This post is a summary of the book published with the title above in December 2017 at https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/201801world_report_web.pdf
World Report 2018 is a Human Rights Watch`s 28th annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from late 2016 through November 2017. In his keynote essay, "The Pushback Against the Populist Challenge," Human Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth says that the surge of authoritarian populists appears less inevitable than it did a year ago. Then, there seemed no stopping a series of politicians around the globe who claimed to speak for "the people" but built followings by attacking human rights principles, and fueling distrust of democratic institutions. Today, a popular reaction in a broad range of countries, bolstered by some political leaders with the courage to stand up for human rights, has left the fate of many of these populists agendas more uncertain. Preoccupied with the internal domestic struggle over the populist agenda, many of the world`s democracies, including the U.S.A. and U.K., have been less willing than before to promote human rights abroad. China and Russia have sought to fill that leadership void by advancing an anti-rights agenda. But several medium-sized governments, often backed by galvanized publics, have also stepped into the breach. They include France, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, and Ireland. They have succeeded in building coalitions that exert serious pressure on the anti-rights agenda and in trumpeting the advantages of governments that are accountable to their people rather than to their officials` empowerment and enrichment. However, where other priorities stand in the way of a strong defense of human rights, the populists and autocrats have flourished. Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Burma are example of countries where a lack of international pressure has enabled governments to crush dissent and, at times, to commit large-scale atrocities. "A fair assessment of global prospects for human rights," Roth concludes, "should induce concern rather than surrender, a call to action rather than a cry of despair." The book reflects extensive investigative work that HRW staff undertook in 2017, usually in close partnership with human rights activists and groups in the country in question. The factors we considered in determining the focus of our work in 2017 include the number of people affected and the severity of abuse, the susceptibility of abusive forces to influence, and of reinforcing the work of local rights organizations. Widespread violence, often perpetrated by criminal gangs, plagues many Brazilian cities. In 2016, 437 police officers were killed in Brazil, the vast majority of them while off-duty. Police officers, including off-duty, killed 4,224 people in 2016, about 26% more than in 2015. While some police killings result from legitimate use of force, others do not. HRW has documented scores of cases in the past decade where there was credible evidence of an execution or a cover-up that were not properly investigated or prosecuted. In Para, police killed 10 farmers in May. Officers said they were responding to an attack, but witnesses and forensic data provide credible evidence that they executed the victims. Violence against rural activists and indigenous leaders involved in conflicts over land continued to climb. In 2016, 61 people involved in land conflict died violently, the highest number since 2003, and from January to October 2017, 64 were killed, according to the Pastoral Land Commission of the Catholic Church. Among those were nine rural workers killed in April in the state of Mato Grosso. Prosecutors assert a logger ordered the crimes to expel them from the land. A federal law approved in July would grant titles to people occupying land illegally in the Amazon forest. Environmental and landless peasant organizations opposed it, arguing it would benefit large landowners and illegal loggers. The Federal Prosecutor's Office concurred, warning that the law could also increase the numbers of killings as a result of land conflicts, and petitioned the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. The perpetrators of human rights abuses during military rule from 1964 to 1985 continue to be shielded from justice by a 1979 amnesty law that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, a decision that the Inter-American Court of human Rights quickly ruled violated Brazil's obligations under international law. Since 2012, federal prosecutors have charged more than 40 former military officers and other agents of the dictatorship with killings, kidnappings and other serious human rights abuses. In August, Brazil and the other founding members of the South America trading bloc Mercosur suspended Venezuela from the group for "breaking democratic order." In May, Brazil approved a new migration law that grants non-citizens immigrants equal access to public services, including education and health, and the right to join unions. A humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has launched thousands of people across the border to Bazil. Brazil approved a resolution allowing Venezuelans to apply for a two-year residency permit. The broad offensive on human rights that started after President Xi Jinping took power five years ago showed no sign of abating in 2017. Foreign governments did little to push back against China's worsening rights record at home and abroad. The Chinese government, which already oversees one of the strictest online censorship in the world, limited the provision of circumvention tools and strengthened ideological control over education and mass media in 2017. Authorities subjected more human rights defenders, including foreigners, to trials in 2017, airing excerpted forced confessions and court trials on state TV and social media. In Xinjiang, a nominally autonomous region, authorities stepped up mass surveillance and the security presence despite the lack of an organized threat. Hong Kong's human rights record took a dark turn. Hong Kong courts disqualified four pro-democracy lawmakers and jailed three prominent pro-democracy student leaders. In 2017, authorities continued prosecutions of human rights activists and lawyers who were rounded up in a crackdown that began in July 2015. The strong civil society and democratic institutions of the U.S. were tested in the first year of the administration of Donald Trump. He has targeted refugees and immigrants and has also expressed disdain for independent media and for federal courts that have blocked some of his actions. He also coddled autocratic leaders and showed little interest in pressing for the respect of human rights abroad. Poor defendants throughout the U.S. are locked up in pretrial detention because they can not afford to post bail. A 2017 HRW report demonstrated that pretrial detention, often resulting from failure to pay bail, coerces people, some innocent, into pleading guilty just to get out of jail. A movement to reduce the use of money bail is growing, with several states implementing reform. Many states fund their court systems, including judges, prosecutors, and public defenders, partly or entirely via fees and fines imposed on criminal and traffic defendants. The privatization of misdemeanor probation services by several states has led to abuses, including fees by private probation companies to penalize poor offenders. President Trump repeatedly criticized journalists and posted comments during the year, prompting concerns over the chilling of freedom of speech. Two U.N. experts expressed alarm about state legislative proposals seeking to "criminalize peaceful protests." The Trump administration was considering withdrawing from the UNHRC, primarily because of concerns about body's memberships and its dedicated agenda on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although the Council's membership includes some serial rights violators, this has not prevented it from successfully addressing a wide range of human rights issues.
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