The organization in defense of human rights Human Rights Watch published this Thursday, January 13, the World Report 2022 on the problems that most overwhelm the world and that are related to human rights. Venezuela has been one of the few countries to reject the publication.
Perhaps more than the 750 pages it contains are needed the World Report 2022 of Human Rights Watch (HRW) to denounce the worst human rights abuses in the world.
Published this Thursday, January 13, the document makes an extensive summary to detail by country the situation that exists in different latitudes and how autocratic governments have intensified restrictions to silence the voices of the opposition, as is the case in China, Russia, Belarus and Egypt.
HRW also highlights several recent military coups, such as those in Myanmar and Sudan, and the rise of leaders with autocratic tendencies in countries once or still considered democracies, such as Hungary, Poland, Brazil, India and, until last year, the United States. United.
The annual report also warns about the attacks on judicial independence, freedom of the press and civil society that show “the most serious setback in decades” in terms of human rights in Latin America.
The decline of Latin America
The situation in Latin American countries is described with considerable concern in the 2022 World Report in its section entitled “Latin America: alarming setback of basic freedoms.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated several situations that were already being experienced in this region, such as attacks on judicial independence, freedom of the press and civil society, repression of demonstrators, fraudulent elections, police abuse and increased violence. street violence, among others.
This aggravation has given some governments the opportunity to implement arbitrary measures. “The Covid-19 pandemic has been a wonderful excuse for authoritarian leaders to adopt restrictive measures that they still wanted to adopt,” said HRW’s interim director for the Americas, Tamara Taraciuk, in an interview with the EFE news agency.
Regarding countries like Cuba, the report shows its concern about the “systematic abuses against critics and artists, including arbitrary arrests, mistreatment of detainees and abusive criminal proceedings.” In the case of Nicaragua, HRW denounces that the presidential elections held on November 7 “were carried out without the slightest democratic guarantees.”
HRW also mentions Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, saying that he “has threatened the democratic government in Brazil by trying to undermine confidence in the electoral system, freedom of expression and judicial independence.”
On the other hand, the protests that occurred in Colombia between April and July 2021 that left 84 dead are also the subject of a complaint in the Human Rights Watch report.
Venezuela was one of the few countries in the region to reject the report, since it states that President Nicolás Maduro used the state of emergency decreed by the arrival of Covid-19 to intensify control over the population.
The organization also indicates that the Maduro government and its security forces “are responsible for extrajudicial executions, disappearances for a short period of time, as well as the imprisonment of opponents, prosecuting civilians in military courts and torturing prisoners.”
The vulnerability of democracy
In its lengthy report, HRW harshly criticizes several Western leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, as the document says the president is unable to address the climate and health crises.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of the organization, estimated that several “Western leaders have shown weakness in their defense of democracy,” citing in particular Macron or former German chancellor Angela Merkel.
“The government of French President Emmanuel Macron helped coordinate a broad condemnation of Beijing’s behavior in Xinjiang, but ignored the dire human rights situation in Egypt,” Roth said.
The lawyer also believes that while US President Joe Biden pledged to pursue a human rights-led foreign policy when he entered the White House, he “continued to sell weapons to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel.” , despite the persistence of its repressive policies”.
For Roth, American democracy “is clearly being called into question today,” referring to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The riots by supporters of former President Donald Trump were “just the beginning,” he said.
On the other hand, the danger of the rise of autocratic governments is raised in the HRW report. But, according to Roth, many of those leaders find themselves in an increasingly vulnerable position, with the rise of political alliances coming together to oust the “corrupt autocrat”, as happened in the Czech Republic and Israel.
The lawyer also highlighted the massive pro-democracy demonstrations and mass civil disobedience movements, such as in Hong Kong, and even in countries with military regimes such as Myanmar and Sudan.
With EFE, Reuters and official media
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