New York, (IINA) - The Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on Wednesday saying that the politics of fear led governments around the globe to roll back human rights during 2015.
In the 659-page, titled “World Report 2016: Politics of Fear Threatens Rights”, HRW reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries.
In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that the spread of terrorist attacks beyond the Middle East and the massive flows of refugees spawned by repression and conflict led many governments to curtail rights in misguided efforts to protect their security. At the same time, authoritarian governments throughout the world, fearful of peaceful dissent that is often magnified by social media, embarked on the most intense crackdown on independent groups in recent times.
“Fear of terrorist attacks and mass refugee flows are driving many Western governments to roll back human rights protections”, Roth said. “These backward steps threaten the rights of all without any demonstrated effectiveness in protecting ordinary people”.
Significant refugee flows to Europe, spurred largely by the Syrian conflict, coupled with broadening attacks on civilians in the name of the extremist group ISIS, have led to growing fear-mongering and Islamophobia, HRW said.
However, as European governments close borders, they are reviving old patterns of shirking responsibility for refugees by passing the problem to countries on Europe’s periphery that are less equipped to house or protect refugees. The emphasis on the potential threat posed by refugees is also distracting European governments from addressing terrorist threats and the steps needed to avoid social marginalization of disaffected populations.
According to HRW, policymakers in the U.S have used the terrorism threat to try to reverse recent modest restrictions on intelligence agencies’ ability to engage in mass surveillance, while the UK and France have sought to expand monitoring powers. That would significantly undermine privacy rights without any demonstrated increase in the ability to curb terrorism. Indeed, in a number of recent attacks in Europe, the perpetrators were known to law enforcement authorities, but the police were too overwhelmed to follow up, suggesting that what’s needed is not more mass data but more capacity to pursue targeted leads.
“The tarring of entire immigrant or minority communities, wrong in itself, is also dangerous”, Roth said. “Vilifying whole communities for the actions of a few generates precisely the kind of division and animosity that terrorist recruiters love to exploit”.
Europe’s response to the influx of refugees has also been counterproductive. The effect of leaving most asylum seekers little choice but to risk their lives on rickety boats at sea to reach Europe has created a chaotic situation that terrorists can easily exploit.
“Creating a safe and orderly way for refugees to make their way to Europe would reduce lives lost at sea while helping immigration officials to screen out security risks, increasing security for everyone”, the Executive Director said.
Popular movements launched by civil society organizations with the aid of social media left many authoritarian governments running scared. The precedents of the Arab uprisings, Hong Kong’s “umbrella protests”, and Ukraine’s Maidan movement sparked a determination among many autocrats to prevent people from banding together to make their voices heard.
Abusive governments have tried to smother civic groups by enacting laws that restrict their activities and cut off their needed international funding. Russia and China are among the worst offenders, according to the report.
Repression of this intensity, including shuttering particular groups in Russia and arresting rights lawyers and activists in China, has not been seen in decades, HRW said.
Ethiopia and India, often using nationalistic rhetoric, have restricted foreign funding to fend off independent monitoring of government rights violations. Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Morocco, Sudan, and Venezuela have enacted vague and overly broad laws to rein in activists and undermine independent groups’ ability to operate. Western governments have been slow to speak out against these global threats.
Despite these enormous threats to rights, 2015 also brought positive developments. Landmark elections in Burma passed off peacefully in November, and Nigerians also celebrated the peaceful transfer of power to the opposition. In September, the UN adopted 17 ambitious development goals that for the first time are universal and grounded in human rights; they include goals to achieve gender equality and to provide access to justice for all.
Another great achievement was the UN climate summit in Paris, where governments agreed for the first time to “respect, promote and consider” human rights in their response to climate change, especially with regards to indigenous people, women, children, migrants, and others in vulnerable situations.
“The wisdom enshrined in international human rights law provides indispensable guidance to governments that seek to keep their nation safe and serve their people most effectively”, Roth said. “We abandon it at our peril”.
AG/IINA
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