Human Rights Watch

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Libyan Rebels Accused of Looting Hospitals, Shops

Among other human rights abuses in captured towns

(Newser) - Libyan rebels have committed a host of human rights abuses in four towns they’ve captured, including beating suspected Gadhafi loyalists, burning their homes, and looting businesses and at least two medical centers, Human Rights Watch said today. These reprisals have driven people from their homes, leaving three of the...

Egypt's Toll: 297 Dead, Plenty More Tortured

Human Rights Watch delivers estimates from prisons, hospitals

(Newser) - At least 297 people have been killed in Egypt’s uprising, and that estimate is expected to rise significantly in the days ahead, Human Rights Watch announced yesterday, after touring Egypt’s hospitals and morgues. The lion’s share of those deaths—232—occurred in Cairo, the Huffington Post reports,...

Pakistan Busts Schoolkid for Blasphemy

Human Rights Watch calls the case 'mind boggling'

(Newser) - A 17-year-old boy in Karachi has been arrested for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad in a school exam, drawing widespread condemnation, reports the BBC . Human Rights Watch called for the boy's release, saying that for police to lock him up was "mind boggling."

Human Rights Groups: Bust Baby Doc

Haiti urged to arrest former dictator

(Newser) - Former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier says he has "come to help" Haiti, but human rights groups say his only place in the nation is behind bars. Duvalier, who returned to Haiti over the weekend after almost 25 years in exile, is accused of massive corruption and extensive human...

Kids Toil in Philip Morris' Tobacco Fields

 Kids Toil, Get Sick 
 in Philip Morris 
 Tobacco Fields 
human rights watch report
Jul 14, 2010 7:36 AM CDT

Kids Toil, Get Sick in Philip Morris Tobacco Fields

Children absorb nicotine equivalent to 36 cigarettes a day

(Newser) - In the tobacco fields that supply a Philip Morris factory in Kazakhstan, child laborers as young as 10 encounter such high doses of nicotine that they feel dizzy, vomit, and develop rashes on their necks and stomachs, a condition known as "green tobacco sickness." Other migrant tobacco workers...

Prisoners Raped, Tortured in Secret Baghdad Prison
Prisoners Raped, Tortured
in Secret Baghdad Prison
'Abu Ghraib Was a Picnic'
Apr 28, 2010 6:07 AM CDT

Prisoners Raped, Tortured in Secret Baghdad Prison

Human Rights Watch details abuses

(Newser) - They were hung by their feet and whipped, suffocated with plastic bags. If they passed out, they were revived with electrical shocks to the genitals. That's just a taste of the horrors prisoners describe in Human Rights Watch's report on the recently revealed Iraqi-run secret prison in Baghdad, where suspected...

After Nigerian Riots, 150 Bodies Found in Wells

Total death toll in religious violence is reportedly near 400

(Newser) - Nearly a week after the outbreak of violence between Nigerian Muslims and Christians, aid workers have found up to 150 more bodies stuffed into wells and sewage pits. In the central village of Kuru Karama, many victims had been shot, hacked to death, or burned alive, reports the BBC .

Chinese: Google Flap Is a US Conspiracy

But government tries to tamp down drama

(Newser) - Google is a puppet of US foreign policy, Chinese state-owned media are reporting, calling the company's threat to pull out of China unless censorship is dropped a conspiracy by the US government to interfere in Chinese politics. One paper quotes a political scientist saying, "the Google incident is not...

Human Rights Watch: UN Supports Atrocities in Congo

Mission provides logistical support to brutal national army

(Newser) - Women and children beaten to death with clubs, hacked up with machetes—or, if they're "lucky," gang-raped and left alive. Such shocking acts are sadly commonplace in the conflict that has consumed Congo, perpetrated by both Rwandan rebels and their enemies in the Congolese army. The army, however,...

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Chinese Complainers Kidnapped
Nov 12, 2009 4:44 AM CST

Chinese Complainers Kidnapped

People routinely held in 'black jails,' journalists beaten

(Newser) - Chinese citizens en route to Beijing to lodge complaints with China's central government are routinely nabbed by thugs and tossed into makeshift "black jails" where they are illegally detained for days or months, deprived of food and water, beaten and threatened—then sent back home without filing their complaints....

No Clear Way for US to Prosecute Gitmo Prisoners
No Clear Way for US to Prosecute Gitmo Prisoners
ANALYSIS
Oct 29, 2009 11:11 PM CDT

No Clear Way for US to Prosecute Gitmo Prisoners

Experts split on whether to use federal courts or military commissions

(Newser) - President Obama is edging closer to his goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison: Congress has approved detainee trials on US soil and the National Defense Authorization Act, passed yesterday, attempts to repair the damaged legality of President Bush’s military-commissions system. But hurdles remain, with legal scholars split on...

Dozens 'Disappeared' After China Riots

Rights group: Uighurs vanished after being detained by police

(Newser) - Dozens of Uighur men and boys rounded up in the wake of the riots that shook China's Xinjiang province over the summer are missing, according to a reports from a human rights group. Interviews with families in Urumqi found evidence that 43 people had vanished since being taken away by...

Lay Off Israel, Human Rights Watch: Founder
Lay Off Israel, Human Rights Watch: Founder
OPINION
Oct 20, 2009 9:42 AM CDT

Lay Off Israel, Human Rights Watch: Founder

Group founded to light closed societies has gone astray

(Newser) - Human Rights Watch has lost its way, writes founder and chairman emeritus Robert L. Bernstein. The once even-handed organization has launched a jeremiad against Israel—a liberal democracy with a “vibrant free press”—while effectively ignoring abuses in closed, autocratic societies in the region it was created to...

Gay Iraqis Fear for Their Lives
 Gay Iraqis Fear for Their Lives 
GLOSSIES
Oct 5, 2009 4:41 PM CDT

Gay Iraqis Fear for Their Lives

Human Rights Watch attempts to save persecuted gays from murder

(Newser) - Iraqi society is overwhelmingly  homophobic, but that prejudice took a back seat to more pressing issues while war was raging. Now, as Shia militias find themselves with time on their hands, they appear to have turned to a perceived internal problem, “to make society clean from bad things.”...

UN: Sri Lanka Conflict a 'Bloodbath'

Aid groups urge Japan to push for Security Council action

(Newser) - After intense weekend fighting, the UN says the battle between rebels and the government in Sri Lanka has become a “bloodbath,” the New York Times reports. A government doctor estimates 1,000 civilians died in the heavy shelling of the small coastal area occupied by a few hundred...

Watchdog: Mexican Army's Abuse of Civilians Unchecked

Desperate to fight the cartels, government turns a blind eye to military crimes

(Newser) - The Mexican army, enlisted by President Felipe Calderón in the battle against drug cartels, is abusing civilians with de facto immunity from the government, a watchdog group says. The army was supposed to be a temporary replacement for corrupt or incompetent police forces. But some soldiers, unaccustomed to the...

Fate of Dozens of CIA Detainees Still Unknown

(Newser) - The Bush-era CIA memos made public last week revealed that an al-Qaeda suspect, Hassan Ghul, had been held in one of the agency’s secret jails. But the inadvertent disclosure of one name merely highlights how much the public still doesn’t know about the network of secret detention facilities,...

Israel Committed Gaza War Crimes: Rights Group

Human Rights Watch finds army fired white phosphorus at civilians

(Newser) - Israel's military committed war crimes by repeatedly firing white phosphorus into crowded areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. A report by the group alleges that Israel chose not to use less dangerous smoke shells and even fired the incendiary agent at the main UN compound in the Strip....

Top Human Rights Lawyer Slain in Moscow

He opposed release of colonel who killed Chechen teen

(Newser) - A Russian lawyer fighting the early release of a colonel convicted of war crimes was shot dead yesterday in Moscow, Deutsche Welle reports. Stanislav Markelov, 34, was planning to challenge the parole of Yuri Budanov, who was freed last week after being imprisoned 6 years ago for murdering a Chechen...

Georgian Cluster Bombs Killed Own Civilians

Human rights group says 3 killed by malfunctioning bombs

(Newser) - The cluster bombs Georgia used during its war with Russia malfunctioned on an “absolutely massive scale,” killing at least three civilians, and leaving the country littered with deadly unexploded bombs, according to new research from Human Rights Watch. The Georgian Ministry of Defense said the findings were “...

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