Human Rights Watch 2018: Frontal Attack On Values of Inclusivity, Tolerance, and Respect
The values that lie at the heart of human rights are values of inclusivity, tolerance, and respect. The word ‘intolerable’ comes to mind. Our attitude towards human rights turns inward.
We will not understand the importance of these values until our own human rights are violated. Only then does empathy arise.
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/201801world_report_web.pdf
World Report 2018
is Human Rights Watch’s 28th annual review of human rights
practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than
90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from late 2016
through November 2017.
In his keynote essay, “The Pushback Against the Populist Challenge,” Human
Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth says that the surge of authoritar-
ian populists appears less inevitable than it did a year ago. Then, there seemed
no stopping a series of politicians around the globe who claimed to speak for
“the people” but built followings by demonizing unpopular minorities, attacking
human rights principles, and fueling distrust of democratic institutions. Today, a
popular reaction in a broad range of countries, bolstered by some political lead-
ers with the courage to stand up for human rights, has left the fate of many of
these populist agendas more uncertain. “Where the pushback is strong, populist
advances have been limited,” Roth explains, “but where capitulation meets their
message of hate and exclusion, the populists flourish.”
Preoccupied with the internal domestic struggle over the populist agenda, many
of the world’s democracies, including the United States and the United King-
dom, have been less willing than before to promote human rights abroad. China
and Russia have sought to fill that leadership void by advancing an anti-rights
agenda. But several small and medium-sized governments, often backed by gal-
vanized publics, have also stepped into the breach. They include France, the
Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, and even tiny Liechtenstein. Though
lacking the clout of the major powers, they have succeeded in building coali-
tions that exert serious pressure on the anti-rights agenda and in trumpeting the
advantages of governments that are accountable to their people rather than to
their officials’ empowerment and enrichment.
However, where other priorities stand in the way of a strong defense of human
rights, the populists and autocrats have flourished. Roth cites Egypt, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, and Burma as examples of countries where a lack of international
pressure has enabled governments to crush domestic dissent and, at times, to
commit large-scale atrocities. “A fair assessment of global prospects for human
rights,” Roth concludes, “should induce concern rather than surrender—a call to
action rather than a cry of despair.” The populist surge is hardly inevitable and
can be reversed if governments and the public are willing to make the effort.
The rest of the volume consists of individual country entries, each of which iden-
tifies significant human rights abuses, examines the freedom of local human
rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key interna-
tional actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, African Union, United
States, China, and various regional and international organizations and institu-
tions.
The book reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff un-
dertook in 2017, usually in close partnership with human rights activists and
groups in the country in question. It also reflects the work of our advocacy team,
which monitors policy developments and strives to persuade governments and
international institutions to curb abuses and promote human rights. Human
Rights Watch publications, issued throughout the year, contain more detailed
accounts of many of the issues addressed in the brief summaries in this volume.
They can be found on the Human Rights Watch website, www.hrw.org.
As in past years, this report does not include a chapter on every country where
Human Rights Watch works, nor does it discuss every issue of importance. The
absence of a particular country or issue often simply reflects staffing or resource
limitations and should not be taken as commentary on the significance of the
problem. There are many serious human rights violations that Human Rights
Watch simply lacks the capacity to address.
The factors we considered in determining the focus of our work in 2017 (and
hence the content of this volume) include the number of people affected and the
severity of abuse, access to the country and the availability of information about
it, the susceptibility of abusive forces to influence, and the importance of ad-
dressing certain thematic concerns and of reinforcing the work of local rights or-
ganizations.
The World Report does not have separate chapters addressing our thematic work
but instead incorporates such material directly into the country entries. Please
consult the Human Rights Watch website for more detailed treatment of our work
on children’s rights; women’s rights; arms and military issues; business and
human rights; health and human rights; disability rights; the environment and
human rights; international justice; terrorism and counterterrorism; refugees
and displaced people; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people’s
rights; and for information about our international film festivals.
The Pushback Against the Populist Challenge
Executive Director
The surge of authoritarian populists appears less inevitable than it did a year
ago. Then, there seemed no stopping a series of politicians around the globe
who claimed to speak for “the people” but built followings by demonizing un-
popular minorities, attacking human rights principles, and fueling distrust of
democratic institutions. Today, a popular reaction in a broad range of countries,
bolstered in some cases by political leaders with the courage to stand up for
human rights, has left the fate of many of these populist agendas more uncer-
tain. Where the pushback is strong, populist advances have been limited. But
where capitulation meets their message of hate and exclusion, the populists
flourish.
The playing out of this struggle has made many Western powers in particular
more inwardly oriented, leaving an increasingly fragmented world. With the
United States led by a president who displays a disturbing fondness for rights-
trampling strongmen, and the United Kingdom preoccupied by Brexit, two tradi-
tional if flawed defenders of human rights globally are often missing in action.
Buffeted by racist and anti-refugee political forces at home, Germany, France,
and their European Union partners have not always been willing to pick up the
slack. Democracies such as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, and South Africa
have been heard actively defending human rights rarely, at best.
China and Russia have sought to take advantage of this vacuum. While focused
on quelling any possibility of domestic mass protest against slowing economies
and widespread official corruption, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have
aggressively asserted an anti-rights agenda in multinational forums and forged
stronger alliances with repressive governments. Their avoidance of public over-
sight has attracted the admiration of Western populists and autocrats around
the world.
The retreat of many governments that might have championed human rights has
left an open field for murderous leaders and their enablers. Mass atrocities have
proliferated with near impunity in countries such as Yemen, Syria, Burma, and
South Sudan. International standards designed to prevent the most horrendous
abuses, and emerging institutions of judicial response such as the International
Criminal Court (ICC), are being challenged.
In this hostile environment, a number of small and medium-sized countries have
begun to assume greater leadership roles. By building broad coalitions, they
have shown themselves capable of exerting serious pressure in defense of
human rights. In some cases, they have been backed by an increasingly mobi-
lized public. They cannot wholly substitute for the powers that have withdrawn,
but their emergence shows that the drive to defend human rights is alive and
well.
Responding to Populism
Real issues lie behind the surge of populism in many parts of the world: eco-
nomic dislocation and inequality caused by globalization, automation, and tech-
nological change; feared cultural shifts as the ease of transportation and
communication fuels migration from war, repression, poverty, and climate
change; societal divisions between cosmopolitan elites who welcome and bene-
fit from many of these changes and those who feel their lives have become more
precarious; and the traumatic drumbeat of terrorist attacks that demagogues use
to fuel xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Addressing these issues is not simple, but populists tend to respond less by pro-
posing genuine solutions than by scapegoating vulnerable minorities and disfa-
vored segments of society. The result has been a frontal assault on the values of
inclusivity, tolerance, and respect that lie at the heart of human rights. Indeed,
certain populists seem to relish breaking the taboos that embody these values.
Invoking their self-serving interpretation of the majority’s desires, these pop-
ulists seek to replace democratic rule—elected government limited by rights and
the rule of law—with unfettered majoritarianism.
Responding to this populist challenge requires not only addressing the legiti-
mate grievances that underlie it but also reaffirming the human rights principles
that populists reject. It requires trumpeting the advantages of governments that
are accountable to their people rather than to their officials’ empowerment and
enrichment. It requires demonstrating that all of our rights are at risk if we allow
governments to select which people deserve respect for their rights. It requires
reminding ordinary people that they need human rights as much as dissidents
and vulnerable groups.
The willingness of democratic leaders to take on this challenge and champion
human rights has fluctuated. A year ago, as the populists seemed to have the
wind at their backs, few dared. But in the past year, that has begun to change, to
visible effect.
Defending Rights
France
France provided the most prominent turning point. In other European countries—
Austria and the Netherlands, foremost—centrist and center-right politicians com-
peted with populists by adopting many of their nativist positions. They hoped to
pre-empt the populists’ appeal but ended up reinforcing the populists’ message.
Emmanuel Macron took a different approach during his presidential campaign.
He openly embraced democratic principles, firmly rejecting the National Front’s
efforts to foment hatred against Muslims and immigrants. His resulting victory
and his party’s success in parliamentary elections showed that French voters
overwhelmingly reject the National Front’s divisive policies.
It remains to be seen how Macron governs. His move to make permanent many
troubling aspects of France’s emergency law was a disturbing early step. In for-
eign policy, he has shown leadership standing up to autocratic rule in Russia,
Turkey, and Venezuela, and a willingness to support stronger collective European
Union action against Poland’s and Hungary’s assault on rights. But he has been
reluctant to confront widespread abuses in China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. De-
spite this mixed record, he showed during his campaign that a vigorous defense
of democratic principles can attract broad public support.
United States
In reaction to the election of Donald Trump, the United States saw a broad reaf-
firmation of human rights from many quarters. Trump won the presidency with a
campaign of hatred against Mexican immigrants, Muslim refugees, and other
racial and ethnic minorities, and an evident disdain for women. A powerful re-
sponse came from civic groups, journalists, lawyers, judges, many members of
the public, and sometimes even elected members of Trump’s own party.
Trump was still able to take regressive steps by executive action—deporting
many people without regard to their deep ties to the United States, reviving a
cruel and discredited policy of mass incarceration of criminal offenders, easing
oversight against police abuse, and restricting global funding for women’s repro-
ductive health.
But the resistance limited the harm that might have been done, most notably his
efforts to discriminate against Muslims seeking to visit or obtain asylum in the
United States, to undermine the right to health care in the US, to expel transgen-
der people from the military, and even, in some cases, to deport long-term resi-
dent immigrants.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson largely rejected the promotion of human rights as
an element of US foreign policy while more broadly reducing the role of the US
abroad by presiding over an unprecedented dismantling of the State Depart-
ment. He refused to fill many senior posts, dismissed several veteran diplomats,
slashed the budget, and let the department drift. Many career diplomats and
mid-level officials resigned in despair.
But as Trump embraced one autocrat after another, some of the remaining State
Department officials, at times with Congressional support, did what they could
to prevent a complete abandonment of the human rights principles that have
played at least some role in guiding US foreign policy for four decades. They
made it possible for Washington to still occasionally play a useful role, such as
threatening targeted sanctions against the Burmese military officials behind the
ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority.
Germany
Germany over the past year made headlines when the Alternative for Germany
(AfD) became the first far-right party to enter its parliament in decades. That as-
cent cut into support for the ruling coalition including Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and complicated her task of
forming a new governing coalition. Merkel’s preoccupation with domestic poli-
tics, and her ongoing defense of her courageous 2015 decision to admit large
numbers of asylum seekers to Germany, have ironically deprived Europe of a
strong voice for the rights of refugees and immigrants—the most contentious
issue on the continent today. That also left Macron without his most obvious Eu-
ropean partner for resisting authoritarian populism.
Yet the German election also presented a lesson in how to address the far right.
Beyond the economically depressed eastern parts of the country where wide-
spread racism and xenophobia has not been tackled since the fall of the Berlin
Wall, the AfD gained the most votes in wealthy Bavaria, where Merkel’s govern-
ing partner, the Christian Social Union, adopted far more of the AfD’s nativist po-
sitions than did Merkel’s CDU. Principled confrontation rather than calculated
emulation turned out to be the more effective response.
Poland and Hungary
Central Europe has become especially fertile ground for populists, as certain
leaders use fear of migration elsewhere in Europe to undermine checks and bal-
ances on their power at home. But there, too, the populists encountered resist-
ance.
In Poland, amid large public protests and strong international criticism including
from EU institutions, President Andrzej Duda vetoed the Polish government’s ini-
tial attempt to undermine judicial independence and the rule of law, although
the alternative he then advanced still fell short.
In Hungary, the threat of EU legal action—as well as international condemnation,
including from the United States—impeded the government’s plans to close Cen-
tral European University, a bastion of independent thought that stood in opposi-
tion to the “illiberal democracy” championed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In
the case of Poland at least, there is growing recognition in EU institutions and
some member states that its assaults on democratic rule pose a threat to the EU
itself. And given Poland’s and Hungary’s position as major beneficiaries of EU
funding, a debate is beginning on whether that aid should be linked to uphold-
ing the EU’s basic values.
Venezuela
In Latin America, President Nicolás Maduro continued to eviscerate Venezuela’s
democracy and economy under the guise of standing up for the little people and
against those whom he calls the imperialists. But as his rule became more brutal
and autocratic, his corrupt and incompetent management of the economy be-
came painfully apparent. This potentially wealthy nation was left destitute de
spite its vast oil reserves, with many people desperately searching for food and
medicine amid raging hyperinflation.
People took to the streets in large numbers to protest. Some officials defected
from his government. An unprecedented number of Latin American countries
shed their traditional reluctance to criticize a neighbor’s repression. Others fol-
lowed, including the EU.
Maduro managed to stay in office, due largely to the violent repression he was
willing to deploy. Taking advantage of a subservient Supreme Court and the Con-
stituent Assembly that he created to take over legislative powers from the oppo-
sition-controlled National Assembly, he carried out a brutal crackdown on
dissent. But as the Venezuelan people continue their descent into poverty and
misery, it is unclear how long they will let Maduro cling to power.
A Struggle Deserving Support
None of these examples of resistance to populist leaders is guaranteed success.
Once in office, populists have the considerable advantage of being able to har-
ness the power of the state. But the resistance shows that there is a struggle un-
derway, that many people will not sit quietly as autocrats attack their basic rights
and freedoms.
Populists and Autocrats Fill a Vacuum
By contrast, where domestic resistance was suppressed and international con-
cern lacking, the populists and other anti-rights forces prospered. President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, decimated Turkey’s democratic system with
impunity, as the EU shifted its focus to enlisting his help to halt the flight of
refugees to Europe. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi crushed public dissent in
Egypt with little interference from the US or the EU. They bought into his narra-
tive of combatting terrorism and ensuring stability, even though his ruthless sup–
pression of any Islamic option in the country’s political process was exactly what
militant Islamists wanted.
With a seeming green light from Western allies, Saudi Arabia’s new crown
prince, Mohamed bin Salman, led a coalition of Arab states in a war against
Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen that involved bombing and blockading
civilians, greatly aggravating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Concern
with stopping boat migration via Libya led the EU—particularly Italy—to train,
fund, and guide Libyan coast guards to do what no European ships could legally
do: forcibly return desperate migrants and refugees to hellish conditions of
forced labor, rape, and brutal mistreatment.
Putin’s efforts to repress opposition to his lengthening rule met little resistance
from foreign governments more focused on his conduct in Ukraine and Syria
than within Russia. Xi Jinping got away with little resistance to his imposition of
the most intense crackdown since the brutal smothering of the 1989 Tiananmen
Square democracy movement because other nations were afraid to jeopardize
lucrative Chinese contracts by standing up for the rights of the Chinese people.
Indeed, when there was little international pushback to their behavior at home,
repressive governments felt emboldened to manipulate and obstruct the interna-
tional institutions that can defend rights.
China detained its citizens who hoped to engage with United Nations bodies on
its rights abuse. Russia cast no less than 11 vetoes to block any attempt by the
UN Security Council to address Syrian government war crimes. Russia also
threatened to withdraw from a key European oversight body on human rights if it
maintained sanctions for the occupation of Crimea, while Azerbaijan bribed
some members of that body, and Turkey threatened to withhold its budgetary
contribution. Burundi threatened UN rights investigators themselves with retalia-
tion.
Burma and the Rohingya
The cost of not standing up to populist attacks on human rights was perhaps
starkest in Burma. Vitriolic nationalist rhetoric increasingly propagated by Bud-
dhist extremists, senior members of the Burmese military, and some members of
the civilian-led government helped to precipitate an ethnic cleansing campaign
against Rohingya Muslims, following a militant group’s attacks on security out-
posts. An army-led campaign of massacres, widespread rape, and mass arson in
at least 340 villages sent more than 640,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing for their
lives to neighboring Bangladesh. These are the very crimes that the international
community had pledged never again to tolerate.
Yet the Western nations that had long taken an active interest in Burma were re-
luctant to act, even by imposing targeted financial and travel sanctions on the
army generals behind these crimes against humanity. In part, that reticence was
because of geopolitical competition with China for the Burmese government’s
favor.
Also playing a part was the undue deference given to Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s
de facto civilian leader, even though she has no real control over the military and
showed no willingness to pay the political price of defending an unpopular mi-
nority. The result was the fastest forced mass flight of people since the Rwandan
genocide, with little immediate hope of the Rohingyas’ safe and voluntary return,
or of bringing to justice the people behind the atrocities that sent them fleeing.
Ultimately, nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called for a
special session of the UN Human Rights Council where they supported a resolu-
tion condemning Burma’s crimes against humanity. The effort was notable be-
cause it represented a rare instance in which OIC members backed a resolution
criticizing a particular country.
Pushing Back Can Work
Africa and the ICC
One of the most encouraging responses to anti-rights autocrats could be found
in Africa. The year was already notable for the toppling of two long-time tyrants.
Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh lost a free and fair election to Adama Barrow,
and when he refused to accept the results, was eased out of office by the threat
of West African troops.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was ousted in a coup, though replaced by
his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a military leader with his own long
record of abuse. Both countries saw large public protests against the long-serv-
ing tyrants.
Yet the African defense of rights was most impressive in response to populist at-
tacks on international justice. As recently as a year ago, many African leaders,
some with blood on their hands and fearing prosecution, were plotting a mass
exodus of their countries from membership in the International Criminal Court.
Using populist rhetoric against what they claimed was neo-colonialism, they
sought to portray the ICC as anti-African because, having taken seriously crimes
against African people, it had concentrated its attention on the responsible
African leaders. (Its reach was also limited by the refusal of some governments
to ratify the ICC’s treaty and by the UN Security Council’s reluctance to refer other
situations for investigation).
But the mass exodus became a mass fizzle when only Burundi withdrew, in an
ultimately unsuccessful effort to halt ICC investigation of alleged crimes against
humanity committed under Pierre Nkurunziza as he violently extended his term
as president. Gambia reversed its announced withdrawal after President Barrow
took office. And the South African courts at least temporarily blocked President
Jacob Zuma’s attempt to withdraw after he was embarrassed for flouting a court
order to prevent Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, facing ICC warrants, from
fleeing South Africa during a visit to avoid arrest.
An outpouring of popular support for the ICC by civic groups across Africa helped
to persuade most African governments to continue to stand behind the court.
The ICC prosecutor also sought to extend the court’s reach by asking its judges
for permission to investigate crimes by all sides in Afghanistan, including torture
committed there by US soldiers and intelligence agents with impunity.
The Big Role of Small States
The past year saw an impressive willingness by small and medium-sized states
to step into leadership roles when the major powers fell silent in the face of
mass atrocities or even obstructed efforts to address them.
This is hardly the first time that smaller states have taken the lead on rights is-
sues. The ICC, the Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the Op-
tional Protocol on Child Soldiers, and the International Convention against
Enforced Disappearance were all secured largely by global coalitions of small
and medium-sized states operating without or despite the major powers. Yet the
willingness of these alternative voices to take center stage was particularly im-
portant in the past year as major powers largely walked off the stage or even
tried to upend it.
Yemen
The effort at the UN Human Rights Council to open an independent international
investigation of abuses in Yemen was illustrative. A coalition of Arab states led
by Saudi Arabia pummeled Yemeni civilians; conducted airstrikes on homes,
markets and hospitals; and blockaded urgently needed humanitarian aid and
other goods. As a result, 7 million people faced starvation, and the country had
nearly 1 million suspected cases of cholera.
Opposing Houthi forces and their allies also used landmines, recruited child sol-
diers, and blocked aid. Despite this grave situation, the idea of an investigation
received at best lukewarm support from the United States, the United Kingdom,
and France, all major sellers of arms to Saudi Arabia. None was eager to take a
public stand. In that void, the Netherlands stepped in and took the lead, ulti-
mately joined by Canada, Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
The task was not easy. Saudi Arabia threatened to cut diplomatic and economic
ties with any nation that supported the investigation. Yet in part because of that
threat, and its implicit message that the wealthy should stand above scrutiny for
their atrocities, Saudi Arabia was forced to capitulate to a UN investigation once
it became clear it would most likely lose a contested vote. The hope now is that a
group of investigators looking over the shoulders of the combatants in Yemen
will compel better behavior.
Syria
In the case of Syria, Russia’s repeated vetoes and veto threats at the UN Security
Council, sometimes joined by China, barred the only immediately available route
to the International Criminal Court. Despite a growing international effort to dis-
courage use of the veto in situations of mass atrocities, Russia and China, as
well as the United States, have not signed on to these initiatives.
To break that stalemate, the idea was floated to circumvent the Security Coun-
cil’s veto system by seeking action in the UN General Assembly, where no state
has veto power. Leadership in this effort came from the tiny nation of Liechten-
stein, which built a broad coalition of governments. With their support, the Gen-
eral Assembly ended up voting 105 to 15 to establish a mechanism to collect
evidence and build cases for prosecution when venues ultimately become avail-
able—an important commitment to see justice done. It also opens the door to
the General Assembly possibly creating a special tribunal for Syria should Russia
continue to block a path to justice at the ICC.
The importance of this accountability was illustrated by the Syrian government’s
ongoing use of banned nerve agents such as sarin despite having supposedly
relinquished all chemical weapons after its notorious August 2013 use of sarin in
Eastern Ghouta. Russia offered a cover story for an April 2017 episode in the
northwestern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun—that a Syrian conventional bomb
supposedly hit a rebel cache of sarin—but that theory was conclusively dis-
proved, so Russia responded by vetoing continuation of a UN investigation.
When a permanent member of the Security Council is willing to use its power to
cover the atrocities of an ally—in this case, while also providing military sup-
port—it is particularly important to explore alternative avenues for upholding the
most basic rights.
The Philippines
The Philippines presented an especially brazen and deadly example of a pop-
ulist challenge to human rights. As he had done previously as mayor of Davao
City, President Rodrigo Duterte took office encouraging the police to kill drug
suspects. The resulting epidemic of police shootings—often portrayed as
“shootouts” but repeatedly shown to be summary executions—had left more
than 12,000 people killed in the roughly year and a half since Duterte took office.
The vast majority of victims were young men from the slums of major cities—peo-
ple who elicited little sympathy among many Filipinos.
The ongoing territorial dispute among China, the United States, and the Philip-
pines over the South China Sea left little room for concern about executions.
Donald Trump, as he has elsewhere, seemed mainly to admire Duterte’s “strong-
man” qualities.
Instead, a major source of pressure to stop the slaughter came from a collection
of states led by Iceland that issued statements at the UN Human Rights Council.
Duterte tried to disparage these “bleeding hearts” but ended up, under pres-
sure, transferring authority to combat drugs, at least for a while, from the mur-
derous police to a far more law-respecting drug agency. When the police were
withdrawn from anti-drug operations, executions dropped precipitously.
Women’s Rights
Several of today’s populists display a misogynist slant. In the past year, Russia
decriminalized certain acts of domestic violence. Poland, already possessing
one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, is now limiting access to
emergency contraception.
Under Trump, the US government reintroduced an expanded “Global Gag Rule”
that vastly reduces funding for essential health care for women and girls abroad.
Yet there were rising voices in response. The Women’s March, convened initially
as an American response to the election of Trump, morphed into a global phe-
nomenon, with millions gathering in support of women’s human rights.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Macron both iden-
tified themselves as feminists, with Canada making the pursuit of gender equal-
ity a central part of its aid programs and France announcing new measures to
combat gender-based violence and sexual harassment. The Dutch, Belgian, and
Scandinavian governments led efforts to establish an international reproductive
rights fund to replace US funding lost through the Global Gag Rule, and Sweden
pursued a “feminist foreign policy” that prioritizes the rights of women and girls
in places such as Saudi Arabia.
Responding in large part to the campaigning of women’s rights activists, three
Middle Eastern and North African states—Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon—re-
pealed provisions in their penal codes that allowed rapists to escape punish-
ment by marrying their victims.
LGBT Rights
Sexual and gender minorities were a common target of governments seeking to
rally conservative backers, often as a diversion from governance failures.
Whether Putin in Russia, al-Sisi in Egypt, or Mugabe in Zimbabwe, leaders tried
to stoke moral panic for their own political gain against lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender (LGBT) people. Police in Indonesia, Tanzania, and Azerbaijan
targeted LGBT people in public and raided private spaces with impunity.
Regardless of its form, heightened persecution of LGBT people is a good indica-
tion that the government is failing to deliver on public expectations. Yet the as-
sumption that persecution of LGBT people would inevitably meet with approval
is becoming less certain.
Most Latin American countries have moved squarely into the pro-LGBT rights
camp in international forums, joining Japan along with many North American and
European countries. Mozambique, Belize, Nauru and the Seychelles have in re-
cent years all decriminalized same-sex conduct.
This pushback manifested itself even in Russia. The detention, torture, enforced
disappearance and murder of gay men by forces under Chechen President
Ramzan Kadyrov met such widespread outrage that Putin was compelled to rein
in his brutal ally, ending the purge in this southern Russian republic. Yet else-
where other priorities still sometimes got in the way, as in the response to anti-
LGBT crackdowns in Egypt, where donors seemed reluctant to raise the issue for
fear of offending a counterterrorism ally.
Time to Act, Not Despair
The central lesson of the past year is that despite the considerable headwinds,
the defense of human rights can succeed if the proper efforts are made. Pop-
ulists offer superficial answers to complex problems, but broad swathes of the
public, when reminded of the human rights principles at stake, can be convinced
to reject the populists’ scapegoating of unpopular minorities and their efforts to
undermine checks and balances against government abuse.
The inward orientation of Western powers wrought by the struggle over populism
has led to an increasingly fragmented world where mass atrocities are too often
left unchecked. Still, principled small and medium-sized countries can make a
difference when they join forces and act strategically.
A fair assessment of global prospects for human rights should induce concern
rather than surrender—a call to action rather than a cry of despair. As we enter
the 70th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the chal-
lenge is to seize the considerable opportunities that remain to push back
against those who would reverse hard-fought progress.
Human rights standards provide guidance but become operational only with
champions among governments and ordinary people. Each of us has a part to
play. The past year shows that rights can be protected from populist assaults.
The challenge now is to strengthen that defense and reverse the populist surge.
Afghanistan
Fighting between Afghan government and Taliban forces intensified through
2017, causing high numbers of civilian casualties. Principally in Nangarhar
province, government forces also battled the Islamic State of Khorason Province
(ISKP), the Afghan branch of the extremist group Islamic State (also known as
ISIS). A number of particularly deadly suicide attacks in urban areas, some
claimed by ISKP, killed and wounded more than 2,000 people across the coun-
try. A growing number of these attacks targeted Afghanistan’s Shia Hazara mi-
nority. Civilian casualties caused by government forces during ground fighting
declined; however, US forces expanded their use of airstrikes, including drones,
in military operations, causing increased civilian casualties.
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) continued to rely on irregular militia
forces, some of which killed and assaulted civilians. War crimes suspect Gulbud-
din Hekmatyar, one of several political figures accused of shelling Kabul during
the 1990s, returned to Kabul as part of a 2016 peace deal with the government;
clashes between his militia forces and rivals killed at least 20 civilians. Both the
Taliban and ANSF used schools for military purposes, which, together with coun-
trywide insecurity, deprived many children, especially girls, of access to educa-
tion.
The government made some progress in adopting legislation to curb torture, but
failed to prosecute serious offenders. Promised reforms to end the use of unsci-
entific and abusive “virginity examinations” for women taken into custody, and
the imprisonment of women for so-called morality crimes, did not materialize.
Only a fraction of the reported cases of violence against women resulted in pros-
ecutions. The government announced that district council and parliamentary
elections would be held in July 2018, three years behind schedule. However, po-
litical infighting and security concerns threatened to delay the vote.
Armed Conflict
The United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented
2,640 war-related civilian deaths and 5,379 injuries in the first nine months of
2017, a slight decrease over the same period in 2016. The Taliban and groups
claiming allegiance to ISKP were responsible for two-thirds of these. Civilian
deaths and injuries by pro-government forces and their allies during ground en-
gagements declined; however, those from aerial operations by government and
international forces increased by 52 percent to 205 deaths and 261 injured.
Insurgent attacks in major cities caused hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries.
ISKP claimed responsibility for the March 8 attack on Kabul’s Daud Khan hospi-
tal, the main treatment center for wounded Afghan soldiers, that killed at least
30 and wounded dozens. In that attack, insurgents reportedly dressed as doc-
tors shot dead patients in their beds. The May 31 truck bomb that killed at least
92 and wounded more than 500 was the deadliest such attack ever in Kabul. Sui-
cide attackers targeted Shia mosques in Kabul and Herat, killing more than 100.
On August 3-5, local Taliban forces in Sar-i Pul province launched an assault on
the village of Mirza Olang, following weeks of fighting between insurgents and
Afghan Local Police (ALP) forces. According to UNAMA, the Taliban separated
women and children from men, and shot dead at least nine ALP and other pro-
government militia members, along with 27 male civilians; among them were
four boys ages 13 to 17, and 13 men over 60. They also killed one woman as she
was trying to flee. The commander responsible, a relative of the Taliban “shadow
governor,” had self-identified as being affiliated with ISKP.
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled from their homes
due to the conflict surged as fighting intensified. More than 250,000 were dis-
placed in the first 10 months of 2017, bringing the nationwide total to at least 1.7
million people. Among the displaced were hundreds of thousands of refugees
coerced out of Pakistan with the support of the United Nations High Commis-
sioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2016. Attacks on civilians contributed to depres-
sion and other mental disabilities; Afghanistan has few community-based
mental health services to provide treatment.
Women’s and Girls’ Rights
On March 12, the Attorney General’s Office issued a report on prosecutions
under the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law revealing that me-
diation remains the preferred route for most prosecutors, which women are
often compelled to accept due to pressure from family and justice officials. Reg-
istered cases represent only a fraction of the actual crimes of violence against
women. In late 2016, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commi
(AIHRC) investigated 5,575 cases, noting that most cases of violence against
women go unreported. A long-standing effort to reform family law, including di-
vorce provisions, remained stalled.
On March 4, the revised penal code was adopted by presidential decree. It incor-
porated all the provisions of the EVAW law, while strengthening the definition of
rape. However, because a number of conservative members of parliament have
opposed the EVAW law, some activists campaigned to preserve the law in its
stand-alone form decreed in 2009. In response to their efforts, in August Presi-
dent Ghani ordered the Ministry of Justice to remove the EVAW chapter from the
new penal code. The controversial reversal has left the status of the law in limbo.
A long-promised plan by the Afghan government to implement UN Security Coun-
cil Resolution 1325, which calls for women’s equal participation in issues sur-
rounding peace and security, was further delayed during the year. The Kabul
Process peace talks in June included only two women among 47 government and
international representatives.
Deaths and injuries among women in the conflict increased sharply in 2017, with
298 deaths and 709 injured in the first nine months of the year. Most occurred as
a result of suicide bombings and aerial attacks.
Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Discriminatory Practices
An April report by UNAMA documented the highest levels of torture of conflict-re-
lated detainees in police custody since 2010. The report singled out the Kanda-
har police for torturing 91 percent of detainees by forcibly pumping water into
their stomachs, crushing their testicles with clamps, suffocating them to the
point of losing consciousness, and applying electric current to their genitals.
In a significant sign of progress in curbing torture, the government in March en-
acted anti-torture legislation, as part of the new penal code. The law left out a
compensation system for victims of torture by state security forces, but in August
the cabinet approved an annex to provide for victim redress.
Although the Afghan Constitution prohibits torture, the new provisions expand
the definition in conformity with the UN Convention Against Torture, and create a
new monitoring body, the Commission Against Torture; however, as of December
it was not clear whether this would include staff from the AIHRC. The government
did not prosecute any senior officials accused of torture.
In May, a report by the UN Committee Against Torture described “numerous and
credible allegations” of severe human rights abuses, including torture and extra-
judicial killings, and urged that all alleged perpetrators “be duly prosecuted and,
if found guilty, convicted with penalties that are commensurate with the grave
nature of their crimes.”
In January 2017, the Afghan attorney general ordered nine of First Vice President
Abdul Rashid Dostum’s guards to answer questions in connection with the ab-
duction, illegal imprisonment, and sexual assault of rival Uzbek politician
Ahmad Ischi. Dostum refused to allow his guards to report to the attorney gen-
eral, who then settled for interviewing seven of them on the premises of Dos-
tum’s compound. On November 1, seven of the bodyguards were convicted in
absentia of sexual assault and illegal imprisonment, and sentenced to five
years’ imprisonment. As of December 2017, none was in custody.
In Afghanistan, same-sex relations are punishable by 5 to 15 years in prison
under a law that bans all sex between individuals not married to each other.
Freedom of Expression
The year looked likely to surpass 2016 as the bloodiest since 2001 for Afghan
journalists, with 10 killed in the first six months of the year, most of them victims
of insurgent bombing attacks. Since January, the Afghan Journalists Safety Com-
mittee (AJSC) recorded 73 cases of violence and threats against journalists, in-
cluding deaths, detentions, beatings, and intimidation. Government officials
and security personnel were responsible for slightly more than half of the cases;
insurgent groups were responsible for the deaths of 10 journalists in suicide at-
tacks in Kabul and Khost.
Protests, Excessive Use of Force, and Freedom of Assembly
On June 2, civil society groups, political activists, and relatives of victims of the
May 31 truck bomb attack converged in central Kabul to protest deteriorating se-
curity conditions. Some participants threw stones at police, and the group in-
cluded some armed men among the crowd.
Security forces, principally the presidential palace guard, used water cannons to
disperse the crowd, but then used live ammunition despite no real threat to pub-
lic safety—first firing guns over the heads of demonstrators, injuring some pro-
testers, then shooting into the crowd, killing seven. The government promised to
conduct an investigation. As of December, the results of this investigation had
not been made public.
The government subsequently accelerated its consideration of new legislation to
restrict demonstrations. The Law on Gatherings, Demonstrations and Strikes nar-
rows the definition of allowed venues for protests; prohibits “influential people”
from “politically intervening” in any kind of protest, without clearly defining
those terms; and limits protests only to those that have “reform objectives”
rather than criticism of government policies alone. Civil society groups con-
demned the law, which as of December, was pending before parliament.
Children’s Rights
Despite the fact that the government in 2016 criminalized military recruitment of
Afghans under 18 years old, the practice continued, most notably among the ALP
and pro-government militias. The AIHRC reported on increased recruitment by
groups affiliated with ISKP in Nangarhar. Both the ANSF and the Taliban contin-
ued to occupy or use schools for military purposes in contested areas, affecting
the access to education of thousands of children, especially girls.
Afghanistan’s new penal code criminalizes the sexual abuse of boys, known in
Afghanistan as bacha bazi
.
Conflict-related deaths and injuries of children continued at high rates, with 689
deaths and 1,791 injuries in the first nine months of 2017. Almost half of the chil-
dren detained in relation to the conflict reported being tortured or mistreated.
Key International Actors
In September, the Trump administration reportedly was considering a CIA re-
quest to carry out covert drone strikes in Afghanistan; the US military has had ex-
clusive authority to carry out such strikes.
Trump authorized the deployment of an additional 3,900 troops, but the Pen-
tagon acknowledged that actual troop levels were already close to 11,000, signif-
icantly higher than the 8,000 previously reported. US airstrikes increased
through 2017, and the US provided Black Hawk helicopters and other equipment
to support expanded Afghan government air operations.
In September, diplomatic sources indicated that the US was supporting an
Afghan government initiative to create an additional village defense force, the
Afghan National Army Territorial Force. The force would reportedly absorb some
existing militias under army command, though it remained unclear how it would
avoid replicating the record of the abusive Afghan Local Police. The US military
command in Afghanistan also began classifying key data related to the develop-
ment of Afghan security forces, most of which has been public since 2008.
In February, the European Union (EU) signed a new agreement with Afghanistan
requiring it to accept rejected asylum seekers from Europe and undertake other
measures to reduce migration. The agreement also included EU support for de-
velopment, women’s rights, ending corruption, and electoral reform. In July, the
European Commission proposed a new EU strategy for Afghanistan, based on
these objectives. In May, NATO members agreed to provide Afghan security
forces with US$1 billion annually through 2020, and in November agreed to in-
crease their troop commitments by an additional 3,000.
On November 20, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) asked
the court’s judges for permission to open an investigation into possible war
crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan committed by the Taliban
and affiliated forces, Afghan National Security Forces, and US armed forces and
the Central Intelligence Agency since May 1, 2003, when Afghanistan became a
member of the court. The ICC’s preliminary examination of allegations of serious
international crimes in Afghanistan began in 2007.
On August 22, US President Donald Trump outlined a new US strategy for the war
in Afghanistan, vowing to expand military operations to target criminal and ter-
rorist networks, pressure Pakistan to end support for Afghan insurgents, and set
no timetable for withdrawal.
See the report for further countries.