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Rights and Freedom

A Guardian series reporting on human rights abuses around the world and elevating the voices of those fighting for justice.

Rights and freedom

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  • Delegates stand at the opening of the 54rd UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on 11 September 2023

    Human rights
    ‘A slap in the face to victims of abuse’: UN urged to reject Saudi Arabia’s bid to join Human Rights Council

    Riyadh accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, jailing women’s rights advocates and murdering critics
  • People on a road west of El Fasher who have fled the city.

    South Sudan
    ‘In El Fasher you face only death’: Sudan city empties as paramilitaries close in

    Hungry people run risk of shelling, bandits and militias on roads out as Rapid Support Forces try to take city
  • An older woman wearing black rimmed glasses and a black top speaks into a microphone while standing next to a smiling middle-aged woman in a white headscarf also wearing black rimmed-glasses.

    Taliban
    Meryl Streep: ‘A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan’

    Speaking with Afghan activists the actor condemned the Taliban’s draconian restrictions on women and called on the UN to protect and restore their rights
  • An Arab woman with her head uncovered walking down a street in a T-shirt and dungarees while listening to earphones

    Saudi Arabia
    Saudi fitness instructor stabbed in face while jailed over women’s rights posts

    Pen used in assault on Manahel al-Otaibi, who has been imprisoned for 11 years for ‘terrorist’ tweets after secret trial
    • A woman walks past two people sitting on a bench, one under blankets

      Refugees
      Ukrainians face growing homelessness crisis at home and abroad, report finds

    • A young child receives a vaccine shot while their sibling waits behind them. The healthcare workers are covered head to toe in burkas.

      Afghanistan
      Afghanistan risks polio outbreak as Taliban restricts women from delivering vaccines

    • A disparate group of people on the steps outside a building that has a sign reading Exile Media Hub Brandenburg.

      Press freedom
      ‘This is a big chance for all of us’: Germany’s freedom hotel where exiled journalists take refuge

    • Afghan in Tirana 2

      Afghanistan
      ‘We will never stop fighting’: why Afghan women have risked their lives to attend a summit in Tirana

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Multimedia

  • Fawzia, Manahel and Maryam al-Otaibi.

    The sisters Saudi Arabia tried to silence – podcast

  • New Rwandans, from left, Yvan Kambari, Esther Iranzi and

    ‘We do not call ourselves Tutsi or Hutu’: the new Rwandans, three decades after the genocide – in pictures

  • Motaz Azaiza standing among smoking rubble

    Motaz Azaiza: capturing Israel’s offensive on Gaza from the inside – in pictures

  • Hazar stands outside a collapsed apartment building where her family used to live in Antakya.

    A year in the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake – a photo essay

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Spotlight

  • An illustration featuring European landmarks such as Big Ben, the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

    How big is Europe’s cocaine problem – and what is the human cost?

  • Cécile Kohler appears on iran tv wearing a headscarf whilst delivering a forced confession

    ‘I saw my sister forced to say she was a spy on Iranian TV. It was the worst day of my life’

  • A composite image showing the three sisters.

    ‘They’ve destroyed us because of some tweets’: why has Saudi Arabia targeted these three sisters?

  • A Rohingya family reaches the Bangladesh border after crossing a creek of the Naf river

    Who are the Rohingya and what is happening in Myanmar?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Explore

  • 'When there's a state trying to kill you, how do you report that news?" Fardad Farahzad, journalist, Iran International

    ‘I decided to not let anybody silence my voice’: the journalists in exile but still at risk

  • Women from Geneina in a refugee camp in Adré, Chad, in November.

    Sudan’s Hotel Rwanda: the man who saved scores of people during Darfur violence

  • A placard of the Ghanaian flag above its coat of arms saying "queer Ghanaian lives matter" attached to railings outside a building

    Men enthusiastically express their heterosexuality in Ghana, so why is being queer so unacceptable?

    Elliot Kwabena Akosa
  • A young woman in a headscarf sits on a park bench

    Married at 10, abused and forced to flee without her children: an Afghan woman on life under the Taliban

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

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