An international human rights group has lined up President Duterte alongside “strongman leaders” who have replaced accountable government and the rule of law with their own authority to ensure their countries’ growth and security.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based international organization of lawyers, journalists and academics, warned in its World Report 2017 that emerging populist leaders were threatening human rights and potentially even Western democracy.

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It singled out the rhetoric of US President-elect Donald Trump as “a vivid illustration of (the) politics of intolerance.”

If such voices prevail, it said, “the world risks entering a dark era.” The report said Trump’s success reflected a dangerous and growing “infatuation with strongman rule” also evident in Russia, China, Venezuela and the Philippines.

“These converging trends, bolstered by propaganda operations that denigrate legal standards and disdain factual analysis, directly challenge the laws and institutions that promote dignity, tolerance and equality,” the human rights watchdog said.

The report cited the “unprecedented level of killing by law enforcement” in the Philippines since Mr. Duterte assumed the presidency.

The President’s campaign of killing all “who make the lives of Filipinos miserable,” including suspected criminals, was supposedly aimed at ridding the country of narcotics, crime and corruption.

In his war on drugs, however, Mr. Duterte publicly praised extrajudicial killings of suspects, the report said.

“The killings have highlighted the country’s long-standing problem of impunity for abusive state security forces,” it said. From July 1 to Nov. 3 last year, 1,790 suspected drug dealers and users had been killed in police operations—a giant leap from the 68 recorded from January to June 15, 2016.

The report said 3,001 others had been killed from July 1 to Sept. 14, 2016, in attacks attributed to vigilantes. These killings have been categorized by the police as deaths under investigation, although “there is no evidence that police are actively probing the circumstances in which they occurred,” it said.

“Duterte has ignored calls for an official probe into these killings. Instead, he has said the killings show the ‘success’ of his antidrug campaign and urged police to ‘seize the momentum,’” the report said.

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In his introduction to the report, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth pointed to a worldwide trend of authoritarian populists who seek to overturn the concept of human rights protection, treating rights as impediments to public interest.

“When populists treat rights as obstacles to their vision of the majority will, it is only a matter of time before they turn on those who disagree with their agenda,” he said.

“We forget at our peril the demagogues of the past: the fascists, communists and their ilk who claimed privileged insight into the majority’s interest but ended up crushing the individual.”

HRW said politicians like Trump were exploiting a “cauldron of discontent” over joblessness, extremist attacks and increasing ethnic and racial diversity to scapegoat refugees, immigrants and minorities. Truth was “a frequent casualty.”

The report asserted that Trump’s suggestion to ban Muslims “demonized the very Muslim communities whose cooperation is important for identifying tomorrow’s plots.” His threatened mass deportation of migrants would uproot many who contribute productively to the economy, while doing “nothing to bring back long-lost manufacturing jobs.”

Roth defended the report against the suggestion by one reporter that its criticism of Trump seemed partisan.

“This is not a partisan issue, this is a rights issue,” he said.

The best antidote to ascendant populism, the report said, is public activism.

“Populists thrive in a vacuum of opposition. A strong popular reaction, using every means available … is the best defense,” it said. —WITH A REPORT FROM AFP

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