Reports

In the 19-page report, “‘They Promised to Kill 30’: Police Killings in Baixada Santista, São Paulo State, Brazil,” describes the important failures in the initial steps of police investigations. Law enforcement officers initiated the so-called Escudo (“shield”) operation in Baixada Santista, a metropolitan area on the coast of São Paulo state, on July 28, 2023, in response to the killing of an officer in the city of Guarujá. By September 5, when the operation ended, the military police had killed 28 people, making it one of the deadliest police operations in São Paulo state in 3 decades. Another three officers were also injured during the operation.

The 98-page report, “Living a Nightmare: Haiti Needs an Urgent Rights-Based Response to Escalating Crisis,” documents abuses committed by criminal groups and state inaction in four metropolitan Port-au-Prince communes – Cabaret, Cité Soleil, Croix-des-Bouquets, and Port-au-Prince itself – between January and April 2023. In Haiti, the state is nearly absent, impunity reigns, and nearly half the population is acutely food insecure. Human Rights Watch also assessed the humanitarian, political, and judicial crises, plus abuses of previous international interventions and the enduring legacy of slavery, exploitation, and abuse by colonial powers.

The 52-page report, “‘The Sea is Eating the Land Below Our Homes’: Indigenous Community Facing Lack of Space and Rising Seas Plans Relocation,” documents both why the Gardi Sugdub community decided to relocate and how government delays and incomplete support for relocation have stalled the move and left the community in limbo. Human Rights Watch found that while some aspects of Panamanian government and Inter-American Development Bank support for the community have been exemplary, urgent action is needed to ensure that community members’ rights are respected in the relocation.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines face bias-motivated violence and discrimination in their daily life, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The legislature should repeal the country’s colonial-era laws that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct and pass comprehensive civil legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The 58-page report, “‘They Can Harass Us Because of the Laws’: Violence and Discrimination against LGBT People in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” exposes the physical and verbal assaults, family violence, homelessness, workplace harassment, bullying, and sexual violence that sexual and gender minorities face under the shadow of discriminatory laws. Those responsible for mistreatment include people close to LGBT people – family members, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and teachers – as well as strangers and police officers.

The 107-page report, “Deadly Decline: Security Force Abuses and Democratic Crisis in Peru,” documents excessive use of force by security forces, due process violations and abuses against detainees, and failures in criminal investigations, as well as the entrenched political and social crisis that is eroding the rule of law and human rights in Peru. While some protesters were responsible for acts of violence, security forces responded with grossly disproportionate force, including with assault weapons and handguns. Forty-nine protesters and bystanders, including 8 children, were killed.

The 89-page report, “‘We Can Arrest Anyone We Want’: Widespread Human Rights Violations Under El Salvador’s ‘State of Emergency’” documents mass arbitrary detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment against detainees, enforced disappearances, deaths in custody, and abuse-ridden prosecutions. President Nayib Bukele’s swift dismantling of judicial independence since he took office in mid-2019 enabled the abuses.

The 40-page report, “‘We Just Want to Live Our Lives’: El Salvador’s Need for Legal Gender Recognition,” exposes the pervasive discrimination that trans people experience due to a mismatch between their gender and their identity documents. The researchers focused on discrimination in four key areas: health, employment, voting, and banking. Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS found that a lack of accurate documents, often in combination with anti-trans bias, seriously impedes the realization of these rights for trans people.

The 36-page report, “Prison or Exile: Cuba’s Systematic Repression of July 2021 Demonstrators,” documents a wide range of human rights violations committed in the context of the protests, including arbitrary detention, abuse-ridden prosecutions, and torture. The government’s repression and its apparent unwillingness to address the underlying problems that drove Cubans to the streets, including limited access to food and medicine, have generated a human rights crisis that dramatically increased the number of people leaving the country.

The 128-page report, “‘Why Do They Want to Make Me Suffer Again?’ The Impact of Abortion Prosecutions in Ecuador” documents how these laws are having widespread harmful consequences in Ecuador, costing lives through increased maternal mortality and morbidity, cutting women and girls off from essential services, and undermining broader efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health. Women and girls charged with abortion often experience violations of their rights to medical confidentiality and due process, and face significant obstacles to accessing quality legal representation. The prosecutions affect not only women who wish to end an unwanted pregnancy but also those who experience miscarriages or obstetric emergencies, or urgently require post-abortion care.

The 37-page report, “Critics Under Attack: Harassment and Detention of Opponents, Rights Defenders, and Journalists Ahead of the Elections,” found that in the run-up to presidential elections set for November 7, 2021, high-profile arrests and other serious human rights violations against critics appear to be part of a broader strategy to eliminate political competition, stifle dissent, and pave the way for President Daniel Ortega’s re-election to a fourth consecutive term. Between June 2 and 20, Nicaraguan authorities detained and opened seemingly politically motivated criminal investigations against five leading opposition presidential candidates and at least nine prominent government critics.

The 127-page report, “Left Undefended: Killings of Rights Defenders in Colombia’s Remote Communities,” documents killings of human rights defenders in the country in the last five years, as well as serious shortcomings in government efforts to prevent them, protect defenders, and hold those responsible to account. Over 400 human rights defenders have been killed in Colombia since 2016, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).