HRW statement to Human Rights Council Special Session Human Rights Watch – (Geneva, May 27, 2021) Once again, this Council gathers to address the latest cycle of violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. We could go through the statistics – hundreds of Palestinians, including dozens of children, killed in Israeli airstrikes; at least […]
Gaza Hostilities Underscore Role of Int’l Criminal Court
By Balkees Jarrah | – Associate Director, International Justice Program | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – Israeli forces have launched relentless airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have fired rockets at Israeli population centers. At least 227 people, including 64 children have been killed in Gaza, […]
Danger of Excessive Force by Israeli Security against Israelis of Palestinian Heritage in Mixed Cities
( Human Rights Watch ) – (New York) – Amid escalating violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visited the central Israel mixed Palestinian-Jewish city of Lod on May 13, 2021, after media reported violence there by vigilante groups, both Jewish groups including West Bank settlers and groups […]
Jerusalem to Gaza, Israeli Authorities’ Escalation Highlights Reality of Apartheid, Persecution for Millions of Palestinians
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 […]