Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch and headquartered in New York City. It investigates and reports on human rights abuses and presses governments to respect human rights, and is active in nearly 100 countries. In the linked stories, HRW is cited as an advocate and source: its World Report 2026 states that the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights received 356 complaints of arbitrary arrest and 79 of torture and ill-treatment against the Palestinian Authority in the first eight months of 2025, and it reports on matters including the Istanbul mayor's prosecution in Turkey, the UAE84 trial, and Israeli settler violence and outposts in the West Bank.