The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles
The 337-page report, “‘You Have to Move!’ The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles,” documents the experiences of people living on the streets and in vehicles, temporary shelters, and parks in Los Angeles, as they struggle to survive while facing criminalization and governmental failures to prioritize eviction prevention or access to permanent housing. Law enforcement and sanitation “sweeps” force unhoused people out of public view, often wasting resources on temporary shelter and punishments that do not address the underlying needs. Tens of thousands of people are living in the streets of Los Angeles; death rates among the unhoused have skyrocketed.
This 39-page report documents how most families have returned to locations that still lack minimal social services, such as health care and education, let alone employment. Elderly and disabled persons, widows and female-headed households experience the worst shortfalls in government assistance, particularly in rural areas.
Uzbekistan’s Implementation of the Recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on Torture
Three years ago, the government of Uzbekistan took the important step of issuing an invitation to the United Nations (U.N.) Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman degrading treatment or punishment, the first government of the five Central Asian states to do so.
The Prosecution of Sexual Violence in the Congo War
This 52-page report documents how the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken insufficient steps to prosecute those responsible for wartime rape. Human Rights Watch calls on the Congolese government and international donors, including the European Union, to take urgent steps to reform Congo’s justice system.
Prospects in 2005 for Internally Displaced Kurds in Turkey
This 37-page report details how the Turkish government has failed to implement measures for IDPs the United Nations recommended nearly three years ago. Since the European Union confirmed Turkey’s membership candidacy in December, the Turkish government appears to have shelved plans to enact those measures.
The control orders envisioned in the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2005 (hereafter “the Bill”) offer a seriously flawed alternative to the disastrous policy of indefinite detention under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, a policy ruled contrary to human rights law by the House of Lords Judicial Committee.
This report documents more than 200 enforced disappearances perpetrated by the Nepali army and police and analyzes the factors responsible for the crisis.
This 48-page report documents how, in the weeks and months after the bombing that killed 30 people in the resort town of Taba, the State Security Investigation agency conducted mass arrests in northern Sinai without a warrant or judicial order as required by Egyptian law.
Al-Majid earned the sobriquet “Chemical Ali” because of his role in the genocidal Anfal campaign between February and August 1988, and his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq beginning in April 1987.
On September 27, 2004, the leader of a powerful armed group threatened to launch an “all-out war” in the Niger Delta - sending shock waves through the oil industry – unless the federal government ceded greater control of the region’s vast oil resources to the Ijaw people, the majority tribe in the Niger Delta.
US: Life Without Parole Sentences for Children in Colorado
Across Colorado, residents are beginning to question whether children who commit a crime before the age of eighteen should ever be sentenced to life without parole. Historically, this harshest of prison sentences was restricted to adults.
This 65-page report analyzes aspects of Spain’s criminal law and procedures that fall short of its commitments under international human rights law. Problematic practices include the use of incommunicado detention and secret legal proceedings, limitations on the right to a lawyer during the initial period of detention, and lengthy periods of pre-trial detention.
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Iraqi custody
This 94-page report documents how unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews in Iraq with 90 detainees, 72 of whom alleged having been tortured or ill-treated, particularly under interrogation.
Workers in the U.S. meat and poultry industry endure unnecessarily hazardous work conditions, and the companies employing them often use illegal tactics to crush union organizing efforts. In meat and poultry plants across the United States, Human Rights Watch found that many workers face a real danger of losing a limb, or even their lives, in unsafe work conditions.
Since February 2003, Darfur has been the scene of massive crimes against civilians of particular ethnicities in the context of an internal conflict between the Sudanese government and a rebel insurgency. Almost two million people have been forcibly displaced and stripped of all their property and tens of thousands of people have been killed, raped or assaulted.
