Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution states that “no person may be compelled to enter marriage against their will” and requires authorities to ensure that children are not pledged into marriage, but the government has yet to amend or repeal all other existing marriage laws that still allow child marriage. Reports – Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Country Reports on Human Rights Practices The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, also known as the Human Rights Reports, cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements. Following the protests, security forces rounded up and detained hundreds of people, many of whom were brought before courts on charges of public violence and criminal nuisance. HRW – Human Rights Watch World Report 2020 - Ethiopia Human rights reforms implemented by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during his first year in office were threatened in 2019 by communal, including ethnic, conflict and breakdowns in law and order. Even tourists to the region—including non-Chinese citizens—are required to download a phone app that secretly monitors them. Pages Businesses Nonprofit Organization Human Rights Watch Videos World Report 2020 It has been published by Seven Stories Presssince 2006; the current edition, World Report 2020, was released in January 2020, and covers events of 2019. Rwandan police arrested over 60 refugees between February and May 2018 and charged them with participating in illegal demonstrations, violence against public authorities, rebellion, and disobeying law enforcement. A CCP notice banning retired Tibetan government employees from performing kora, the practice of circumambulating a sacred site, appears to have been issued in early August 2019. On September 4, Lam formally withdrew the amendments, and on September 26 she staged a “dialogue” with some members of the public. By Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2020 is Human Rights Watch’s 30th annual review of human rights practices around the globe. Pastor Wang Yi, a prominent member of China’s Christian community and a former legal scholar, remains in police custody and has been charged with “inciting subversion.”. Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch holds up their World Report 2020 at the United Nations in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 14, 2020. Police increasingly restricted freedom of assembly by denying applications for protests. The SADC summit “noted the adverse impact on the economy of Zimbabwe and the region at large, of prolonged economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, and expressed solidarity with Zimbabwe, and called for the immediate lifting of the sanctions to facilitate socio-economic recovery in the country.”. At the 39th SADC Summit held from August 17 to 18 in Tanzania, the summit elected President Mnangagwa as chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation. Current laws on marriage and divorce do not conform to the country’s constitution, which provides that spouses have equal rights and responsibilities. Following the protests, security forces intensified a crackdown on supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDCA), union leaders involved in organizing the protests, and civil society activists. In April, Beijing authorities blocked lawyer Chen Jiangang from leaving China to take part in a fellowship program in the United States. In June, Germany granted refugee status to two activists from Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch considers North Koreans in China as refugees sur place, meaning their arrival in China put them at risk if returned. As part of an ongoing nationwide crackdown on labor activism that began in July 2018, Shenzhou police in January and March detained Yang Zhengjun, Ke Chengbing, and Wei Zhili, editors of the workers’ rights news website New Generation, accusing them of “picking quarrels.” In June, Guangdong police detained labor activist Ling Haobo on unknown charges. In March, censors removed social media accounts of Ma Ling, a clickbait blogger who commanded an audience of more than 16 million. Human rights reforms implemented by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during his first year in office were threatened in 2019 by communal, including ethnic, conflict and breakdowns in law and order. Some protesters used violence, throwing Molotov cocktails at police, setting roadblocks on fire; and in a number of cases attacked people they accused of being pro-Beijing infiltrators, including setting one person on fire. In April, China hosted the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Human Rights Watch | 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor | New York, NY 10118-3299 USA | t 1.212.290.4700 Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808 From May to July 2019, the authorities expelled thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns from the Yachen Gar monastery in Sichuan, and their dwellings demolished, according to Xi. Eritrea: Human Rights Watch 2020 report January 18, 2020 Martin Plaut Eritrea, Human Rights Watch, News Eritrea: Human Rights Watch 2020 report Indefinite Military Service and Forced Labor. Police across the country detained activists and citizens who showed support for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. It summarizes key human rights issues in … The government’s use of mass surveillance technologies is on the rise. In December 2018, police detained the pastor and scores of members of Early Rain Covenant Church, an independent Protestant church in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The effect of Chinese government censorship continues to reach beyond the Chinese borders. The “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), announced in 2013, is China’s trillion-dollar infrastructure and investment program stretching across some 70 countries. Although the government shows growing interest in regulating private companies’ collection of consumer data, such regulations are limited to the commercial sphere. Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released their World Report 2020 —an annual review of human rights around the globe. The human rights organization says it collected weapon remnants at the site that “corroborate the use of guided munitions.” “The two strikes on the church, the second one while journalists and other civilians had gathered at the site, appear to be deliberate,” HRW director for Europe and Central Asia Hugh Williamson said. Human Rights Watch published the report shortly after Beijing banned its executive director, Kenneth Roth, from traveling to Hong Kong for an event to release it. Two months after being released from prison, Ji succumbed to unknown illnesses, guarded by police in a hospital in Fujian province. And surely for further info on countries, we have consulted human rights Watch World Report for 2020. Little to no efforts were made to bring those responsible for the abuses to justice. The extraordinarily repressive Strike Hard Campaign, launched in 2014, continued unabated against the Turkic Muslim population. In the Ngawa Tibetan region of Sichuan, two more young men set themselves on fire in protest against the Chinese government, in November and December 2018. Having set the criteria, let’s check out which the worst human rights … WeChat, China’s popular messaging platform used by more than a billion Chinese-speakers at home and abroad, is subject to the usual Chinese censorship applied to all domestic social media. Under the MOPO bill, the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly is not fully guaranteed, as law enforcement agencies are still given broad regulatory discretion and powers. Human Rights Watch is anchored by Guiding Principles that orient us in the world and by Core Values that inform our standards, practices, and treatment of one another. But the unrest continued as the government would not meet most of the protesters’ central demands, including implementing genuine universal suffrage—a right promised in Hong Kong’s functional constitution—and launching an independent investigation into police abuses. This restrictive legislation contributes to stigma and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. On June 9, anger over the proposed extradition amendments and deteriorating freedoms prompted 1 million people to protest, according to organizers. Following a decision at the SADC summit, SADC member states on October 25 undertook various activities, including protests, to collectively voice their disapproval of the sanctions until the sanctions against Zimbabwe are lifted. In July, 25 governments signed a letter to the UN Human Rights Council president, echoing the high commissioner’s call for an independent investigation in the Xinjiang region. He had reportedly been ill-treated while serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence on fabricated charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” and “picking quarrels.” Consistent with a number of other cases in recent years of prominent human rights defenders dying in or soon after release from detention, authorities have not held anyone accountable for wrongdoing. Armed separatists have also killed, tortured, and kidnapped dozens of civilians, including teachers, students, an… It summarizes key human rights issues in … The killing underscores the impunity that prevails in the Philippines, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement on Monday. HRW – Human Rights Watch World Report 2020 - Ethiopia Human rights reforms implemented by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during his first year in office were threatened in 2019 by communal, including ethnic, conflict and breakdowns in law and order. In April, a Sichuan court sentenced activist Chen Bing to three-and-a-half years for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. The government restricts religious practice to five officially recognized religions in officially approved premises. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. Fourteen of the victims died from gunfire, while three died from injuries sustained following severe beatings. A number of governments and parliaments have publicly expressed grave concerns about the situation in Xinjiang and other serious human rights violations by the Chinese government, and continue to seek to monitor trials and assist human rights defenders. HRW – Human Rights Watch World Report 2020 - Ukraine Hostilities in eastern Ukraine entered their sixth year and continued to put civilians’ lives and well-being at risk, even as absolute numbers of civilian casualties dropped. Government censors initially blocked online discussions and media reporting of the case, leading to an online uproar. Authorities further restricted the internet in China. Roth presented the report at an event in New York at the United Nations headquarters instead, despite the report being heavily critical of the U.N. as an institution. Authorities’ use of technologies for mass surveillance and social control has been unprecedented, especially in a region where people cannot challenge such intrusions. Others have been prosecuted and sent to prison, and some have received lengthy and even death sentences for crimes that violate fundamental rights, “splitism” or “subversion.”. Human Rights Watch: i diritti violati nel mondo secondo il report 2020 Dall'Italia alla Cina. Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch holds up their World Report 2020 at the United Nations in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 14, 2020… Although most protesters acted peacefully, Hong Kong police dispersed them with excessive force, including by beating those subdued on the ground. However, no human rights concerns were publicly raised by EU leaders during the 21st EU-China Summit, held in Brussels in April. In March, Xinjiang authorities announced that they had arrested nearly 13,000 “terrorists” in the region since 2014, and on July 30, publicly stated that “most” held in Xinjiang’s “political education” camps had “returned to society”; neither claim was substantiated with credible evidence. In April, a Hong Kong district court convicted nine leaders of the 2014 nonviolent pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” on public nuisance charges. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, and operates in more than eighty countries. In July, dissident Ji Sizun, 69, died in state custody. China promptly organized a competing letter, signed by 50 governments, praising China’s regional approach to “counter-terrorism,” and noting that people in Xinjiang “enjoy a stronger sense of happiness.”  Yet throughout the year the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) did not condemn abuses against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang—while sharply criticizing abuses against Muslims elsewhere—and instead praised China’s treatment of Muslims. On February 12, the Hong Kong Security Bureau proposed changes to two laws that would enable criminal suspects in the city to be extradited to the Chinese authorities—which have a track record of torturing suspects and subjecting them to unfair trials—while removing public oversight over the process. Beginning in June, at least 2 million people in a city of 7 million filled the streets to demand greater freedoms. In its continuing campaign to crack down on Islamic traditions, authorities in Gansu, Ningxia, and other Hui Muslim areas demolished domes on mosques and banned the public use of Arabic script. World Report 2020 is Human Rights Watch’s 30th annual review of human rights practices around the globe. During nationwide protests in mid-January, following the president’s sudden announcement of a fuel price increase, security forces responded with lethal force, killing at least 17 people, raping at least 17 women, shooting and injuring 81 people, and arresting over 1,000 suspected protesters during door-to-door raids. The declaration is expected to take the form of a report from the office of Elan Carr, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. To counter mounting international concern about the crackdown, Chinese authorities organized multiple, highly controlled trips for selected journalists and diplomats—including from the United Nations—to Xinjiang. On July 1, some broke into LegCo, painting slogans on some chamber walls. Source: HRW. The conditions that contributed to the spread of cholera during the latest outbreak in September 2018, and another outbreak a decade earlier, continued in 2019, namely: little access to potable water, inadequate sanitation services, and limited information on water quality. US law prohibits importation of goods made with forced labor. Xinjiang authorities also continued to remove children whose parents were detained or in exile and hold them in state-run “child welfare” institutions and boarding schools without parental consent or access. Human Rights Watch has released it's 2020 world report in Johannesburg. Aside from detentions and enforced disappearances, authorities continue to subject human rights activists and lawyers and their families to house arrest, harassment, surveillance, and travel bans. International scrutiny of foreign academics and companies operating in the region has increased. Police forcibly disappeared her mother by placing her under incommunicado house arrest for days, and sending government agents to live in her home. The protests, sparked by the Hong Kong government’s introduction of legal amendments that would have allowed extraditions to China, have evolved into a city-wide resistance movement against CCP rule. Most of those killed were from Epworth, Chitungwiza, and the Mbare and Warren Park suburbs of Harare, the capital. The report identifies institutional and human rights deficiencies, and highlights how lack of access to justice “has led to a structural impunity that perpetuates serious human rights violations.” January 18, 2020 Martin Plaut Eritrea, Human Rights Watch, News. Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released their World Report 2020 —an annual review of human rights around the globe. The SADC leaders, however, failed to publicly address Zimbabwe’s failure to respect human rights, good governance, and the rule of law, key pillars essential for the country’s sustainable socio-economic recovery. On March 4, US President Donald Trump extended sanctions against the Mnangagwa administration by one year, arguing that the new government’s policies continued to pose an “unusual and extraordinary” threat to US foreign policy. Report. World Report 2020 is Human Rights Watch’s 30th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, covering 100 countries and territories in the world and the period from the end of 2018 to November 2019. In August, Beijing formally arrested writer and China-born Australian citizen Yang Hengjun on espionage charges, seven months after he was detained in southern China. Human Rights Watch World Report 2020. Thirteen million Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang are suffering particularly harsh repression. Authorities in Tibetan areas have also stepped up use of a nationwide anti-crime campaign to encourage people to denounce members of their communities on the slightest suspicion of sympathy for the exiled Dalai Lama or opposition to the government. The killing underscores the impunity that prevails in the Philippines, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement on Monday. After four days of torture and harassment, Magombeyi’s abductors dumped him outside Harare. Rohingya living in ‘open prison’ in Myanmar: Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch in its World Report 2020 said that Balkan countries made only modest progress last year in the field of human rights. The government classifies many religious groups outside its control as “evil cults,” and subjects members to police harassment, torture, arbitrary detention, and imprisonment. In September 2019, the Harare deputy mayor announced that the Harare City Council had shut down its main water treatment plant, known as Morton Jaffray, due to shortages of imported water treatment chemicals and low water levels at Lake Chivero. The US repeatedly rhetorically condemned China’s human rights violations, yet these comments were weakened by President Trump’s complimentary commentary of President Xi. Decades of progress and human rights are at stake so is our future. One of the countries analyzed every year is Chile. Committed to Promoting Equality, Dignity, and Justice Worldwide Authorities retain control over religious bodies’ personnel appointments, publications, finances, and seminary applications. In Canada, HRW reported that progress has been made in many human rights areas, such as LGBTQ rights; however, shortcomings persist in adequately addressing Indigenous self-determination rights, prolonged solitary confinement, and regulatory laws for Canadian … At around the same time, the US State Department announced it would withhold visas from Chinese government officials found to be culpable in Xinjiang abuses. HRW executive director Kenneth Roth was due to launch the World Report 2020 at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong today, but was denied entry at Hong Kong International Airport on Monday for "immigration reasons". Human Rights Watch publishes reports on many different topics and compiles an annual World Report presenting an overview of the worldwide state of human rights. Authorities in Tibetan areas continue to severely restrict religious freedom, speech, movement, and assembly, and fail to redress popular concerns about mining and land grabs by local officials, which often involve intimidation and unlawful use of force by security forces. Huang, detained since November 2016, suffers from several serious health conditions for which he has not been given adequate treatment. Most were released days or months later. Suspected gang, or “triad,” members also repeatedly attacked protesters and pro-democracy lawmakers, leading to public accusations that police responded inadequately to violence against protesters. Beijing authorities pressured schools in the city to expel or deny admission to the 6-year-old son of imprisoned lawyer Wang Quanzhang. Our members allow Human Rights Watch researchers to expose tyranny, to empower victims, and to tell their stories to the … China continued to detain and forcibly return hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of North Korean refugees, thus violating its obligations as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Prior to his abduction, according to his family and colleagues who spoke to Human Rights Watch, Magombeyi received a text message from a local mobile number threatening him with disappearance. In March, the European Commission announced a review of its relations with China, defining the country also as a “systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.” The European Union regularly raised human rights concerns in its Human Rights Council statements, in the EU-China human rights dialogue, and in occasional statements throughout the year. Cameroon’s Anglophone regions have been engulfed in crisis since late 2016, when English-speaking lawyers, students, and teachers began protesting what they saw as their under-representation in, and cultural marginalization by, the central government. The Chinese government continues to deny independent observers—including UN human rights experts—unfettered access to the region, which makes verifying information, particularly concerning detainees, very difficult. A Human Rights Watch report has found child athletes in Japan often suffer physical and verbal abuse and sometimes sexual abuse when training for … On October 1, the US Customs and Border Protection issued a ban on artisanal rough-cut diamonds from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields due to evidence of forced labor. Authorities continued a national crackdown on users of Twitter—already blocked in China—that started in November 2018. In late 2018, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in what is widely viewed as an act of retaliation against Canada for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, an executive at the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Access was restored on January 21. The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. By the end of 2018, 507,300 Eritreans had fled, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 10 percent of the population. HRW – Human Rights Watch World Report 2020 - India The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the May 2019 elections with a majority to return Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a second term. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable … In June, China’s internet regulator shut down the financial news aggregator wallstreetcn.com, and ordered Q Daily, a news site known for its stories on social issues, to stop updating content for at least three months. Meanwhile, the government launched a disinformation campaign on Twitter and Facebook that frames Hong Kong’s protesters as violent and extreme, prompting the platforms to suspend hundreds of accounts originating in China. A number of governments and international institutions issued public condemnations of China’s most egregious human rights violations, but few took concrete actions, such as imposing sanctions or export controls.