LONDON, February 22. /TASS/. The world is reaping the terrifying consequences of hate-filled rhetoric that threatens to normalize massive discrimination against marginalized groups, Amnesty International said in a report released on Thursday. The report dubbed "The State of the World’s Human Rights" covers 159 countries and says there are no global leaders in the modern world who could become passionate proponents of human rights protection.
"The transparently hateful move by the US government in January to ban entry to people from several Muslim-majority countries set the scene for a year in which leaders took the politics of hate to its most dangerous conclusion," said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
He named "the horrific military campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people in Myanmar" as a glaring example of the consequences of this rhetoric. "This caused an exodus of some 655,000 people into neighbouring Bangladesh in a matter of weeks, the fastest-growing refugee crisis of 2017. At the end of the year, their prospects for the future remained very unclear, and the enduring failure of world leaders to provide real solutions for refugees left little reason for optimism," Shetty added.
The secretary general of Amnesty International named US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping among leaders of the countries in which human rights are most violated.
"The specters of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times. Instead, leaders such as [Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi, [Rodrigo] Duterte, [Nicolas] Maduro, [Vladimir] Putin, [Donald] Trump and Xi [Jinping] are callously undermining the rights of millions," said Salil Shetty.
"The feeble response to crimes against humanity and war crimes from Myanmar to Iraq, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen underscored the lack of leadership on human rights," he noted. "Donald Trump’s policies may have marked a new era of human rights regression but they are not unique. If you look across from Australia to Hungary, leaders have long treated refugees and migrants as problems to be deflected, not as human beings with rights who deserve our compassion," Shetty added.
According to the report, which covers the situation in each region and each country separately, hundreds of human rights activists were killed in 2017 and reporters were persecuted, facing most intimidation in Turkey, Egypt and China.