World News | Rights groups: 2022 is a series of crises, but also a good sign

JAKARTA, Jan. 12 (AP) — Widespread opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows the power of a unified response to human rights abuses, and there are signs that as people take to the streets to express grievances against Iran, China and Iran, Power is shifting elsewhere, a leading rights group said Thursday.

Human Rights Watch said in its annual world report on the human rights situation in more than 100 countries and territories that 2022 will be marked by “a cascade of human rights crises,” but the year also presents new opportunities to strengthen protections from abuse.

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“After years of sporadic and often half-hearted efforts on behalf of threatened civilians in places like Yemen, Afghanistan and South Sudan, the world’s mobilization around Ukraine is a reminder that when governments live up to their human rights responsibilities globally, has extraordinary potential,” the group’s acting executive director Tirana Hassan said in a foreword to the 712-page report.

“All governments should respond with the same spirit of solidarity to the many human rights crises around the world, not just when it is in their interest,” she said.

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Human Rights Watch said many countries imposed wide-ranging sanctions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while rallying to rally for Kyiv’s support, while both the U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court launched investigations into the violations.

Countries now need to ask themselves what would have happened if they had taken such steps after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, or if they had learned the lessons of places like Ethiopia, where two years of armed conflict have led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis One of the crises, Hassan said.

“Governments and the United Nations have condemned summary killings, widespread sexual violence and looting, but little else has been done,” she said of the situation in Ethiopia.

The New York-based group highlighted demonstrations that erupted in Iran in mid-September, when Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by the Islamic Republic’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code, and protests in Sri Lanka that forced the government to resign, and Opposition to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in October’s election.

In China, Human Rights Watch said increased attention by the United Nations and other agencies to the treatment of Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region “put Beijing on the defensive” internationally, while domestic protests over the government’s “zero COVID” strategy included criticism of President Xi Jinping A broader critique of domination.

“Dictators fantasize that their hard-line tactics are necessary for stability, but as courageous protesters around the world have demonstrated time and again, repression is not a shortcut to stability,” Hassan said.

“Protests in cities across China against the Chinese government’s strict zero-COVID lockdown measures show that despite Beijing’s efforts to suppress people’s aspirations for human rights, they cannot be quelled.”

Myanmar remains one of its biggest humanitarian crises, with the military seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in February 2021 and a brutal crackdown on any dissent since then.

Since then, military leaders have captured more than 17,000 political prisoners and killed more than 2,700, according to the Political Prisoner Aid Association.

Attempts at peace by Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have failed, Human Rights Watch said, with the group exerting “very little pressure on Myanmar” aside from banning the country’s military leaders from high-level meetings.

Meanwhile, “other powerful governments, including those in the United States and the United Kingdom, have hidden behind regional respect to justify their limited actions against Myanmar,” Human Rights Watch said.

It urged ASEAN to engage with exiled opposition groups and “increase pressure on Myanmar by aligning with international efforts to cut off the junta’s foreign exchange revenues and arms purchases.” (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)