implications of Türkiye's failure to implement these judgments, which represents a serious threat to the effectiveness and credibility of the convention system.  

    Council of Europe member states must also keep the Kavala case at the top of their agenda concerning Türkiye and raise compliance with these judgments in clear and unambiguous terms with the Turkish authorities, including by articulating concrete demands for Osman Kavala’s immediate release.

    “Osman Kavala has been unlawfully imprisoned for nearly nine years,” said Aisling Reidy, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “The European Court has now demanded his immediate release three times. It is vital that the Council of Europe and its member states act to ensure that the court’s judgments are respected and that Osman Kavala—finally—is freed.”