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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: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:41PM
Let's say that uncontrolled population growth and migration are at odds with sustainable and harmonius coexistance. I think this should be obvious but there is unfortunately a shortage of people from the progressive camp willing to acknowledge the issue. I guess they are assuming that any objection to immigration is based on prejudice against some group. But this is not necessarily true, and as proof I would refer them to the situation in Silicon Valley. There is plenty of bitching and moaning going on about people flocking to the area for tech jobs, but it's not about who those people are or where they came from, it's about the simple economic consequences and longtime residents being forced out by rising rents.
I don't agree that the west has been particularly "generous" to developing nations. In the old days we had colonialism. Now, we don't call it colonialism anymore, but we have multinational corporations hashing out one-sided deals with the corrupt local government to exploit the people's labor and natural resources. And then we have the spooks intervening in their politics to ensure those deals stay in place. And then we have the occasional bombing campaigns, drone strikes, and death squads.
IMO, a more constructive foreign policy would be a better way to help everyone than open borders would be. But I'm afraid it just wouldn't be as good for corporate profits.