Around the world, populist authoritarians have built their movements by demonizing minorities. In Brazil, for instance, President Jair Bolsonaro has reveled in his provocations, calling into question women’s rights as well as those of the LGBT and indigenous communities. In Poland, incumbent President Andrzej Duda recently ran for reelection—and won—on an explicitly anti-LGBT platform.
Meanwhile, in China, the central government is carrying out an organized campaign in Xinjiang to strip the predominantly Muslim ethnic Uighur population of its cultural identity, including through the use of concentration camps and forced labor. And in Venezuela, the government of President Nicolas Maduro was recently accused by investigators for the U.N. Human Rights Council of having engaged in crimes against humanity, targeting political dissenters with arbitrary detention, torture and extralegal killings.
At the same time, the populist rise has invigorated civil society efforts to protect historically marginalized communities, including members of the LGBT community, religious minorities and Indigenous groups. And with the emergence of a tougher line on China in the U.S., but also in Europe, governments are beginning to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and enterprises involved in the abuses in Xinjiang.
WPR has covered human rights issues in detail and continues to examine key questions about new developments. What are the most effective ways to protect human rights, and what additional steps might be taken? What role will technology play in both preserving and circumscribing human rights? And how will changes in the international order and global balance of power affect the human rights landscape?
The destruction of a memorial in Sri Lanka has given new energy to the decade-old movement to get the international community to recognize Tamils as the victims of a genocide during the country’s civil war. Now, a new generation of activists, who were just teenagers during the war, is taking the lead.
Political Dissent and Press Freedom
The resurgence of populist authoritarian regimes around the world has taken a toll on a range of freedoms related to democracy, including freedom of speech, freedom to express political dissent and freedom of the press. In addition to facing crackdowns and arrest, government critics and the press are increasingly targeted by so-called fake news laws that are often a cover for censorship. At the same time, new spyware technologies have made surveillance more effective—and more accessible to repressive regimes with a record of silencing their critics.
How the U.S. and Europe can still make a difference in Belarus, in To Support Belarus’ Opposition, the West Needs to Get Creative
Why the threat of violence isn’t keeping Myanmar’s young people from protesting the military coup, in The Return of Myanmar’s ‘Revolutionary Spirit’
What the rise and fall of Clubhouse in China revealed, in ‘Watching People Become Citizens’: Clubhouse’s Brief Run in China
Why Putin might end up regretting imprisoning Navalny, in Jailing Navalny May Be Putin’s Biggest Mistake
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
While women’s rights have made great strides worldwide in terms of legal protections, in practice women continue to face challenges ranging from violence and wage discrimination to unfair family law and social customs. Despite some recent victories, gender equality around the world remains far from a reality.
How Argentina’s feminists won the fight to legalize abortion, in For Argentina’s ‘Green Tide,’ Legal Abortion Is Just the Beginning
Why women are a key pillar of the farmers’ protests in India, in Women Will Bear the Brunt of India’s New Farm Laws
What a recent reckoning with sexual assault means for Egypt’s women, in Egypt’s #MeToo Activists See Progress, but ‘the Road Ahead Is Long’
Examine all of WPR’s coverage of women’s rights and gender equality.
Indigenous Rights
While indigenous communities are under assault around the world, disputes over resource extraction have emerged as a critical fault line, particularly in Latin America. Elsewhere, political and economic marginalization continue to pose difficult challenges.
Why New Zealand’s efforts to address its colonial past could serve as a model elsewhere, in How the Maori Are Pushing New Zealand to Confront Its Past—and Present
Why the coronavirus pandemic is such a serious threat to South America’s indigenous communities, in How COVID-19 Threatens the ‘Very Survival’ of Indigenous South Americans
Why indigenous women in Canada are protesting a major gas pipeline project, in In Canada, Infrastructure Projects Are Endangering Indigenous Women and Children
Examine all of WPR’s coverage of indigenous rights.
No comments:
Post a Comment