Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged nations to push back against “aggressive superpowers,” such as Russia, China and the US under President Donald Trump, accusing the countries of undermining human rights and undoing much of the progress of the past decades.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), HRW executive director Philippe Bolopion called for an alliance of “middle powers” that could stand up to Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
“With Trump’s first year [of his second term] in power, history is accelerating in the wrong direction: All the gains and progress that have been hard-won over the last few decades are now under threat,” he said.
Photo: AFP
He spoke to AFP as the advocacy and research group warned in its annual report that Trump’s return to the White House was turning the US into an authoritarian state.
Apart from working on countries such as Venezuela, Iran, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, the HRW emergencies team is also working in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where two US citizens were killed by federal agents last month during an immigration crackdown, he said.
“The human rights movement is under attack from the Trump administration, but also from Russia and China,” which — despite their strategic rivalries — are “almost allies of convenience undermining, weakening and eroding a system of rights that constrains their powers,” the former journalist said.
Non-governmental organizations have been “very concerned about our ability to continue to operate completely freely in the United States,” he said.
“It is completely new to have to worry about retaliatory measures by the US government, but the Trump administration is openly hostile to all critical voices,” he said.
Bolopion, who was formerly the UN director of Human Rights Watch, pointed to the weakness of the US.
“In this new world of aggressive, anti-human rights superpowers, who will take up the banner?” he asked, adding that the UN was “completely on the defensive, weakened, unable to respond to the urgency of the moment.”
“Bolopion called for the creation of “a new alliance, a strategic alliance” of “middle powers” united around common values of democracy and respect for international law, such as Canada, the EU, the UK, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, South Korea and Australia.
Bolopion also cited India, which he said had “experienced a very significant democratic setback” under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but “could be tempted to improve its human rights situation in order to be part of an alliance that would provide it with protection against the Trump administration’s tariffs.”
Such an alliance “could carry weight and provide a certain degree of security for its members” through preferential trade and defense agreements, or even allow them to “vote as a bloc in UN bodies, particularly the Security Council,” he said.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS