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The fragility of some democracies in developing countries, the abuses of freedoms and the lack of solvency in the face of the pandemic are some of the main points of the document
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The NGO has criticized the UN’s passivity in the face of human rights violations in Russia or China and the US double standards derived from the sale of arms to countries in the Middle East
The biggest persecution to dissent in China, Russia, Venezuela or Nicaragua, the drop fragile democracies in Burma and Sudan, and the twists autocratic in governments of Brazil, Hungary or El Salvador are some of the trends denounced in the new annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW), released this Thursday. The 700-page document, which reviews the situation in most of the world’s countries in 2021, also highlights the deterioration of freedoms in countries such as Turkey, Thailand or Egypt, “undemocratic” transfers of power in Tunisia or Chad, and the worrying abuse in the Philippines and India. Despite everything, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth stresses at the beginning of the report, “the popular demand for democracy remains very high,” as the protests in Cuba showed last year, or those that challenged the military coups in Burma and Sudan.
The report denounces that in the second year of pandemic many dictatorships or leaders with autocratic tendencies they threatened, silenced or detained health workers, journalists and other you critics with the authorities’ response to the crisis. Countries such as Egypt, India, Hungary, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela were examples of these practices, while in some cases “the pandemic was used as pretext for end protests against the Government while others were allowed in their favor “, as happened in Russia or Cuba.
The report denounces the china attack to the last redoubts of freedom in Hong Kong, where last year, after electoral primaries in which candidates close to Beijing were defeated, measures were taken that “shattered” the principle of “one country, two systems”, for that the communist regime did not reign in the former British colony. The imposition of a draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong “It completely ended political freedoms and allowed only Beijing’s allied ‘patriots’ to run,” Roth denounced in the report.
The silence of the UN
HRW has also regretted the negative from United Nations a condemn openly to China for his “crimes against humanity” against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang, although he held gestures such as the first formal protest against Beijing over these events at the Human Rights Council, presented by 44 countries, mostly European.
Abuses in electoral systems already fragile before they suffered in Russia, where the opposition leader Alexei Navalni was sentenced to prison after surviving a poisoning attempt, or in Nicaragua, where all of Daniel Ortega’s rival candidates were detained before the November elections.
Roth stressed at the beginning of the report that some dictators “are so determined to continue in power that they do not mind leading their countries to humanitarian catastrophes”, citing in this sense the presidents of Syria, Bashar al Assad, and from Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. The former “has bombarded hospitals, schools, markets and residential areas with Russian help,” while the latter “has led their country to ruin marked by hyperinflation, a destroyed economy and millions of people who have fled the country.”
America’s ambiguity
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In the United States, one year of the Administration Biden, which promised a foreign policy guided by human rights in contrast to that of Donald Trump, although HRW denounces that Washington “continued selling guns to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Israel despite their continued repression. “The White House’s concern about a growing migratory flow also led Biden to” treat Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with deference despite his attacks on the press, the judicial system and its denial regarding the covid “, declared the executive director of HRW.
“The defense of human rights requires not only fighting the repression of dictatorships, but also improving political leadership in democracies,” concluded the report that also criticized the weak “free world” response to challenges like climate change, poverty or the possible threats posed by modern technologies. A sign of weakness of the democratic bloc denounced by HRW was the passivity by West at the time of vaccines they will quickly arrive at developing countries, “which has resulted in unnecessary deaths and an increased risk of more resistant variants emerging.”
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