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Original URL: World leaders abandoning human rights: Amnesty
World leaders are undermining human rights for millions of people with regressive policies and hate-filled rhetoric, but their actions have ignited global protest movements in response, a rights group said.
US President Donald Trump, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and China's President Xi Jinping were among a number of politicians who rolled out regressive policies in 2017, according to Amnesty International's annual human rights report published on Thursday.
The human rights body also mentioned the leaders of Egypt, the Philippines and Venezuela.
"The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times," Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary-general, said.
"Instead, leaders such as el-Sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin, Trump and Xi are callously undermining the rights of millions."
[...] The regressive approach to human rights adopted by a number of world leaders has, however, inspired new waves of social activism and protest, Amnesty said, highlighting the example of the Women's March in January last year, which began in the US before becoming a global protest.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:54PM (2 children)
To me, taking the moral high ground means:
People get freedom of speech. Europe doesn't have this. In the UK, say anything negative about muslims, and the police will come for you. In Germany, a simple "Heil Hitler!" is all it takes to put you in prison. In France, there has even been an effort to prosecute a presidential candidate for political speech.
People agree that western civilization is superior to arab, muslim, and african "civilization". The US has a few idiots, but Europe is bending over backwards for savages. Allowing them in, allowing them to retain their garbage cultures, and allowing them to outbreed you are all immoral.
People accept a right to defend oneself. This means shooting back as needed. While the US has bad spots (CA, MD, MA, HI) and Europe isn't 100% awful, the general trend is clear.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Saturday February 24 2018, @11:42PM (1 child)
Allowing people freedom of speech is not sufficient. You need to offer them your moral high ground on top. Heil Hitler in Germany won't really get you in jail, because the judge will look at the context of why you said that. Unless that context is hate speech, most EU country's judges wont care about you. Freedom of speech in itself isn't everything. You need a government that cares about its people. You need that much more than just freedom of speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2018, @04:11PM
I agree that allowing people freedom of speech is not sufficient, but it is the first step. Only after people of EU can voice their concerns can EU governments start to care about their people. Most EU governments not only lack any care for their people, they actively work against them.