READ THE REPORT: https://www.hrw.org/es/world-report/2022
The pandemic has been used to silence critics, while the UN stagnates in inaction and the US, in your double standard, the organization denounces in its report 2021.
Antonio Broto / EFE agency
The greatest persecution of dissent in China, Russia, Venezuela o Nicaragua, the fall of fragile democracies in Burma or Sudan, and the autocratic turns in Brazilian governments, Hungary or El Salvador are some of the trends reported in the new annual report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The document of 700 pages, which reviews the situation of most of the countries on the planet in 2021, It also highlights the deterioration of freedoms in countries like Türkiye, Thailand or Egypt, “non-democratic” transfers” of power in Tunisia or Chad, or worrying abuses in the Philippines or India.
Despite this, highlights at the beginning of the report the executive director of HRW Kenneth Roth, “Popular demand for democracy remains very high”, as the protests in Cuba showed last year, or those who defied military coups in Burma and Sudan.
The pandemic, used to silence critics
The report denounces that in the second year of pandemic many dictatorships or leaders with autocratic tendencies they threatened, they silenced or detained health workers, journalists and other critical voices to the authorities' response to the crisis when it turned out to be unsuccessful.
Countries like Egypt, India, Hungary, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela were examples of these practices, while in some cases “the pandemic was used as a pretext to end protests against the government while others were allowed in its favor.”, as happened in Russia or Cuba.
The report denounces China's attack on the last strongholds 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” why the communist regime did not prevail in the former colony.
The imposition of a draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong “completely ended political freedoms and allowed only patriots “Beijing allies to present candidates”, Roth denounced in the report.
La him, quiet
HRW also regretted the United Nations' refusal to openly condemn China for its "crimes against humanity."” against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang, although he celebrated gestures as the first formal protest against Beijing about these events at the Human Rights Council, presented by 44 mostly European countries.
Abuses in previously fragile electoral systems were suffered in Russia, where the opposition leader Alexei NavalnyHe was sentenced to prison after surviving a poisoning attempt, or in Nicaragua, where all the rival candidates Daniel Ortega They were arrested before the November elections.
Roth stressed at the beginning of the report that some dictators “are so determined to remain in power that they do not mind leading their countries into humanitarian catastrophes.”, quoting in this sense the presidents of Syria, Bachar al-Asad, and from Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
The first “has bombed hospitals with Russian aid, Schools, markets and residential areas”, while the second “has led his country to a ruin marked by hyperinflation, a destroyed economy and millions of people who have left the country”.
The US double standard
In the United States it is one year since the Biden Administration, who promised a foreign policy guided by human rights in contrast to that of Donald Trump, although HRW denounces that Washington “continued to sell weapons to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, "United Arab Emirates or Israel despite their continued repression".
US 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.”, “to the judicial system and its denialism regarding covid-19”, lamented the executive director of HRW.
Other points of concern for the NGO were Russia's promotion of far-right politicians in Western democracies "in the hope of discrediting them."” or the attempts of populist politicians to divert attention with their racist attacks, sexist, xenophobes and homophobes.
“The defense of human rights requires not only fighting the repression of dictatorships, but also improve political leadership in democracies”, concluded a report that criticized the sometimes weak and divided response of the “free world” to challenges such as climate change, poverty or the possible threats posed by modern technologies.
A sign of weakness of the democratic bloc denounced by HRW was the brake on Covid-19 vaccines developed in the West from quickly reaching developing countries., “which has resulted in unnecessary deaths and an increased risk of more resistant variants emerging”.
