Trump encourages rights abuse: Human Rights Watch

Donald Trump’s election as the US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights put the postwar human rights system at risk, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The rights body decried the rise of a new generation of authoritarian populists in the United States and Europe, saying they seek to overturn the concept of human rights protections and treat rights not as an essential check on official power but as an impediment to the majority will.

“Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism. They all claim that the public accepts violations of human rights as supposedly necessary to secure jobs, avoid cultural change, or prevent terrorist attacks. In fact, disregard for human rights offers the likeliest route to tyranny,” said HRW’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth in his introductory remarks at the World Report 2017 launch in Washington, DC.

Mr Roth cited Trump’s presidential campaign in the US as a vivid illustration of the politics of intolerance, adding that the US President-elect responded to those discontented with their economic situation and an increasingly multicultural society with rhetoric that rejected basic principles of dignity and equality.

Further, the HRW executive director accused Trump’s campaign of floating proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture.

“Unless Trump repudiates these proposals, his administration risks committing massive rights violations in the US and shirking a longstanding, bipartisan belief, however imperfectly applied, in a rights-based foreign policy agenda,” said Mr Roth.

Similarly in Europe, Mr Roth castigated the rise of populists who seek to blame economic dislocation on migration citing Brexit as the most prominent illustration.

“Instead of scapegoating those fleeing persecution, torture, and war, governments should invest to help immigrant communities integrate and fully participate in society,” Mr Roth advised.

In a similar vein, HRW expressed concerns over African leaders who have removed or extended term limits – the “constitutional coup” – to stay in office, while others have used violent crackdowns to suppress protests over unfair elections or corrupt or predatory rule.

“Several African leaders, feeling vulnerable to prosecution, harshly criticized the International Criminal Court and three countries announced their withdrawal,” Mr Roth added.