RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) Attacks on judicial independence, freedom of the press, and civil society make up a disturbing panorama that evidences “the most serious setback in decades” in terms of human rights in Latin America, says the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its World Report 2022, published on Thursday.
All of this is bad and must indeed be fought. Human Rights Watch deplores an alarming deterioration of the human rights situation in Latin America, and the press jumps on the subject, writing eagerly about it because picking on Latin America so wonderfully feeds prejudices, and who doesn’t like to have his own prejudices confirmed?
But why does no one report how out-of-control governments of so-called democracies in Europe and overseas discriminate against a considerable minority in their own country every week?
(This is not happening in Latin America but in Germany. HRW where are you?)
Why is the world silent when health apartheid rules against the non-vaccinated are introduced country by country, leading to a two-class society as seen in Europe, last time in Nazi Germany?
How can the HRW be taken seriously in the face of such one-sided reporting? Accuse Latin America, but let Europe, Australia, Canada, and others have their way?
HRW your name is Human Rights Watch. In which world are you watching the human rights in Europe and the rest of the West?
THAT IS WHAT HRW HAS TO SAY ABOUT LATIN AMERICA
This worsening is taking place during the covid-19 pandemic, which has been a challenge for the region in all areas, but has also meant for certain governments the opportunity to implement arbitrary measures, says the human rights organization in a section of its annual report entitled “Latin America: Alarming Setback to Basic Freedoms”.
(Alarming setback to basic freedoms? Indeed. In the Netherlands. The Dutch governments does not want its people to protest and that is how they treat them. HRW where are you?)
“The covid-19 pandemic has been a wonderful excuse for authoritarian leaders to adopt restrictive measures that they wanted to adopt anyway,” declared HRW’s interim director for the Americas, Tamara Taraciuk, in a telephone interview with Efe.
REPRESSION OF DEMONSTRATORS
On Cuba, HRW expresses its concern over the “systematic abuses against critics and artists, including arbitrary detentions, mistreatment of detainees, and abusive criminal prosecutions” following the massive demonstrations of July 11.
“The Cuban regime’s response has been brutal repression. We have documented systematic cases of arbitrary detention; more than a thousand people were detained during the July protests. We have documented allegations of mistreatment of detainees and also criminal proceedings without any guarantees of due process,” said Taraciuk.
(Arbitrary covid-based arrests in Germany. For those who do not understand German. These people have no idea why they were treated this way. It’s just the way it is, period. No explanations are given. HRW why are you silent?)
NO ELECTORAL GUARANTEES
In the case of Nicaragua, HRW denounces that the presidential elections held last November 7 “were carried out without the most minimal democratic guarantees”, after the authorities previously detained seven rival candidates of the president and then-candidate for reelection, Daniel Ortega, keeping many of them “incommunicado in abusive conditions for weeks or months”.
Regarding the situation in the Central American country, Taraciuk asserted that “there is a blatant dictatorship in Nicaragua”, evidenced last year with “the barbarity that occurred before the presidential elections, which were an absolute farce”.
This same lack of guarantees was replicated two weeks later in Venezuela. On November 21, regional elections were held in which Chavista candidates won in an electoral process characterized by irregularities denounced by the European Union observer team.
The EU mission concluded that some political opponents were arbitrarily disqualified from running for public office, there was unequal access to the media, a lack of judicial independence, and disrespect for the rule of law, which affected the transparency and impartiality of the elections.
AGAINST STATE ORDER AND THE MEDIA
In turn, HRW observes that the governments of El Salvador and Mexico are carrying out constant anti-democratic attacks against the other branches of Government and the media.
In El Salvador, the Nayib Bukele administration replaced the judges of the Supreme Court. The new members of the highest judicial body decided that the president could run for consecutive reelection, even though the Constitution prohibits it.
The Government also proposed a “foreign agents” law that could severely limit the work of independent journalists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive funds from abroad.
(Mass protests at Christmas in dozens of German cities over covid apartheid and threat of forced vaccination. They chant over and over: “Frieden, Freiheit”” – Peace and Freedom. HRW why are you silent?)
“We are concerned about pure and hard dictatorships such as Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, but also about these attempts by leaders who are democratically elected and, once in power, what they do is weaken the rule of law,” Taraciuk told Efe.
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador enacted an agreement that gives priority to works that the Government has established as pillars in his Administration last November.
According to the HRW report, this measure will cause permits to be issued for these works “automatically, without complying with the required studies”, thus being “exempt from the rules of transparency” and making it more difficult for the press to supervise.
HRW GETS IT WRONG REGARDING BRAZIL
The HRW report also mentions Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who, it says, has tried to undermine the credibility of the electoral system by pointing out that electronic voting lends itself to “fraud” without providing any proof of this.
You’ve got to be kidding. What drug are you actually on right now?
The reference to a possible security threat and the suggestion of double security at such a crucial event as a presidential election is supposed to be a sign of a retreating democracy?
The real threat to democracy, in this case, is probably that the left, including the Federal Supreme Court in Brazil, refuse to introduce an additional layer of security and accuse whoever wants more security of being a dictator.
In what world are the ones who demand additional security the bad guys and those who resist tooth and nail the good guys?
POLICE ABUSES AND IMPUNITY OF GANGS
The protests that occurred in Colombia between April and July last left 84 dead, of which 25 were due to police action, are also the subject of rebuke in the Human Rights Watch report, which draws attention to the fact that the Government “has not yet taken significant steps to reform its police force”.
For HRW, the “police officers repeatedly and arbitrarily dispersed peaceful demonstrations and used excessive, often brutal force, including live ammunition and gender-based violence.”
(Arbitrary arrest of an elderly lady in Queensland Australia. She hesitated to show her covid pass. HRW why are you silent)
“Colombia is the only country in Latin America where the police are under the authority of the Ministry of Defense, and this often makes it difficult to distinguish between military and police responsibilities,” Taraciuk added.
HRW says that despite the 2016 peace agreement between the Government and FARC guerrillas, “conflict-related violence has taken new forms and abuses by armed groups – including killings and massacres and mass forced displacement – have increased in remote areas of the country in 2021.”
In Haiti, according to the report, collusion with state actors means that rampant violence by increasingly large gang groups further punishes the population.
HRW notes in its report on Latin America that insecurity caused by 95 armed gangs has caused the eviction from their homes and displacement of 19,100 people in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in 2021.
(Holocaust survivor Vera Sharow warns against Covid apartheid. HRW why are you silent?)
CONCERN FOR WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND THE IMPRISONED
HRW is very concerned that there has been “endemic violence” against women in Argentina, which constitutes one of the “most enduring” human rights violations.
The NGO recalled that in 2020 there were 251 femicides, of which only four have been sentenced in court.
As for the right to abortion, its exercise continues to be a “challenge,” and there are “obstacles” in access to termination of pregnancy, warns HRW.
Meanwhile, in Ecuador, “poor prison conditions and violence, indiscriminate use of force by security agencies, restrictions on access to reproductive health for women and girls, and limited protection of the rights of children and refugees remain serious concerns.”
Ecuador is also the only Latin American country that emulates the Germans in Europe in terms of covid apartheid. It was the first country to decide on compulsory vaccinations and even requires the population to have a covid pass for public transportation.
But this goes unmentioned in the HRW report.
The human rights NGO focuses on prisons, characterized by “poor conditions, violence, inadequate health, and long-term problems”.
And in addition to warning that more than 600 inmates contracted covid-19 and some died, Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned about the explosive situation in Ecuador’s prisons, which in 2021 experienced the most violent episodes in its history, with successive brawls that left 80 dead in February, 119 in September and another 68 in November.