This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

From Europe to Yemen and Myanmar to the US, authoritarian and populist leaders face an increasingly powerful human rights pushback, according to an influential annual survey of global rights.

Despite mounting pessimism around rights abuses and attacks on democracy by populists on both the far left and far right, the “big news” of the past year was the growing trend to confront abuses by “headline-grabbing autocrats”, said Human Rights Watch.

The US-based group cited growing opposition in Europe and the US, including from voters and institutions, to the rhetoric and policies of figures as diverse as Donald Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

The organisation’s 674-page World Report 2019, looking at some 100 countries and published in Berlin on Friday, is seen as one of the most authoritative digests of international trends in human rights.

Highlighting the situation in China, the report pointed to Beijing’s arbitrary detention of an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims, adding that repression in the country had reached its “worst levels since the 1989 massacre of protesters from the Tiananmen Square democracy movement”.

Also singled out for serious concern were the continuing political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, mounting casualties from the “drugs war” in the Philippines, and the impact on civilians of the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

Despite those concerns, the group’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said the key trend in the past 12 months had not been authoritarian tendencies in themselves, but resistance to them.

Writing in the introduction to the report, Roth cited efforts to resist attacks on democracy in Europe, “prevent a bloodbath in Syria, and bring to justice the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar”.

Roth also made reference to international efforts to halt the Saudi-led bombing and blockading of Yemeni civilians, and the demands for a full investigation into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“The same populists who spread hatred and intolerance are fuelling a resistance that keeps winning battles,” said Roth in an unusually upbeat message.

“Victory isn’t assured but the successes of the past year suggest that the abuses of authoritarian rule are prompting a powerful human rights counterattack.”

In Europe, said Roth, growing support for rights took many forms, on the streets and in institutions. He pointed to large crowds in Budapest that protested against Orbán’s moves to shut down Central European University and to enact a “slave law” that increases permissible overtime and allows three-year delays in paying for overtime.

A high point, cited by the report, came in September, when the European parliament responded to Orbán’s increasingly authoritarian rule by voting to launch a process that could end with political sanctions under article 7 of the EU Treaty.

The group also pointed to Democrat gains in the House of Representatives in the autumn midterms as evidence of the increasing rejection of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Elsewhere, the organisation pointed to transfers of power that it says reflected clear human rights concerns, citing voters in Malaysia and the Maldives who ousted their corrupt prime ministers.

Acknowledging, however, that the trend had not all been positive, the report added that the current crop of autocrats were continuing in their efforts to undermine democracy by scapegoating and demonising vulnerable minorities to build popular support.

China came in for particular criticism in the report, which observed: “China has increased its repression over the past year to the worst levels since the 1989 massacre of protesters from the Tiananmen Square democracy movement.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police in Kashgar, in China’s Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, patrol a night food market. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

“The authorities broadened their assault on freedom of expression, detaining journalists, prosecuting activists, tightening ideological control over universities, and expanding internet censorship.”

“Autocrats’ failure to protect basic human rights has made it easier for brutal leaders to get away with mass atrocities, such as Syria’s attacks on civilians in areas held by anti-government forces and the Saudi-led coalition’s indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing and blockading of Yemeni civilians.”

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The report said much of the pushback in the past year had played out at the UN, underlining its continuing importance as an institution.

“Beyond its important action on Myanmar and Yemen, the UN human rights council adopted for the first time a resolution condemning the severe repression in Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro.

“Five Latin American governments and Canada urged the international criminal court to open an investigation of crimes in Venezuela – the first time that any governments have sought an ICC investigation of crimes that took place entirely outside their territory.”