World report highlights China’s drive to Sinicize religion, widening authoritarianism, rights abuses and repression

Backsliding on democracy, increased transnational repression and Chinese efforts to Sinicize religion were among the list of injustices that plagued the past year, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2026, released Feb. 5, has found.

In Asia, the 529-page report detailed intensifying repression and abuses in Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and North Korea, worsening transnational repression by China and across the region, and humanitarian and human rights crises in Myanmar and Afghanistan.

It also said that India, Pakistan, and Indonesia had suffered from a weakening of democratic institutions and the rule of law, in a world where a rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders had come to rely on.

“Democracy is now back to 1985 levels according to some metrics, with 72 percent of the world’s population now living under autocracy. Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States,” HRW Executive Director Philippe Bolopion said.

“The democratic wave that began over 50 years ago has given way to what scholars term a ‘democratic recession’,” he said, adding that breaking the “authoritarian wave sweeping the world” is now the challenge of a generation.

“To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.”

The severest of criticisms were aimed at US President Donald Trump with his administration marked by blatant disregard for human rights, egregious violations and significant steps backward on immigration, environment, criminal justice, and freedom of speech, among others.

In Asia, the report highlighted a campaign by the Chinese government to Sinicize religion, to propagate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology. This had led to an intensified crackdown on “house churches” or Protestant congregations that resist joining the official church.

In April last year, a court in Shanxi province reportedly sentenced more than a dozen people affiliated with the Linfen Golden Lampstand Church for fraud, and in October, authorities also arrested nearly 30 affiliates of Zion Church, including its pastor, it said.

“The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has amassed an increasingly disastrous human rights record, expanding and deepening its crackdown on fundamental freedoms,” said Maya Wong, HRW’s deputy Asia director.

“Foreign governments have largely been unwilling to push back against the threats the Chinese government poses to the international human rights system, let alone within China.”

It said Xi had mobilized the government to impose strict ideological conformity and loyalty to him and the CCP. Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other communities with distinct identities, including members of unofficial churches, faced “the most severe suppression” of rights.

Government repression escalated in Hong Kong, where the League of Social Democrats — its last active democracy party — was disbanded as draconian national security laws were used to prosecute critics abroad and their families, like pro-democracy leader Anna Kwok.

“Numerous pro-democracy leaders remain in jail, including Jimmy Lai, founder of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper,” it said while noting the arrest of France-based student activist Tara Zhang Yadi and the threatening of filmmakers to shut down the IndieChina film festival in New York.

It said Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had taken little action to address persistent harassment, threats, and killings of critics of the government by security forces.

“Killings and other abuses by security forces will persist unless the government thoroughly investigates and prosecutes those responsible, regardless of their rank or position.”

But the administration’s transfer of former president, Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in “war on drugs” killings was a historic step for accountability.

The report noted that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto adopted policies that benefited military officers and lawmakers, generating widespread opposition and public protests.

“Security forces responded by detaining thousands demonstrating nationwide against rising economic inequality, while the military, combating a separatist insurgency, cracked down on Indigenous Papuans and secured plantations and mining operations in the six Papua provinces.

“The Prabowo administration has increasingly deployed military officers in civilian affairs and offered benefits to lawmakers when many Indonesians are suffering economically,” it said, adding baseless criminal charges had targeted Indigenous people, religious minorities, and journalists.

It said India’s slide to authoritarianism under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government continued, with increased vilification of Muslims and government critics, while activists languished in jail without charge under India’s “abusive” counter-terrorism law.

“Authorities illegally expelled hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh, some Indian citizens among them, claiming they were ‘illegal immigrants’.”

In Bangladesh, it found the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, established after the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina, struggled to maintain law and order or deliver on promised human rights reforms.

But in what is perhaps a rare bright spot, it said some of the fear and repression that marked Hasina’s 15-year rule, including widespread enforced disappearances, appeared to have ended

In Sri Lanka, there were “some efforts to stabilize the economy and address inequality in access to public services, but made little progress in implementing human rights commitments.”

The report covers all Asian countries in great detail but singled out Cambodia for its regular attempts to silence and intimidate exiled critics and dissidents through transnational repression, including in Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan.

This included the January killing of former opposition lawmaker and dual French-Cambodian national Lim Kimya, shot dead in Bangkok in what was widely viewed as a political assassination.

It found efforts in Thailand to strengthen democratic governance after military rule were disrupted by political instability, while Malaysia continued to wield repressive laws to criminalize dissent.

“Vietnamese authorities severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, movement, and religion, and prohibit human rights organizations and independent labor unions, media, and political parties,” it said.

Singapore was criticized for its continued use of the death penalty, particularly for drug-related offenses as authorities also continued their crackdown on dissent, leveraging censorship laws to target international media outlets, social media platforms, and foreign comedians.

“More recently, authoritarian leaders have exploited public mistrust and anger to win elections and then dismantled the very institutions that brought them to power,” Bolopion added.

“Democratic institutions are crucial to represent the will of the people and keep power in check. It’s no surprise that whenever democracy is undermined, rights are too,” he said.