Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged nations to push back against “aggressive superpowers,” such as Russia, China and the US under President Donald Trump, accusing the countries of undermining human rights and undoing much of the progress of the past decades.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), HRW executive director Philippe Bolopion called for an alliance of “middle powers” that could stand up to Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
“With Trump’s first year [of his second term] in power, history is accelerating in the wrong direction: All the gains and progress that have been hard-won over the last few decades are now under threat,” he said.
Photo: AFP
He spoke to AFP as the advocacy and research group warned in its annual report that Trump’s return to the White House was turning the US into an authoritarian state.
Apart from working on countries such as Venezuela, Iran, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, the HRW emergencies team is also working in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where two US citizens were killed by federal agents last month during an immigration crackdown, he said.
“The human rights movement is under attack from the Trump administration, but also from Russia and China,” which — despite their strategic rivalries — are “almost allies of convenience undermining, weakening and eroding a system of rights that constrains their powers,” the former journalist said.
Non-governmental organizations have been “very concerned about our ability to continue to operate completely freely in the United States,” he said.
“It is completely new to have to worry about retaliatory measures by the US government, but the Trump administration is openly hostile to all critical voices,” he said.
Bolopion, who was formerly the UN director of Human Rights Watch, pointed to the weakness of the US.
“In this new world of aggressive, anti-human rights superpowers, who will take up the banner?” he asked, adding that the UN was “completely on the defensive, weakened, unable to respond to the urgency of the moment.”
“Bolopion called for the creation of “a new alliance, a strategic alliance” of “middle powers” united around common values of democracy and respect for international law, such as Canada, the EU, the UK, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, South Korea and Australia.
Bolopion also cited India, which he said had “experienced a very significant democratic setback” under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but “could be tempted to improve its human rights situation in order to be part of an alliance that would provide it with protection against the Trump administration’s tariffs.”
Such an alliance “could carry weight and provide a certain degree of security for its members” through preferential trade and defense agreements, or even allow them to “vote as a bloc in UN bodies, particularly the Security Council,” he said.
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