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Men accused of Islamic State links await questioning at Al-Karkh prison in Iraq following their transfer from northeast Syria, February 12, 2026.
© 2026 Hadi Mizban/AP Photo
Nearly 5,700 men and boys held as alleged Islamic State (ISIS) members and transferred to Iraq in early 2026 are at risk of abuse including imminent prosecution for adults in unfair trials, followed by execution.Dozens of countries are stalling on repatriating and providing aid to their nationals detained in Iraq amid allegations of torture, as well as grave illnesses and several deaths in custody.Governments should stop outsourcing responsibility for their nationals and ensure they are afforded their full rights to humane treatment, whether abroad or at home. (Beirut) – Nearly 5,700 men and boys held as alleged Islamic State (ISIS) members and transferred to Iraq in early 2026 are at risk of abuse including imminent prosecution for adults in unfair trials, followed by execution, Human Rights Watch said today. Dozens of countries are stalling on repatriating and providing aid to their detained nationals amid torture allegations, grave illnesses, and several deaths in custody. The detainees, about 3,500 from Syria and 2,200 from Iraq and 65 other countries, were already held in life-threatening conditions for up to seven-and-a-half years in northeast Syria. None of the foreigners were prosecuted or charged, making their prolonged detention in Syria arbitrary and unlawful. The US military abruptly transferred them to Iraq between January 21 and February 12, 2026. “The thousands of boys and men sent to Iraq deserve humane treatment and due process, just as the thousands of survivors of ISIS crimes deserve genuine justice,” said Letta Tayler, senior counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch. “The international community shouldn’t leave Iraq to manage this immense responsibility on its own.” Human Rights Watch interviewed 56 people, including detainees’ family members and lawyers, Iraqi and foreign government officials, United Nations representatives and independent experts, Iraqi and international human rights defenders, and legal and security analysts. Many spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Human Rights Watch also reviewed media reports, social media postings, and documents, statements and correspondence with families from countries whose nationals were transferred. Judicial authorities in Iraq said that they have finished interrogating the detainees and that trials on terrorism charges are to begin in the coming days. Six of forty-seven French nationals separately transferred from Syria in 2025 for alleged ISIS ties are scheduled to be prosecuted starting October 5. The detainees are among tens of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, and other foreign men, women, and children rounded up during and since the collapse of ISIS in northeast Syria in 2019. They were held by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed group until January 2026, when clashes between those fighters and advancing Syrian transitional government troops plunged northeast Syria into chaos. Fearing prison breaks, US military forces airlifted and bused 5,704 to neighboring Iraq. Iraq had only days to prepare, and the authorities were not expecting large numbers who are gravely ill, an Iraqi government official, a Western government official, and two other sources said. Yet over 1,100 adults arrived with serious and contagious diseases including tuberculosis, they said. Tuberculosis is highly infectious and can be fatal if untreated. Hundreds had died from tuberculosis while detained in northeast Syria. One man died in transfer and 14 others died after arrival, apparently from serious health conditions, according to sources including an Iraqi prison authority. The detainees’ cells lacked adequate ventilation and sanitation. Those conditions have improved and Iraqi doctors are providing specialized medical treatment and psychological assessments of the children, they said. But cells are filled to 158 percent capacity, the prison authority said. More than 440 transferred detainees are children, including one who is 12. Of those, 305 are believed to be Syrians and the rest from about 15 other countries, according to an Iraqi judicial official. Some of their mothers and siblings are still detained in Roj camp in northeast Syria for alleged ISIS ties. As many as 1,000 others are young men who had been captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces as boys and held without charge ever since. The boys and men are being held in separate sections of Al-Karkh maximum-security prison near Baghdad International Airport. None of those transferred were provided an opportunity to contest their transfer or told where they were being sent, one Western government source with knowledge of the operation said. The Iraqi justice system has a documented history of torture and unlawful executions.unlawful executions. Absent an assessment of the risks and credible safeguards, transferring the detainees to a justice system with this record may violate international law on a massive scale. Human Rights Watch received information from three sources that five foreign detainees alleged they were tortured during interrogations upon transfer in 2026 to Iraq. In January, 13 of the French men transferred in 2025 alleged they were subjected to torture and other abuse in an attempt to induce false confessions, their lawyer said. Iraqi judicial and prison authorities denied any mistreatment. The judicial official said the detainees may have created marks and bruises as a “trick” to appear abused. He said any torture complaints would be referred to judicial authorities for investigation. Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm the torture allegations. The transfers have heightened the fears of family members whose loved ones had already spent years detained in dire conditions in northeast Syria. “It’s just scaring me,” said a relative of one transferred man, a citizen of a Western country. “What are they going to do? When is this going to end? It just keeps going and going and you don’t see any light ahead.” Iraq needs far more international support given the volume of detainees and their acute medical conditions, Iraqi and Western government officials said. One Iraqi official called the need for more medical supplies “urgent.” Iraqi judicial authorities said they are also seeking international help with investigations and confirming nationalities, including from the detainees’ countries of origin, as they did not arrive with case files or even identification papers. “The international community must step up and assume its responsibility” for its nationals, said Ali Diaa, administrative director of Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation, which is overseeing the detainee investigations. “We are looking for tangible support, not workshops and conferences.” ISIS committed mass atrocities in Iraq from 2014 to 2017 and in Syria from 2014 to 2019, including against the Yazidi religious minority group. The transferred detainees include several ISIS “first-tier leaders,” according to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council. While those responsible for serious international crimes should be held accountable, the detainees are to be prosecuted under Iraq’s Anti-Terrorism Law of 2005, which imposes death sentences for overbroad and vaguely defined offenses. This raises the specter of an unknown number of the detainees being arbitrarily sentenced to death. Iraq’s legal jurisdiction over most of the foreign detainees is also highly questionable. Iraq has called on countries to repatriate any foreigners they do not convict of crimes linked to Iraq and prosecute them if warranted. The United States has also called for repatriations. But most governments of these nationals have either rebuffed or stalled on promising repatriations, fearing security risks and, sources said, prosecution challenges and political fallout. Repatriations to some countries would further expose returnees to risks of torture, unfair trials, and disappearances. Only two detainees, both children, are known to have been repatriated, both in April 2026. Governments that avoid reasonable steps to protect their nationals from inhumane treatment and unfair trials, including by actively blocking their return, may be complicit in any resulting abuse. “Transferring these boys and men to Iraq is no ‘Mission Accomplished’ on its own,” Tayler said. “Governments should stop outsourcing responsibility for their nationals and ensure they are afforded their full rights to humane treatment, whether abroad or at home.” Detainees by Nationality The detainees come from 67 countries, of which 16 are in the Middle East and North Africa and 19 in the European Union, according to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council. Iraqi authorities have only provided numbers for Syria (3,497 nationals) and Iraq (474). According to provisional information from governmental and nongovernmental sources with knowledge of the transfers, other countries with high numbers include Tunisia (about 230), Morocco (nearly 200), Türkiye (184), Russia (about 140), Egypt (about 115) and Saudi Arabia (nearly 70). The 32 other countries include Australia, Canada, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. Iraqi authorities initially were dependent on detainees’ self-identification and several gave apparently false nationalities, including to evade returns to countries where they face a risk of torture. Scores said they were from Turkestan, a region spanning Central Asia and northwest China, according to information shared with Human Rights Watch. The vast majority of these are believed to be Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The Chinese government’s ongoing severe repression in Xinjiang, including mass arbitrary detention, mass surveillance, and cultural and religious erasure, amounts to crimes against humanity. Given the high risk of enforced disappearance, torture, and other abuse, any involuntary transfers of Uyghurs by Iraq to China would violate international law. Detainees forcibly sent to other countries with records of abuse, such as Russia and Egypt, would face similar risks that ,Iraq is obligated to assess before any transfer. Chaotic Transfers US forces transferred the 5,704 boys and men to Iraq after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) abandoned their guard posts at detention centers holding them. The SDF fighters, trained and funded by the US military, were fleeing Syrian government forces that ultimately captured northeast Syria, for years a largely autonomous Kurdish-led region. The US military’s Central Command feared further prison breaks after about 200 men escaped al-Shaddadi prison south of al-Hasakah on January 19. Also during that period, up to 20,000 alleged ISIS-linked women and their children left al-Hol detention camp, including when it was under the Syrian government’s control. Sources including one former and two current Western officials described the US military transfers as chaotic. SDF guards removed the men and boys from prisons and brought them to US military forces, two of the sources said. The US forces “were just taking who was produced,” one source said. The Syrians sent to Iraq reportedly include boys as young as 14 and people with no links to ISIS, such as opponents of the SDF or of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and common criminals. Many had not been prosecuted, and others were convicted on bogus charges in courts administered by non-state authorities in northeast Syria, said Ibrahim al-Halabi, a Syrian spokesman for the families. By September, Iraq had begun preparations to return approximately 460 Syrians for lack of evidence. Ali Diaa, the administrative director of Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation (NCIJC), said that number included all 305 Syrian children. Justice Minister Khaled Shwani said Iraq wants to repatriate up to 3,000 Syrians. Most countries with nationals transferred to Iraq apparently were not given advance notification, sources including the two Western officials said. Central Command said forces from both the United States and the military component of the US-led International Coalition to Defeat ISIS, an alliance of 90 countries and organizations, “led mission planning, coordination, and execution” of the detainee transfer operation. Officials from Central Command and the US State Department did not respond to repeated questions, including about which of the 21 countries in the military arm of the coalition participated. Shwani said Iraq agreed to the transfers to protect national security but called them “a heavy burden on us.” Al-Karkh Prison and Torture Allegations Al-Karkh Central Prison was formerly Camp Cropper, a US Army detention center for seven years following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. That year, US military interrogators reportedly subjected Iraqi detainees there to abuses that were replicated months later at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. By 2007, Camp Cropper detainees included members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to ISIS, and the camp had reportedly become a recruitment center for armed Islamist extremist groups. In March, a month after the detainees’ arrival in Iraq, the area including Al-Karkh prison and Baghdad International Airport came under repeated drone attacks by one of the many pro-Iranian militias in Iraq that oppose the US-Israel war with Iran, threatening the prison’s security and the safety of staff and detainees. Human Rights Watch has previously documented unlawful executions, suspicious deaths, and enforced disappearances in other prisons in Iraq. Several sources said that such abuses continue. The five allegations of torture in Iraqi custody in 2026 involved men from Middle Eastern and Western countries. One man from a Middle Eastern country said he had been tortured into signing a false confession, said an Iraqi source with knowledge of the investigations. “The man began to cry, saying he feared that if he complained to the Iraqi authorities about the torture, he would be tortured even more,” the source said. Another foreign detainee alleged he and several others were “tied and beaten on their backs” in Iraqi custody, and two others said they had heard sounds that they feared were torture, according to a news report. Thirteen of the French men claimed they were slapped, strangled, handcuffed behind their backs “with a pulley system,” and threatened with rape with iron bars or otherwise mistreated, said one of their French lawyers, Matthieu Bagard. The men said they were scared to tell their court-appointed lawyers, who spoke to them within earshot of guards and called them “terrorists,” Bagard said. Families Desperate for Information Families of those transferred said they were desperate for information about their loved ones. By September, many family members had received a “safe and well” notice or a letter from their relative through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Some had received a brief phone call. But others remained unsure where their family members were or if they were alive. The boys and younger men had already been separated for years from their mothers and siblings. Some were captured in their teens and imprisoned by the SDF during the fall of ISIS. Others were taken from their mothers and siblings in Roj and al-Hol camps and locked up in so-called rehabilitation centers when they reached puberty. They include Yusuf Zahab, 22, an Australian citizen who was taken by relatives to live under ISIS in Syria when he was 12. In 2019, Zahab was captured and locked in an overcrowded prison for alleged ISIS members in the northeast Syrian city of al-Hasakah, where relatives said he contracted tuberculosis. Zahab was wounded in the head and arm in a deadly ISIS attack on that prison in 2022. Unable to locate him for months, relatives in Australia gave him up for dead, only to learn in 2024 that he had been foundalive in a different prison. After years of effort, family members in Australia were able to obtain a passport for Zahab and permission from the SDF in 2025 to release him to try to bring him home, a family member told Human Rights Watch. But when a team arrived with the passport in early February 2026, he was nowhere to be found. “Days earlier, he’d been moved to Iraq,” the relative said. Some mothers in Roj camp said they are terrified the Iraqis will repatriate their sons despite the grave risks of abuse in their countries of origin. A Russian mother feared her two sons, both with heart conditions, would be repatriated from Iraq only to be dispatched by Russia to fight its war with Ukraine. “My sons are not at fault for anything,” she said. “They were only 5 and 6 years old when they were brought to Syria, and no one gave them a choice.” An Egyptian mother said she feared treatment of her two sons “would be even worse” if Iraq sent them to Egypt, a country with a documented record of abusing national security suspects. “They had no charge or conviction,” she said. “By what right did they separate me from my children?” Two Uyghur mothers were panicked that their sons would be subjected to serious abuse if sent to China. “They show no mercy, not even to young children,” said one, whose son was 14 when sent to Iraq. “Please help me, Madam,” the other said. “I beg you. I just want to be reunited with my child.” One mother held in Roj said she had seen her sons only twice since the SDF imprisoned them in 2019, when they were 14 and 15. “As for any visual or any hard solid evidence like their conditions or how they are, I have nothing,” said the mother, who did not want her nationality revealed. Both sons were in terrible health when she last saw them in 2022 and their father, also detained in northeast Syria, died of tuberculosis that year, she said. “I don’t want them to suffer the same fate,” she said of her sons. One Canadian woman received a letter in July 2026 from a family member held in Iraq saying he was eating well, but she had heard from another family that their detained relative said food was scarce. “I can't help feeling that he is trying to reassure me rather than tell me how things really are,” the woman said. Her concerns mounted when she received a six-minute phone call from her relative in July. “I sensed that he was very discouraged and had lost hope,” she said. As with Zahab, the Canadian man’s transfer quashed a possible imminent path to bringing him home. Because of a psychological condition, the man appeared to qualify for repatriation under a special Canadian protocol for nationals held in northeast Syria, documents shared with Human Rights Watch show. But once the US military moved the man to Iraq, the Canadian authorities told the family member the protocol no longer applied. Inadequate Funding; Few Repatriation Commitments Iraqi government officials have said the United States and the Coalition to Defeat ISIS had indicated they would provide aid to detain, care for, investigate, and prosecute the detainees. Iraq requested at least US$250 million as an initial payment, a Western source with knowledge of the discussions said. The United States has sent supplies such as generators and handcuffs, the source said. It has also said it will fund detention-related stipends. The United Kingdom has provided about 400,000 pounds ($540,500), the source said. But few if any other countries with nationals held in Iraq appear to have sent significant or any aid, two sources with knowledge of the funding discussions said. The burden comes at a time when the Iraqi government is already “under significant fiscal stress due to the disruption of oil exports” because of the US-Israeli war with Iran, a US Defense Department internal watchdog reported in May. Iraqi authorities have said they wish to repatriate all foreigners except those they convict of crimes against Iraqis or plots against Iraq. In September, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, which oversees the NCIJC, said foreigners’ returns will be negotiated case by case, based on bilateral agreements. But with the exception of Syria, most countries already are stalling as much on repatriations as on aid, several sources said. The only confirmed repatriations are of one boy to Finland and another boy, who had US and another nationality, to a North African country. Iraqi authorities denied media reports that Türkiye had repatriated its nationals. Governments’ unwillingness to repatriate raises the prospect of Iraqi authorities indefinitely and arbitrarily detaining thousands of foreign detainees they acquit, do not prosecute, or prosecute for crimes over which Iraqi courts may have no jurisdiction. Scant Evidence ISIS atrocities in Iraq and Syria include what the UN, Iraq, and numerous other governments have recognized as genocide against the Yazidi. The detainees sent to Iraq include “several highly dangerous” ISIS suspects and six involved in the enslavement or trafficking of Yazidi women, according to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council. Evidence includes videos showing how some transferred detainees “gleefully slaughtered their victims with knives,” one Iraqi judicial official said. However, the lack of case files and even identification cards makes it difficult to determine not only ages and nationalities but also possible links to crimes, five sources said. “No passports. No IDs. No names. No list. Just humans,” Diaa said. Hundreds of detainees claim to be dual nationals, he said. Some countries have balked at confirming detainees’ nationalities, two sources with knowledge of the transfers said. Iraqi and foreign intelligence services have files on the better-known ISIS suspects, an Iraqi legal expert said, “but not for more than 5,000 people.” The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) performed biometric scans on most of the detainees but they only linked some to crimes, two sources with knowledge of the investigations said. Even before the transfers to Iraq, evidence against most detainees was limited, one Western official said: “The understanding was that yes, among them were some of the worst of the worst. But for the rest, they [investigators] just didn’t know. Were they petty thieves, or did they execute somebody?” Genuine Justice Concerns Iraqi judicial authorities have vowed to prosecute the detainees in full compliance with international legal standards. Diaa said proceedings would be open to monitors subject to court approval, though not fully open to the public. But the sheer volume of cases and nationalities, Iraq’s tarnished terrorism-related trial record, international pressure for swift results, and Iraq’s ongoing use of the death penalty raise serious questions as to whether it can serve genuine justice for ISIS crimes. Some court-appointed lawyers for those transferred to Iraq represent up to 250 detainees each, sources said. Cumbersome and costly requirements have effectively blocked French lawyers from serving as co-counsel to several French men transferred from Syria in 2025 and 2026, raising questions about meaningful representation by any of the detainees’ foreign lawyers. Monitors including UN entities have documented systemic due process flaws in Iraq’s past prosecutions of alleged ISIS members. These include rushed proceedings, inadequate defense counsel, failure to investigate torture claims, and convictions based on apparent torture-tainted confessions. Iraq’s overbroad Anti-Terrorism Law imposes the death penalty or life sentences for vaguely defined offenses regardless of the severity of the act or form of participation. Most defendants were prosecuted for affiliation rather than individual crimes. The courts did not include survivors of ISIS crimes and families of those killed in the proceedings, depriving them of genuine redress. It is unclear how many of the foreign detainees have ever before set foot in Iraq or plotted against it, raising serious questions about Iraq’s jurisdiction over them. Iraq has not criminalized the core international crimes of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. If enacted, an international crimes draft law under consideration by Parliament would apply retroactively. Among other concerns, the draft law mandates the death penalty for certain crimes and includes references to Iraq’s vague and overbroad Anti-Terrorism Law. Iraqi law allows for the prosecution of children as young as nine. In the past, Iraqi authorities have used torture and coerced confessions to convict children suspected of ISIS association. Diaa estimated that 95 percent of children were unlikely to be prosecuted and said seven Iraqi children among those transferred had been released. But the outcome for young men detained since childhood remains unclear. Despite some reforms, concerns over Iraq’s due process shortcomings, including its death sentences, derailed information sharing with Iraqi judicial authorities by a UN investigative team called UNITAD, which collected and preserved evidence of core international crimes by ISIS in Iraq. The concerns also derailed proposals by Western European countries to create a hybrid international-domestic court in Iraq to prosecute many or some of the tens of thousands of alleged ISIS members rounded up in northeast Syria in 2019. Many of these same Western countries—including European states that ban the death penalty—now support Iraqi prosecutions of their nationals because they still do not want to bring them home, several sources said. “These people, they also have rights. Even those who are criminals, they have the right to defend themselves,” an Iraqi legal expert said. Iraq should not execute foreigners “just because other countries don’t agree to take them back.” About half the countries with nationals in Iraq have ended capital punishment in law or practice. Iraq has made informal agreements with a number of countries to waive the death penalty, two sources said, but has stopped short of an official commitment. Diaa confirmed that some countries had approached Iraq about waiving the death penalty but emphasized that it remains legal. Capital punishment following unfair trials or based on nationality would violate international law. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances. Recommendations Countries with nationals in Iraq should help identify their citizens and promptly ensure they can repatriate them unless they are at risk of violations of their fundamental rights, including torture and other ill-treatment, once repatriated. These countries should pursue domestic prosecutions for any adults accused of crimes if warranted, and provided the detainees are not at risk of torture, flawed trials, and other ill-treatment once home. In the meantime, these countries along with the US-led International Coalition to Defeat ISIS, UN agencies, and the EU should help ensure the detainees are treated humanely and that any prosecutions meet international standards, including fair and transparent proceedings and strict respect for the rights of the defendants. These countries, groups, and organizations should help identify safe resettlement options in third countries for detainees at risk of torture, persecution, or other serious abuse if repatriated. Iraqi judicial and detention authorities should adhere to international fair trial and detention standards, including by investigating and showing zero tolerance for torture and other abuse. They should ensure that no one is arbitrarily or otherwise unlawfully detained. They should detain only those linked to clear offenses applicable in Iraq and bring detainees to trial within a reasonable time or release them. Anyone detained should be promptly brought before an independent judge, who should assess their detention on an individual basis and order their immediate release if they do not find detention lawful and necessary. Iraqi authorities should treat child detainees and young men detained since childhood as victims first and foremost and ensure genuine participation by survivors of ISIS crimes in judicial proceedings. Children and young men detained since childhood should be promptly reunited with their families unless competent, independent authorities determine doing so is not in their best interests. Iraqi authorities should swiftly enact an international core crimes law that aligns with international law standards, does not include the death penalty, and does not conflate serious international crimes with terrorism-related offenses. They should assist other countries seeking to fairly prosecute Iraqis for such crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction. They should scrupulously respect the principle of nonrefoulement, to not return or send anyone to a country where they would be at risk of torture, persecution, or other serious threats to their life or freedom. Iraq should end the death penalty, an inherently cruel and irreversible punishment. International Legal Standards The right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence are embodied in international treaties and customary international law. Deprivation of liberty without a clear legal basis in international and domestic law or without access to a fair and prompt judicial review amounts to arbitrary and unlawful detention. The international prohibition against torture is absolute, including in situations of armed conflict and cases involving national security. The Convention Against Torture as well as customary international law strictly prohibit the transfer of individuals or groups to a place where they face a substantial risk of torture, persecution, or other inhumane treatment. Before any such transfer, each person has the right to challenge their case before an independent administrative or judicial body. Case law on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) also prohibits any state party from transferring its nationals to a country where they are at risk of flagrantly unfair trial proceedings. Countries have a responsibility to take steps to protect their citizens when they face serious human rights violations, including torture and arbitrary loss of life. This obligation can extend to nationals in foreign countries when reasonable action by their home governments can protect them from such harm. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to a nationality and that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of this right.International law also states that no one shall be arbitrarily denied the right to return to or otherwise enter their own country. The UN Human Rights Committee has found that the death penalty must be limited to the most serious crimes, understood as crimes involving intentional killing, and that it cannot lawfully be carried out after proceedings that fail to meet fair trial guarantees. The case law of the ECHR strictly prohibits member states from sending individuals to countries where they might face the death penalty. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child considers actions that disrupt family unity, such as transfers to other countries, to infringe on the child’s best interests unless deemed necessary for their well-being. The convention states that no child shall be deprived of liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily, and any detention must be a last resort. International guidance calls for children associated with armed groups to be treated as victims first and foremost, and recognizes that children who carry out crimes in this context have often been subjected to abuse and forced to act under duress. The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules) state that people in prison are to be treated with dignity and have prompt access to medical attention, and that in the case of deaths in custody, the prison will report the cases to independent judicial or other authorities to ensure a prompt, impartial, and effective investigation. Under the UN standards for juvenile justice (Beijing Rules), children including those awaiting trial must be held separately from adults to protect their safety and well-being. Provisional List of Detainees’ Nationalities This provisional list is based on information Human Rights Watch received from several sources with knowledge of the transfers. Some countries are missing and in other cases, detainees self-identified as citizens of historical regions. The countries and historic regions include: Afghanistan, Albania,*Algeria,* Australia,* Austria,* Azerbaijan,* Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium,* Canada,* China (primarily Turkic Muslims), Denmark,* Egypt, Finland (repatriated),* France,* Georgia,* Germany,* India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland,* Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan,* Kosovo,* Kurdistan (historic region), Kyrgyzstan,* Lebanon,* Libya, Malaysia, Maldives,* Morocco, Netherlands,* New Zealand,* Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pakistan, Poland,* Russia (including Chechnya and Dagestan),* Saudi Arabia, Serbia,* South Africa,* South America (region), Spain,* Sudan, Surinam,* Sweden,* Switzerland,* Syria, Tajikistan,* Tunisia, Turkestan (historic region), Türkiye,* Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine,* United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan,* Yemen. *Country has ended the death penalty in law or practice.
Oct 5, 2026 · byHuman Rights Watch
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