CNN
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According to Human Rights Watch, Russia’s war crimes and human rights abuses during the war in Ukraine have led to “a flurry of violations of international humanitarian law.”
The Rights Group’s annual report, which reviewed human rights standards in about 100 countries, said evidence of war crimes in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, was part of a pattern that “has been repeated countless times.”
HRW’s World Report 2023 also highlighted the bombing of a theater in Mariupol, despite signs warning that children had taken refuge there, and attacks on other non-military targets.
“Inflicting civilian suffering, including repeated strikes on the energy infrastructure on which Ukrainians rely on electricity, water and heat, appears to be a central part of the Kremlin’s strategy,” the report reads. .
While applauding the European response in hosting Ukrainian refugees, the authors noted that “governments should make concerted efforts by the international community to hold President Putin to account much sooner, namely in 2014, in Ukraine.” The start of the war in the East, against human rights abuses in Syria in 2015, or because of the escalating human rights abuses within Russia over the past decade.”
HRW has highlighted armed conflict elsewhere. Tigre region Northern Ethiopia has received less attention than Ukraine.
“The government and the United Nations have condemned summary killings, widespread sexual violence and looting, but have done little else.” Ethnic cleansing campaigns against Tiglayans in West Tigray have resulted in many deaths, sexual violence, mass detentions, resulted in forced internment. Thousands have fled,” the report said.
The report also calls for greater scrutiny of China after Xi Jinping secured a third term as Communist Party leader and president in October.
“President Xi is surrounded by supporters, committed to building a safe state, and deepening rights violations across the country,” the report said.
And Western governments, increasingly frustrated with China’s policies, are seeking to deepen their alliance with India. However, HRW reports that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is developing repressive practices similar to those in China.
“The seemingly careless trade-offs on human rights that world leaders make, justified as the cost of doing business, ignore the long-term consequences of their compromises,” reads the report. “Avoiding its troubling record of rights while deepening our ties to the Modi government is a great opportunity to protect the precious but increasingly endangered civic space upon which Indian democracy depends. wasting the precious power of
Other cases highlighted by HRW include Hungary. The government, headed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, “continues to attack the rule of law and democratic institutions” and has declared a danger to war in Ukraine. scrutiny.
Furthermore, HRW noted that in 2022 the UK government introduced new legislation that “proposed to violate rights and significantly undermine human rights protections in domestic law”.
And the organization warned against the lure of authoritarian rule around the world.
“Dictators profit from the illusions they project as essential to maintaining stability, and that illusions reflect their oppression and the widespread human rights abuses committed to achieve their ends. It seems justifiable,” the report reads.
Efforts to tighten this control “erode” the pillars of a society based on the rule of law, the report added.
“The result is often massive corruption, economic collapse and a hopelessly partisan judiciary,” he said. “Vital civic space has been dismantled, with activists and independent journalists in prison, hiding or fearing retribution.”
