People’s rights are being suppressed and threatened everywhere in the world, from wars to selective government outrage about some abuses and silence about others because of “political expediency,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.
“We only have to look at the human rights challenges of 2023 to tell us what we need to do differently in 2024,” Human Rights Watch said in its annual global report.
Armed conflicts have mushroomed, leading with the Israel-Hamas war, and the issue is how governments respond to them, Tirana Hassan, the New York-based watchdog’s acting executive director, told a news conference. “It needs to be an end to double standards.”
Photo: AFP
As an example, Hassan said that many governments quickly and justifiably condemned the “unlawful” killings and atrocities by the Palestinian militant Hamas group when it attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing hundreds and taking hostages.
“Yet many of the governments that condemned Hamas’ war crimes have been muted in responding to the war crimes committed by the Israeli government,” she said.
Such selective outrage sends a dangerous message that some people’s lives matter more than others and shakes the legitimacy of the international rules that protect everyone’s human rights, she said.
Human Rights Watch praised South Africa for seeking a ruling from the International Court of Justice on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in a case that began on Thursday.
Hassan said that other countries including the US should support South Africa’s action “and ensure that Israel complies with the court’s decision.”
The report said that tradeoffs on human rights in the name of politics are also clear.
It cited the failure of many governments to speak out about the Chinese government’s repression and control over civil society, the Internet and media.
“Chinese authorities’ cultural persecution and arbitrary detention of a million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims amount to crimes against humanity,” it said. “Yet many governments, including in predominantly Muslim countries, stay silent.”
The report described the US and the EU as ignoring their human rights obligations in favor of politically expedient solutions.
“US President Joe Biden has shown little appetite to hold responsible human rights abusers who are key to his domestic agenda or are seen as bulwarks to China,” it said. “US allies like Saudi Arabia, India and Egypt violate the rights of their people on a massive scale, yet have not had to overcome hurdles to deepen their ties with the US.”
“Vietnam, the Philippines, India and other nations the US wants as counters to China have been feted at the White House without regard for their human rights abuses at home,” it said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
RSS