News & Reports
Reports and analysis on torture and refoulement from every region, with the source for each statement.
UN Agencies Count More Than 700,000 Afghans Returned From Pakistan This Year. The Committee Against Torture Has Asked Pakistan to Consider Repealing or Reviewing the Plan Behind the Returns.
On 6 November 2026 UNHCR published its count of Afghans who returned from Pakistan between 1 January and 31 October 2026: 724,600, of whom 71,300 were deported. The joint count kept by UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration at five border crossings, in its update dated 5 November, records 822,359 returns over the same ten months, 87,673 of them deportations.
Updates: 5 November 2026
Third Country Deportation Watch recorded the first transfers to the Dominican Republic and further flights to Panama, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Eswatini, Burundi and the Central African Republic. The Foreign Minister of Jamaica said nine of the 22 people sent there had left, a court in Arizona was told that a man sent to Equatorial Guinea was booked to fly back on 4 November, Human Rights First reported that a fourth flight to Iran may follow, and four amicus briefs were filed in the Supreme Court.
Emails Show ICE Worked With Iran on Three Deportation Flights. Human Rights First Reports That a Fourth May Follow.
The Associated Press reported in August that emails show ICE working with Iranian officials on three deportation flights to Iran. A federal court in Washington has denied a preliminary injunction in a challenge to the alleged sharing of information about Iranian asylum seekers, which the government denies. Human Rights First reports that a fourth flight may follow, and Iranians have been among the people sent to the Central African Republic.
The UK’s Immigration and Asylum Bill Has Cleared Committee. It Would Merge Refugee Status and Humanitarian Protection and Move Appeals to a New Body.
The bill finished its committee stage in the House of Commons on 3 November 2026 and now goes to report stage. It would replace refugee status and humanitarian protection with a single protection status and move asylum appeals to a new Independent Immigration Appeals Authority. It is not law.
A Commons Committee Rejected Plans to Disapply the Human Rights Act in Removal Cases. The Minister Said Britain Is “Rightly Obliged” Not to Return People to Torture.
On 3 November 2026 the committee scrutinising the Immigration and Asylum Bill voted down four Conservative new clauses, among them one that would have stopped the courts from treating the removal of refugees regarded as dangerous as unlawful under the Human Rights Act. The minister told the committee that the United Kingdom is “rightly obliged not to send them back to face death or torture”.
The European Court Will Rule on 24 November on the Summary Returns at the Belarusian Border
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will deliver its rulings in three cases against Poland, Latvia and Lithuania at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 24 November 2026. The Polish case, until now R.A. and Others v. Poland, has been renamed A.R. and Others v. Poland.
Germany Sent 40 More Men to Kabul on 28 October. Its Interior Minister Calls Returns to Afghanistan a Regular Part of Policy.
A charter flight from Leipzig/Halle landed in Kabul on 28 October 2026 with 40 Afghan men who, the Federal Interior Ministry says, had all committed criminal offences. The ministry counts 303 Afghan men removed to Afghanistan since the current legislative term began.
What changed in October 2026
Jamaica received its first group of people from the United States, Sierra Leone a fifth flight, and a federal court ordered a man brought back from Equatorial Guinea. Eswatini and Burundi made statements, ICE told courts that flights to Uganda are paused, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First published new counts, and the Supreme Court set its timetable.
Canada’s Federal Court Will Test Its One-Year Bar on Refugee Hearings Through a Handful of Cases. The Government Says Its Risk Assessment Ensures No One Is Removed to Torture.
On 15 October 2026 Canada’s Federal Court, answering a request from the government, directed that every application for judicial review that refers to the new bars on refugee claims in sections 101(1)(b.1) and 101(1)(b.2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act will presumptively join one group of specially managed cases, held in abeyance while a small number of test cases are decided. The bars were enacted by Bill C-12, the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act, which became law on 26 March 2026.
Supreme Court Pauses the Third-Country Ruling and Will Hear the Case on 9 December
On 29 September 2026 the Supreme Court stayed the D.V.D. judgment that had set aside the government’s third-country removal policy, and agreed to decide the case itself. Three Justices would have refused the stay.