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Rights-Respecting Democracies Should Unite to Preserve Fundamental Freedoms

Southern African countries committed serious human rights violations throughout 2025, creating vicious cycles of abuse and impunity.

Some Latin American and Caribbean governments are violating rights of noncitizens at the Trump administration’s behest, while others are using Trump’s policies and rhetoric as cover for abuses against their own citizens.

(Kyiv, February 4, 2026) – Civilians in Ukraine experienced serious conflict-related violations over the past year, with more targeted and indiscriminate Russian attacks driving up civilian deaths, injuries, and destruction, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.

Abuses against civilians by government forces and armed groups have become rampant in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Labour government in the UK, during its first full year in authority has carried out punitive immigration policies that have emboldened the far right, an authoritarian crackdown on protest rights, and a failure to adequately address an ongoing and worsening cost of living crisis.

The Turkish government deepened its assault on the main opposition party during 2025 while at the same time pursuing an end to the four-decade conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.

European Union institutions and member states’ failure to prioritize human rights undermines the rule of law, democratic space and rights protection at home and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.

(Brussels, February 4, 2026) – In the fourth year of its full-scale war against Ukraine, the Kremlin further escalated the crackdown on Russian civil society, targeting critics both inside the country and in exile, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026. Aiming to stifle all forms of dissent, authorities expanded censorship and surveillance, increasingly used “undermining state security” charges, and streamlined prosecutions of critics designated as “foreign agents.”