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The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD), a panel of independent legal experts that rules on individual cases of unlawful detention worldwide, has issued a landmark decision finding that Israel’s detention of Palestinian paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is arbitrary, and has called for his immediate release. The opinion, adopted following a request submitted by MENA Rights Group, marks the first time the body has ruled on the detention of a Palestinian from Gaza held under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law.

MENA Rights Group joins 10 other NGOs in an oral statement delivered by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, raising concern over two proposed bills that would expand the scope of the death penalty in Israel.

MENA Rights Group petitioned the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to rule on the arbitrary detention of Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, abducted in Gaza and held without charge by Israel since December 2024.

As organizations committed to civil society and open civic space, we, the undersigned, are gravely concerned by the U.S. government’s (USG) decision to impose sanctions under Executive Order (EO) 14203 against three leading Palestinian human rights organizations — Al-Haq: Law in the Service of Man (Al-Haq), Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al-Mezan), and the Palestinian […]

MENA Rights Group provides a summary of the UNSG's main concerns over reprisals against human rights defenders in the MENA region, particularly in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen.

MENA Rights Group leads a campaign calling on all participants and sponsors to withdraw from the 2025 “World Summit on Counter-Terrorism,” organised by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Pattern of enforced disappearances at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid points, NGOs report

We, the undersigned, call for immediate, independent, and unrestricted international media access to Gaza and for full protection of journalists who continue to report under siege. For 20 months, the Israeli authorities have refused to grant journalists outside of Gaza independent access to the Palestinian territory – a situation that is without precedent in modern […]

MRG joins Palestinian civil society and 200+ international humanitarian and human rights organisations in an urgent call to action: The manufactured famine in Gaza must end, the siege must be lifted, and humanitarian crossings must be opened.

On the sidelines of the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council, MENA Rights Group co-organised a side event bringing together civil society actors and the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism to discuss concerning trends of counter-terrorism abuse and its negative impact on human rights across the MENA region.

MENA Rights Group joins a coalition of Arab civil society organisations in condemning US President Trump's policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.

MENA Rights Group joins local civil society organisations in condemning Israel's targeting of journalists in Lebanon and Palestine. The statement further calls for the unconditional protection of journalists in civilians as per international law, accountability for Israel's unlawful killings of journalists, and a total arms embargo on Israel.