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Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026

18/4/2026

Country Report: Russia
As Russia’s abusive war against Ukraine continued, the Kremlin further intensified the crackdown on dissent and civil society, targeting critics inside the country and in exile. Authorities continued using ill-treatment in custody as a tool of repression and expanded the use of bogus charges of undermining state security, including “confidential cooperation” with foreigners.
President Putin, and several other senior Russian officials wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, remained at large. In June 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement to establish a Special Tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders for the crime of aggression related to the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU adopted additional sanctions on Russia and Russian officials, including over human rights abuses in Russia, the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children, and abuses in detention centers in occupied areas of Ukraine.
In November, prosecutors banned Human Rights Watch as “undesirable.”
The number of political prisoners rose to 1,217 (108 of them women), according to
Memorial, compared to 805 at the end of 2024.

Freedom of Expression
Courts continued to hand down draconian prison terms for anti-war speech and peaceful dissent.
From Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to the end of September 2025, 692 people had faced criminal prosecution on bogus charges of “false information” or “discreditation” of the army, according to Russian rights group OVD-Info. In total, at least 1,299 had faced criminal prosecution for opposing the war, and 373 remained imprisoned on these charges at time of writing.
In May, a military court sentenced Sergei Veselov to 13 years in prison for writing on the wall of a bus stop shelter the approximate number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The court viewed Veselov’s conduct as an act of vandalism motivated by political hatred, dissemination of “fake news” about the army, and evidence of his alleged participation in the Freedom of Russia legion, a unit of Russian nationals fighting on the Ukrainian side that Russian authorities labeled a terrorist organization.
Courts continued to hand down draconian sentences to journalists. In April, a Moscow court sentenced four journalists to five-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly producing content for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, designated as “extremist” by the authorities in 2021. In July, in closed proceedings, a court in Ufa sentenced RusNews journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years in prison on charges of participating in the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s activities and spreading false information about the army.
The government continued to censor information and opinions about Russia’s war on Ukraine that were not aligned with the official narrative. In August, digital rights group Roskomsvoboda found that authorities had blocked more than 25,000 websites and links on such grounds. However, the total number of materials censored since February 2022 is in the hundreds of thousands.
A law adopted in April prohibited placing advertisements on websites of organizations designated “undesirable” or “extremist” and other websites blocked by Russian authorities, including those of many independent media outlets. Another April law introduced harsher penalties for calling for sanctions against Russia, “discrediting” the army, and assisting in enforcement of decisions of organizations to which Russia is not a party, when motivated by financial gain. Another new law empowered the authorities to prosecute critics in absentia on a variety of charges. July amendments allowed films to be banned for discrediting “Russian traditional values” and required online platforms to monitor and remove such content.

Laws on “Foreign Agents” and “Undesirables”
Authorities expanded the laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations,” and used them to target media, human rights defenders, and other critics. In 2025, law enforcement agencies significantly escalated prosecutions of critics designated as “foreign agents,” mostly those in exile.
New legislation, which entered into force in March, banned “foreign agents” from accessing their income from intellectual property, property sales or rentals, and investment returns.
In April, new amendments barred “foreign agents” from any education-related activities and from receiving municipal support or “socially-oriented NGO” status, which provides reduced taxation and other benefits. A November law increased their taxes and deprived them of all tax benefits.
Another April law expanded grounds for “foreign agent” designation to include, for example, assisting international organizations to which Russia is not a party, such as the ICC, involving children in producing online content, or financing content production.
A June law further toughened the labeling requirements for “foreign agents,” increased penalties for violations, and introduced new fines for failure to comply with demands from officials overseeing “foreign agents.”
Russia still lacks a comprehensive domestic violence law. An independent initiative to combat domestic violence and support survivors, Nasiliu.Net, was designated a “foreign agent” in 2020. It had to scale down its programs in 2025 after multiple commercial providers, including those supporting its emergency hotline, dropped it, citing the “risks” associated with its “foreign agent” status. In October, the initiative announced its closure. The closure or weakening of organizations like Nasiliu.Net further reduces survivors’ access to support, leaving women exposed to abuse with limited remedies or state protection.
Authorities escalated criminal prosecutions over alleged violations of “foreign agents” legislation. In July, Russia’s chief investigative agency reported 72 criminal cases launched in the first half of 2025.
October amendments further streamlined criminal prosecution for failure to comply with the “foreign agents” legislation, allowing for criminal prosecution following just one misdemeanor offense. Prior to that, criminal charges generally required two prior misdemeanor convictions.
In 2025, the Justice Ministry designated 215 individuals and organizations as “foreign agents,” compared to 164 in 2024, including numerous news outlets, Russian and foreign journalists, artists, and civil society activists.
Leading Russian rights organization Memorial was particularly hard hit. In January, authorities added Memorial’s political prisoners project to the “foreign agents” register. Over the next few months, they designated as “foreign agents” dozens of current and former Memorial leaders and members.
Among other rights defenders added to the “foreign agent” list are OVD-Info’s co-founder Grigory Okhotin, Russia’s Movement of Conscientious Objectors’ lawyer Artyom Klyga, Amnesty International’s Russia researcher Oleg Kozlovsky, and Solidarity Zone, a group supporting those imprisoned for anti-war expression.
Authorities continued to use legislation on “undesirable organizations” to arbitrarily ban anti-war initiatives, rights groups, media, and academic institutions and programs. In 2025, 78 new groups were added to the Justice Ministry’s register of “undesirables,” the highest annual number since the register’s creation in 2015, bringing the total to 281.
In May, the Prosecutor General banned Radio Echo as “undesirable.” The outlet had been shut down by the authorities in March 2022, a week after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine but then re-opened in exile.
In 2025, the Prosecutor General increasingly targeted international rights groups, banning Amnesty International, Journalists in Need Network, Justice for Journalists Foundation, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Reporters Without Borders, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Human Rights Watch.
Using the August 2024 amendments that extended the scope of the “undesirables” legislation to foreign governmental bodies and international organizations, the Prosecutor General added the U.S. Helsinki Commission and the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, created under the auspices of the Council of Europe, to the list of “undesirables,” along with numerous pro-Ukraine and anti- war groups.
In 2025, courts sanctioned at least 132 people under the Code of Administrative Offenses for alleged involvement in the activities of “undesirable” organizations.
In May, a Moscow court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants to five years in prison on charges of leading prominent Russian election monitoring group Golos, which authorities falsely equated with the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, banned in Russia as “undesirable” in 2021. At time of writing, Melkonyants, who appealed the guilty verdict, remained behind bars and Golos ceased all operations for fear of prosecutions against its other members. In April, the same court sentenced Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe and Free University co-founder, to six years of imprisonment in absentia on charges of leading these two organizations, designated “undesirable” in 2023.

Freedom of Association
Authorities continued to misuse “extremism” and “terrorism” laws to infringe on freedom of association.
Law enforcement agencies persisted in targeting members and supporters of the banned Anti-Corruption Foundation. Investigation by the independent outlet Mediazona showed a sharp increase in prosecutions for donations to the foundation in 2025, with at least 33 new criminal cases brought from January to July.
In January, a court in Vladimir region sentenced three lawyers to prison terms ranging from three-and-a-half to five-and-a-half years for providing legal services to the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s founder Navalny, who died in prison in 2024. Authorities throughout the country continued to prosecute people for commemorating Navalny’s memory, sharing information about him, using his name, or displaying his portrait.
In November 2024, Russia’s Supreme Court designated as “terrorist” the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, a post-colonial debate platform. In January, the Federal Security Service published a list of 172 organizations deemed to be the forum’s “structural units.” This list and the list of supposed “units” of the so-called Anti-Russian Separatist Movement outlawed in June 2024 as “extremist” include numerous political and rights groups, media outlets, Indigenous people’s organizations, and academic entities.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court designated the Anti-Corruption Foundation a “terrorist organization.”

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In 2025, at least two individuals received prison sentences, of six and three years respectively, for allegedly “involving” people in the “international LGBT movement,” which the Supreme Court had designated as “extremist.” Another person received a compulsory labor sentence for repeated displays of “extremist” symbols, such as the rainbow flag. In September, a court in Tula handed down a two-year suspended sentence for alleged participation in the “LGBT movement” to a local resident over a social media post about the need for people to defend their rights.
In December 2024, Andrei Kotov died by suicide in pre-trial detention, where he had been held on charges of running an “extremist organization” – a travel agency that sought to market tourist travel to gay men. In November, a court in Moscow found him guilty posthumously.
In May, investigators pressed criminal charges against three staff of publishing houses over participating in the “LGBT movement” and recruiting people into it by means of selling fiction books with references to LGBT people and same-sex relationships. At time of writing, they remain under house arrest, each facing up to 12 years in prison.
Authorities imposed at least 98 punishments under the Code of Administrative Offenses for displaying symbols associated with LGBT rights, mostly the rainbow flag.
Authorities continued to widely use the “gay propaganda” ban. Police pressed charges against individuals, television channels, streaming services, bookstores, and online marketplaces that featured books discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, and against bars popular among LGBT people. Large fines against bookstores and criminal charges against publishers over books that explore LGBT themes apparently triggered a massive purge on Russian book markets.

Reproductive Rights
The number of Russian regions restricting the right to abortion continued to rise. With the authorities aggressively encroaching on reproductive rights since 2023, at time of writing, “incitement to abortion” was legally banned in more than 20 regions. In September, the ban entered into force in Bryansk and Kirov regions.
In February, the governor of Vologda region shared his plan to put an end to abortions in the region. Subsequently, media outlets reported that medical personnel systematically refused to perform the procedure. Prosecutors warned Vologda healthcare facilities against illegal refusals and brought cases against two hospitals, which were found guilty and fined for illegally refusing abortion care. However, doctors continued to refuse to provide abortions and in July, the governor stated that no abortions were performed in the region that month, compared to 112 the year before.
Under pressure from authorities, an increasing number of private clinics across Russia stopped providing abortion services. The head of the Patriarchate’s Commission on Family, Motherhood, and Childhood, Fyodor Lukyanov, claimed that in 2025 this number reached 25 percent.
In January, in Sevastopol, in Russia-occupied Crimea, a 29-year-old woman became the first person to be sanctioned under Russia’s “child-free propaganda” ban, which had entered into force in December 2024. A local court sentenced her to a 50,000-ruble (US$606) fine for a social media post that promoted a “care-free lifestyle.”
Federal broadcasters and public officials aggressively promoted childbirth, including at a young age, and intensified their endorsement of a narrow vision of “traditional family,” which directly undermines women’s and girls’ reproductive rights. These measures form part of a broader state-driven campaign to suppress women’s and girls’ autonomy.

Chechnya
Chechen authorities under governor Ramzan Kadyrov continued to retaliate against family members of their opponents.
In April, police in Achkhoi Martan put the body of a 17-year-old boy, killed by Chechen law enforcement agents after he attacked two police officers with a knife, on display in the town square and forced students and public servants to gather around the body in a rally of approval. Kadyrov accused the leaders of Niiso, an opposition Telegram channel, of masterminding the knife attack and ordered their relatives and the assailant’s family members to be expelled from Chechnya with their property confiscated. Chechen law enforcement reportedly carried out Kadyrov’s orders. The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the case.
Chechen authorities also continued to coercively mobilize local residents to fight in Ukraine. In autumn 2024, when discussing the creation of a new Chechen regiment for Ukraine deployment, Kadyrov said that another 84,000 should be “volunteered,” giving an opportunity to “troublemakers” to test “their audacity in the special military operation zone.”
In August, North Caucasus SOS, a rights group supporting LGBT people and other victims of abuses across the region, confirmed that Seda Suleimanova, a young woman who had fled Chechnya in 2023 but was later forcibly returned to her abusive family by Chechen police, died in an “honor killing” by her relatives, with the body secretly buried outside of their village cemetery. Chechen authorities allegedly encouraged the “honor killing.” The police have conducted no effective investigation into these allegations.
Also in August, a court in Shali sentenced Zarema Mussaeva to four additional years in prison for supposedly “disrupting the work of a penitentiary institution.” Mussaeva is already serving a five-year sentence handed down in 2023 on bogus fraud charges in retaliation for her exiled sons’ public opposition to Kadyrov. Her health severely deteriorated in prison.

Migrants and Xenophobia
In 2025, authorities continued their assault on migrants’ rights. In particular, Central Asian migrants faced ethnic profiling, arbitrary arrests, and other harassment by police. They also faced xenophobic attacks, often perpetrated by far-right Russian nationalist groups, which worked together with law enforcement. SOVA Research Center recorded 276 acts of xenophobic violence in 2025.
In April, law enforcement agents raided a sauna and subjected dozens of Kyrgyz visitors to beatings and degrading treatment. In June, police raided a housing project for migrants, kicking and insulting the residents, mainly from Uzbekistan. Later in June, law enforcement killed two Azerbaijani citizens and injured several others during a raid on members of Yekaterinburg’s Azerbaijani community.
Law enforcement regularly carried out punitive raids on mosques, for example, in January 2025 in Surgut, April in the Moscow region, May in Moscow, and in June in Tver. Military officers often accompanied these raids and issued draft summons to the men gathered there for prayers.
In February, a law entered into force establishing a “register of controlled persons,” which legalized extensive surveillance of foreigners without valid identity documents or authorization to stay in Russia, and introducing sweeping restrictions on their rights.
In September, authorities launched an “experiment” to monitor labor migrants in Moscow and the Moscow region. It requires foreign citizens to install an app, which processes their personal data, including device data, photos, videos, and geolocation. The app, similar to the intrusive and deeply flawed “social monitoring” app used in Russia during the COVID- 19 pandemic, transmits geolocation data to police. If it stops updating, the person is automatically added to the registry of controlled persons, triggering rights-violating restrictions. Besides being a disproportionate invasion of privacy, users complained, the app was often impossible to install, failed to function properly, or transmitted erroneous data due to GPS scrambling.
In April, a ban on enrolling foreign children in public schools without proof of legal status in Russia and Russian language proficiency took effect, creating a systemic, discriminatory barrier to children’s right to education. In September, the Russian education oversight agency said that 87 percent of migrant children who applied were denied enrollment.
A July law expanded the list of crimes triggering revocation of acquired citizenship to include offenses often used in politically motivated prosecutions, such as displays of extremist symbols, calls against state security, and any crime driven by “political hatred.”

Online Censorship, Surveillance, and Privacy
In 2025, authorities increasingly throttled or fully blocked access to social media, messengers, hosting-service providers, content delivery networks, and other services deemed not in compliance with Russia’s internet censorship laws. In August, authorities blocked voice calls through WhatsApp and Telegram messengers and announced plans to fully block WhatsApp in December.
The government further advanced their technological capacity for state censorship and control over internet architecture.
Authorities continued blocking censorship circumvention tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs). In July, authorities adopted legislative amendments to treat the use of VPNs as an aggravating circumstance for committing certain crimes, and introduced fines for “intentional search for extremist content.” In October, law enforcement brought the first known charges under the latter provision.
Authorities regularly carried out mobile internet shutdowns across the country under the guise of protecting public security from attacks by Ukrainian forces.
The government and government-affiliated public figures increasingly promoted Russian messaging and other online services as an alternative to the blocked ones, which are less likely to share user data with the authorities, comply with censorship laws, and promote the state’s agenda.
A July law allowed law enforcement to directly access any database that may contain personal data of certain protected categories, such as witnesses under state protection, police, and security services staff, without independent oversight.
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026. New York.

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Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026

17/4/2026

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Country Report: Qatar
Despite hosting the FIFA World Cup in late 2022 with promises to enact reforms, Qatari authorities have failed to address serious labor violations. Migrant workers face wage theft, unexplained deaths, dangerous working conditions and continued exploitation after the tournament. Discriminatory laws and practices against women and girls, LGBT people, and religious minorities such as the Baha’i community remain in place. Despite ongoing discrimination and restrictions on free expression, Qatar was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council for 2025 to 2027. On September 9, Israel carried out a strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders that killed six people, including a Qatari security officer, and injured several others.

Migrant Workers’ Rights
Migrant workers comprise over 91 percent of Qatar’s population and continue to face widespread abuse under the country’s restrictive kafala (labor sponsorship) system. Although Qatar introduced labor reforms ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, such as allowing workers to change jobs and leave the country without employer permission, setting a minimum wage, and creating wage protection systems, these efforts have had limited impact. Weak enforcement, narrow scope, and continued employer control over workers have undermined the reforms.
Workers still struggle to change jobs easily as in practice they are required to obtain signed letters from their original employers approving their resignation. Practices such as migrant workers leaving their employers without permission are criminalized as "absconding" even when escaping abuse. Employers confiscating passports and charging illegal recruitment fees remain common and largely unpunished.
Qatar’s monthly minimum wage, introduced in 2021, is set at QAR 1,000 (about US$274). This amount does not account for the high living expenses in Qatar and has not been revised since 2021. Human Rights Watch has also documented that widespread wage abuses have persisted. In many cases, migrant workers resort to protests and strikes against wage delays despite the risk of arrest and deportation.
The 2022 World Cup also brought to light the preventable deaths of scores of migrant workers that are neither investigated nor compensated. A large majority of the deaths are erroneously attributed to “natural causes.” Qatar has also failed to publicize disaggregated and comprehensive data on worker deaths that include key details like age, nationality, sector of work, and cause.
Governments also continue to prioritize trade and other strategic interests with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over human rights. The forthcoming Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom (UK) and the GCC excludes explicit human rights protections and commitments, including for migrant workers. A trade agreement with GCC states risks contributing to abuses against migrant workers by facilitating wage abuse, employer exploitation, and situations that amount to forced labor.

Women’s and Girls’ Rights
Women and girls in Qatar face extensive legal and social discrimination under a male guardianship system embedded in the country’s laws and practices. Women and girls must obtain permission from male guardians to marry, travel abroad, work in many government jobs, study on scholarships, and access some reproductive health services. Single Qatari women under 25 need guardian approval to travel. Married women of any age can travel without permission, but their male guardian can petition a court for a travel ban. Qatari women also face legal restrictions on attending certain events and bars serving alcohol. In practice, women face discrimination in renting property without the permission of their male guardian. Unmarried Qatari women under 30 cannot check in to hotels unless their male guardian is with them.
Qatar’s Personal Status Law limits women’s rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Women need a male guardian’s permission to marry and must obey their husbands, risking loss of financial support if they disobey or work without permission. Men have the unilateral right to divorce, while women must seek court approval under strict conditions. Female siblings inherit half the amount of their male siblings. Women are also denied primary guardianship of their children, and citizenship laws favor men in passing nationality to spouses and children.
Although the law prohibits husbands from harming wives, Qatar lacks specific domestic violence legislation or protections for survivors. Male guardians and family members can report women for being “absent” from home, potentially leading to arrest and forcible return home or administrative detention. Recent residency laws have slightly eased restrictions for children of Qatari women married to non-citizens, allowing permanent residency and access to government services.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Qatar’s penal code criminalizes consensual sex outside of marriage, including same-sex relations, with penalties of up to seven years in prison. Muslims convicted of extramarital sex may face flogging or even the death penalty. These laws disproportionately affect women and girls, as pregnancy can be used as evidence of extramarital sex, and women and girls reporting rape risk prosecution for consensual sex. Article 285 also punishes men who “entice” others into same-sex acts, and harsher sentences apply for sex outside marriage regardless of gender.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Qatar face arbitrary arrest under vague and broad morality laws, harsh treatment in detention, including beatings, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and denial of legal or medical access, and forced conversion therapy for transgender women. The Law on Protection of Community allows for provisional detention without charge or trial for up to six months, if “there exist well-founded reasons to believe that the defendant may have committed a crime,” including “violating public morality.” Authorities monitor and arrest individuals based on their online activity and censor media related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Freedom of Expression and Religion
Qatar’s penal code criminalizes criticism of the emir, insulting the national flag, blasphemy, and inciting regime overthrow. Its cybercrime law punishes online “false news,” content that “violates social values,” or insults others, with penalties including prison and heavy fines.
Qatari authorities have discriminated against members of the Baha’i faith based solely on their religious identity. Qatar deported as many as 14 members of the group between 2003-2025 for no apparent reason other than belonging to the Baha’i faith in cases documented by Human Rights Watch and UN experts.
Qatari authorities acquitted and released Remy Rowhani, chair of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in Qatar, in October 2025 after months of arbitrary detention on charges based on the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of speech and religion. UN experts expressed concern over Rowhani’s arrest and detention, describing it as "part of a broader and disturbing pattern of disparate treatment of the Baha’i minority in Qatar."

Statelessness
Qatar has arbitrarily stripped members of the Ghufran clan of their citizenship since 1996, leaving some stateless and deprived of fundamental rights. Stateless individuals from the clan lack access to work, education, healthcare, marriage, property ownership, and freedom of movement. Without valid identity documents, they face barriers to basic services and risk arbitrary detention, while being excluded from government benefits like state jobs and subsidies available to citizens.

Climate Change Policy and Actions
Qatar, the world’s 14th largest oil producer and holder of the third largest natural gas reserves, is one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters globally. Despite committing to reduce emissions by 25 percent, Qatar continues to expand liquefied natural gas (LNG) production for export.
Migrant workers, especially in outdoor jobs like construction, face severe health risks from extreme heat, further exacerbated by the climate crisis that makes extreme heat events more frequent, intense and widespread. Although Qatar introduced new protections that ban work when wet-bulb globe temperatures exceed 32.1 degrees Celsius (about 90 degrees Fahrenheit), this threshold is set too high to effectively protect workers and enforcement gaps remain, leaving workers exposed to dangerous conditions.
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026. New York.

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Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026

16/4/2026

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Country Report: Poland
In May, Karol Nawrocki won the presidency, keeping the office in the hands of the right- wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, and setting up conflict with the reform agenda of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition government. Maintaining abusive migration policies, the government temporarily suspended the right to seek asylum, citing national security concerns, and continued its pushbacks at the Belarus border. Abortion remains virtually banned, and there are shortcomings in safeguarding media freedom.

Rule of Law
The government continued to struggle to restore the independence of the judiciary, dismantled by the previous PiS government, facing persistent obstruction by the PiS- aligned presidency. In April, Poland’s Justice Ministry outlined plans to address the status of approximately 2,500 judges appointed by the previous PiS-controlled National Council of the Judiciary (KRS). The plan proposes categorizing judges into three groups: “green” for recently appointed judges who would have their positions confirmed by a restored, legitimate KRS; “yellow” for judges promoted to more senior positions who would be demoted back to their previous roles; and “red” for judges whose appointments would be annulled, potentially returning them to their prior professions or assigning them to junior court roles. Submitted to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, the proposal aims to address concerns about the legitimacy of PiS-era judicial appointments. In May, the Commission expressed concern over its proportionality and fairness, stressing that changes to judges’ legal status must respect due process and European standards.
In July, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek initiated dismissal proceedings against 46 presidents and vice-presidents of courts and nine Justice Ministry officials, as part of what he described as a mandate from Prime Minister Tusk to “clean up” the judiciary left impaired by the previous government. Żurek also started the removal of over 40 judges appointed as electoral commissioners whom he deemed lacking credibility, suspended another PiS-appointed judge, and declared that Małgorzata Manowska would no longer be referred to as the Supreme Court chief justice, but as its acting head, due to concerns over her appointment process.
In September, the PiS politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal ruled that its judgments should be considered legally binding and enforceable, regardless of the government's refusal to publish them. The government has withheld publication of over 40 rulings, challenging the tribunal's legitimacy due to judges’ manner of appointment under the previous PiS government.
Also in September, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that a Supreme Court chamber created under the PiS government is illegitimate, declaring its judgments “null and void” because its judges were unlawfully appointed.
In January, senior Israeli officials participated in events commemorating the Auschwitz concentration camp’s liberation. However, against a backdrop of protests and concern, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sought on an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes in Gaza, did not take part, which would have violated Poland’s legal obligations as an ICC member.

Freedom of Media
Efforts to restore media freedom continued at a slow pace.
In January, Maciej Świrski, the then-head of Poland’s media regulator, the National Broadcasting Council, appointed under PiS, cancelled a scheduled interview with journalist Marta Gordziewicz of independent TVN24, demanding she provide proof of full- time employment and documents showing that her broadcaster was not in arrears on social security contributions. Gordziewicz had reported that the pro-PiS channel Telewizja Republika received millions in state advertising despite low viewership and was controversially awarded a public broadcasting license in 2024, while a competitor was denied. Świrski had previously drawn criticism for obstructing license renewals of outlets critical of PiS.
In May, then-presidential candidate Nawrocki sued news outlet Onet over reports accusing him of procuring sex workers and involvement in a dubious property deal, allegations he denied. Onet stood by its reporting.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In June, Poland’s Left party submitted a draft bill to the Sejm introducing civil partnerships for same-sex couples that would grant them many of the rights of marriage, including inheritance and social security. This followed an earlier bill presented by the government in October 2024. At time of writing, neither proposal had advanced to full adoption.
In April, the last local authority in Poland repealed its anti-LGBT “charter of family rights,” effectively ending the existence of all such discriminatory resolutions across the country, establishing so-called “LGBT-ideology free zones.” Over previous years, more than 100 municipalities and counties had enacted “LGBT-ideology-free” or “family charter” resolutions.
Also in April, President Andrzej Duda referred a government-proposed bill that would have expanded hate crime protections to include sexual orientation, gender, age, and disability to the Constitutional Tribunal, citing concerns that it could infringe freedom of expression.
In March, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that eliminates the requirement for trans people to involve their parents in gender recognition proceedings.

Women’s and Girls’ Rights
Abortion remains virtually banned, with abortion services only available in cases of risk to the pregnant person’s life or health, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
In February, the definition of rape in the penal code was reformed to be based on lack of consent, not only violence, threat, or deception.
In March, the non-governmental organization Abortion Dream Team opened a center in Warsaw, which provides counseling, pregnancy tests, and assistance for people considering an abortion, including by helping them access medical abortion pills.

Attacks on Civil Society
In September, a court in Hajnówka acquitted five activists who had been charged with assisting migrants. The defendants were initially charged in March 2022 after they helped a group of Middle Eastern migrants, including a family with seven children, who had irregularly crossed the Belarus border. Prosecutors originally accused four of the activists of organizing illegal border crossings, a crime carrying up to eight years in prison. The charges were later reduced to enabling illegal stay in Poland, carrying up to five years’ imprisonment.
A Warsaw appeals court in February ordered a retrial in the case against women’s rights activist Justyna Wydrzyńska, who had been previously convicted for sending abortion pills to a pregnant woman. The court annulled the earlier ruling on procedural grounds tied to the improper appointment of one of the judges.

Asylum Seekers and Migrants
In March, Poland adopted a law empowering the government to temporarily suspend the right to seek asylum in designated zones along the Belarus border, citing the “instrumentalization of migration” by Belarus and Russia. The measure was immediately put into effect, blocking asylum applications from people crossing the border irregularly. In May, parliament voted to extend the suspension for another 60 days, and another 60 days in July. Although the law includes exemptions for children, pregnant women, those in urgent need of medical care, and individuals at risk of harm if returned, groups that these safeguards were not respected in practice and that unlawful pushbacks continued.
The UN’s refugee agency in February warned that the draft law breaches nonrefoulement obligations by denying access to territory and fair procedures. In February, the Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said the draft law violates the constitution, entrenches pushbacks, and contravenes Poland’s obligations under EU law to guarantee the right to asylum. The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner in March criticized the law for violating human rights standards.
Pushbacks, sometimes violent, on the border with Belarus continued. Between January and July, the We Are Monitoring rights group recorded 1,790 pushbacks at the Belarus border.
In August, President Nawrocki vetoed a bill that would have extended social support programs to Ukrainian refugees, arguing it overly privileged foreigners, and instead submitted his own proposal for making Ukrainian refugees’ access to social security and free health care conditional on being employed and contributing a share of their incomes. Nawrocki further proposed increasing penalties for illegal border crossing that would apply to all foreigners.
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026. New York.

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Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026

15/4/2026

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Country Report: Philippines
In a historic step toward justice, Philippine authorities in March arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte for his alleged role in thousands of extrajudicial killings and transferred him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
Despite repeated assurances by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that his administration was prioritizing human rights, serious violations continued, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and harassment and threats against activists and journalists. Government security forces implicated in abuses were rarely held accountable.
Extrajudicial and Targeted Killings
Police killings during drug raids and killings by unidentified assailants persisted in the Philippines throughout 2025. Monitoring by Dahas shows that 238 people were killed in “drug war” related incidents across the Philippines between January and November. Since Marcos took office on July 1, 2022, more than 1,000 people have died as part of the anti- drug campaign.
Other targeted killings by “death squads” or hired assassins—often riding in tandem
on riding pillion on motorcycles—occurred in Manila and other urban areas. On June 23, a hooded gunman shot dead Ali Macalintal, a transgender rights activist who worked as a radio commentator, on the southern island of Mindanao.
Ahead of mid-term elections in May, political violence surged, especially in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
“Red-Tagging,” Harassment of Activists
“Red-tagging,” which involves state harassment, intimidation, and threats against individuals and organizations accused of being supporters or sympathizers of the communist insurgency, continues despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2024 that declared the practice a threat to “right to life, liberty, and security.” Red-tagging targets leftist activists, land rights defenders, labor leaders, and youth activists and has a chilling effect on freedom of expression and association.
In February, the Philippine army released a video red-tagging members of the Cordillera People’s Alliance, an Indigenous rights network in the northern Philippines.
Relatives of red-tagging victims killed on “Bloody Sunday” in March 2021—when Philippine security forces killed nine activists during raids against alleged communist insurgents—reported that government officials had pressured them to cease their efforts to seek to hold accountable those responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.
The Philippine government has rejected calls from UN rights experts to disband the National Task Force on Ending the Local Armed Conflict, an agency under the president’s office and supervised by the National Security Council, that is often responsible for red- tagging. In September, the Department of Interior and Local Government proposed a 340 percent increase in the agency’s budget for 2026.
Abuse of Terrorism Financing Charges
The broad powers conferred on the government by the Anti-Terror Act allow authorities to designate organizations and individuals as “terrorists” and recommend the freezing of bank accounts linked to alleged money laundering or terrorism financing.
Although the Philippines has had a law on terrorism financing since 2012, no one had been convicted of the offense until the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) placed the Philippines on its “grey list” of countries under increased monitoring for taking insufficient measures to curb terrorism financing. The FATF action coincided with a spurt of new terrorism financing cases against civil society organizations and activists, despite specific FATF guidance aimed at preventing governments from targeting legitimate nongovernmental organizations.
In January 2025, FATF representatives visited the Philippines and in February the task force removed the country from the grey list.
Even after the delisting, there have been new cases of terrorism financing charges against civil society groups and activists. In April, Philippine authorities charged six activists in Luzon with terrorism financing.
Courts have dismissed other cases for lack of evidence. In July, a prosecutor dropped terrorism financing charges against activist Myrna Zapanta for lack of credible evidence. However, Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a community journalist in the central Philippines, remains in pretrial detention five years after police arrested and charged her with illegal firearms and terrorism financing charges.
Enforced Disappearances
Activists, including land rights and environmental defenders, have been at risk of enforced disappearance. On March 2, Indigenous leader Genasque Enriquez was reportedly arrested in Surigao del Sur, in the southern Philippines; his whereabouts remain unknown. On March 5, in the neighboring Agusan del Sur province, another Indigenous activist, Michelle Campos, went missing. She and three others then surfaced in a nearby hospital where they were being effectively detained while being treated under military guard for unspecified injuries.
Families of victims of enforced disappearance often struggle to secure any information about their missing relative. In 2025, the Supreme Court granted temporary protection to the wife of James Jazmines, the brother of a leader of the communist movement who was forcibly disappeared in August 2024, and directed senior security officials to disclose information about Jimenez. The court had heard a similar petition from the family of Felix Salaveria Jr., a friend of Jimenez who was reportedly abducted in the central Philippines five days after Jimenez. At time of writing, neither family had received information on their loved one from Philippine authorities.
The Philippines is not a party to the UN Convention Against Enforced Disappearance. Congress passed a law against enforced disappearances in 2012, but the government has not enforced it and has failed to allocate funds for implementation.
Accountability and Justice
Philippine authorities arrested Duterte in Manila on March 11, acting on an ICC
arrest warrant sent to Interpol. Since then, he has been detained in the Hague awaiting possible trial—a preliminary hearing slated for September to confirm the charges against him was postponed.
The ICC prosecutor sought Duterte’s arrest for the crime against humanity of murder in relation to extrajudicial killings committed from November 2011 to June 2016, including in Davao City while Duterte was mayor and elsewhere as part of his nationwide “war on drugs” after he was elected president.
Domestic accountability for the killings remains woefully inadequate, with only five cases involving nine police officers convicted nationwide. One of the cases was the September conviction of a police colonel for homicide—he shot a man at home in Baguio City during a “buy-bust” operation in July 2016.
Indigenous Rights
Across the Philippines, Indigenous communities—even those with ancestral domain titles—struggled to protect their land rights due to weak implementation of the principle of free, prior, and informed consent.
Indigenous peoples in Palawan have resisted efforts by the government and the San Miguel Corporation—a Philippine conglomerate—to evict them from their customary land for an eco-tourism project. Tensions increased in recent years after staff from a private security company were deployed to Marihangin island, where Indigenous residents fear forced eviction and have a pending ancestral domain claim. In April, numerous additional private security guards appeared on the island.
In May, Philippine authorities arrested 10 community members on “grave coercion” charges related to a complaint filed by a former director of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, whom Marihangin residents obstructed from visiting the island in June 2024. Authorities also arrested another Indigenous leader on an old illegal fishing charge. In July, a court rejected the community’s request for a restraining order against the private security company. In early August, guards from the company left the island but residents still do not have a land title proving the territory is their ancestral domain.
Attacks Against Journalists, Freedom of Expression
The Philippines remains a deadly place to be a journalist. Three journalists were killed in 2025: Juan Dayang on April 29, Erwin Labitad Segovia on July 21, and Noel Bellen Samar on October 20.
In July, an anti-graft court convicted former Palawan provincial governor Joel Reyes, alleged to be behind the 2011 killing of journalist and environmental defender Gerry Ortega. The corruption conviction relates to irregularities in the Malampaya gas fund, as covered by Ortega on his radio program before his killing, for which Reyes is separately facing murder charges. In April, a court acquitted the suspects in the 2023 murder of broadcaster Juan Jumalon, who was shot to death while live on air.
Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, in her 2024 country visit report on the Philippines, called on the government to end intimidation, threats, and attacks on journalists, including by investigating and holding perpetrators responsible.
Women’s and Girls’ rights
Abortion remains prohibited in the Philippines with no exceptions. The number of pregnancies among girls ages 10-14 rose to 3,433 in 2023 from 2,113 in 2020, a 58 percent increase. In July, opposition lawmakers reintroduced a bill that would provide support services to pregnant adolescent girls and integrate compulsory comprehensive sexuality education in school curricula.
The Philippines is the only country apart from the Vatican without divorce laws. In July, legislators reintroduced a bill to legalize divorce in the Philippines. In 2024, the House of Representatives approved a limited divorce bill, but the Senate did not pass it.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Congress again failed to enact legislation that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics, and has not yet passed a civil partnership bill that would protect some rights for same-sex couples.
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026. New York.

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Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026

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