Human Rights Archive

Editor’s Note: You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. Six months in, it is tempting to think the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is past. Hard-hit cities are breathing easier and many countries are already in the advanced stages of reopening their societies and economies. But even as a second wave looms, COVID-19’s first wave isn’t done. Globally, the contagion is accelerating as the pandemic’s epicenter shifts. The increase from 8 million to 9 million cases took […]

If all goes as planned next week, Vladimir Putin will be on a glide path to serve as Russia’s perpetual president. On July 1, Russia will hold a national referendum on a proposed package of changes to its constitution that many predict will essentially pave the way for Putin to run for office again after his current six-year presidential term expires in 2024. In theory, the proposed changes—which will, among other things, “reset the clock” on the current constitutional limit of two consecutive presidential terms—mean Putin could win two more elections and remain in power until 2036. If he does, […]

Democratic backsliding and encroachments on the rule of law by autocratic governments have justifiably received significant attention in recent years. Yet troubling and dangerous as these trends are, there is another, often-overlooked threat encroaching on the rule of law in countries around the world: mass incarceration. In many nations, imprisonment has become the default criminal punishment. Pretrial arrest and detention are also commonplace, with millions of people in jail awaiting trial around the world, sometimes for years. A recent report, Global Prison Trends 2020, published by the criminal justice advocacy group Penal Reform International and the Thailand Institute of Justice, […]

When preliminary results in Bolivia’s election last October showed that longtime President Evo Morales had narrowly won a controversial fourth term in office, it provoked a national outcry. The tabulation of the vote count, which initially showed a dead heat, had been halted on Election Day, only to resume a day later with Morales having jumped into the lead. The Organization of American States quickly issued a statement denouncing the “inexplicable change” in results that “drastically modifies the fate of the election and generates a loss of confidence in the electoral process.” Violent mass protests then erupted, fueled in part […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. American video-conferencing company Zoom recently admitted that it crossed a line by temporarily closing the account of a group of U.S.-based Chinese activists last month after they held a virtual event to commemorate the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Zoom insisted that it did so in order to “comply with local law,” but without stating which law it had violated. Zoom has since pledged that censorship requests from the Chinese government will no longer affect users […]

In the comfort zones of a bygone world, from prosperous and stable societies in Western Europe to Japan and Australia, the three-plus years of Donald Trump’s presidency have led to a prolonged season of worry. Friends and allies there have watched and wondered anxiously about whether the values they admire most about the United States, even with its many deep flaws, will endure. Washington under Trump has appeared to be heading off solo in uncharted directions, abandoning one by one the bedrock ideas long associated with America, like defending democracy, promoting alliances and building international institutions, as well as more […]

The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting global politics at a time when democracy was already “under assault” around the world, according to the watchdog organization Freedom House. From the United States to Hungary to the Philippines, governments have used the pandemic to consolidate power, curb individual liberties and restrict the space for civil society organizations and freedom of expression. Democratic and authoritarian societies alike are ramping up surveillance of their citizens as part of their attempts to stop the spread of the virus. The state of human rights and freedom in the world’s largest democracy has worsened as well. As the […]

July 1 is an ominous day for Palestinians, when Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is set to leap forward into formal annexation. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held onto his office by forging a power-sharing agreement with his political rival, Benny Gantz, that gave him the authority he needed to deliver on his biggest campaign promise: unilaterally annexing Israel’s settlements in the West Bank as soon as next month. The plans for annexation prompted a reckoning in Ramallah, where President Mahmoud Abbas announced last month that the Palestinian Authority would no longer coordinate with Israel on security […]

More than a year after the fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir’s regime, the coronavirus pandemic is hitting Sudan’s still-fragile democratic transition. Differences between the civilian and military leaders in the transitional, power-sharing government are growing, as the military consolidates its authority due to restrictive security measures that went into effect in April, including a ban on public gatherings and protests around the country, with particularly harsh restrictions in effect in the capital, Khartoum. COVID-19 has also brought chaos to Sudan’s troubled economy, damaging the transitional government’s credibility and popularity. The road had not been smooth since last August, when Sudan’s […]

Seventy-five years ago this Friday, humanity accomplished something miraculous. On June 26, 1945, while World War II was still raging across the Pacific, 50 nations gathered at San Francisco’s Opera House to sign the Charter of the United Nations.* The culmination of years of planning, the new international organization was intended “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Although the United Nations would often fall short of that lofty goal, its creation was a monumental achievement, providing the foundation for a rules-based international order. The San Francisco conference had opened to great fanfare on April 25, 1945. Mindful […]

Voters in Serbia are set to go to the polls this Sunday for parliamentary elections that were originally scheduled for April, before the coronavirus pandemic forced their postponement. President Aleksandar Vucic’s government has generally fared well against the virus so far, recording over 12,500 confirmed cases and 257 deaths as of June 17. It eased lockdown restrictions back in early May, after imposing some of the most draconian containment measures in Europe. But Serbia’s success against COVID-19 belies a long-term political record that is far less impressive. Last month, in its annual “Nations in Transit” report, the democracy watchdog Freedom […]

For the past four years, the United States has been trending, as they say about social media, and not in a good way. It began with a presidential campaign in which Donald Trump, the eventual winner, called Mexicans rapists and showered playground insults on his Republican rivals. For most of the postwar period, an underrated secret of American power has been to avoid this kind of spotlight. It made other countries and their problems, and not the United States itself, the focus of global attention: human rights here, massacres there, famines, rebellions, coups and more. The global diet of news […]

MADRID—In late March, about 100 Moroccan migrants living in Spain paid smugglers 5,400 euros each—roughly $6,100—to make the treacherous journey home in inflatable rafts. In a curious case of reverse migration, they desperately fled a wealthy country that had been crippled by the coronavirus and could not offer them work for the foreseeable future. Yet when they finally reached the beaches of Larache, on Morocco’s western coast, they were hunted by the Moroccan authorities, who were concerned that the migrants would spread the coronavirus. Police conducted a door-to-door search, and at least one migrant was found hiding in a clay […]

The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black Americans by police, and the sustained protests in their wake, present a test for the United States both at home and abroad. They underscore the structural racism that permeates American society and how far the nation remains from delivering on the Constitution’s promise of equal rights and justice for all. Globally, they threaten America’s longstanding, if uneven, role as the world’s leading champion of universal human rights. The success of the Black Lives Matter movement is critical, not only to achieve a more perfect union at home, but also to […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the United States and Europe, and the issues and grievances driving them. They also discuss what these movements share in common and what distinguishes them, the central role played by commemorative statues as legacies of historical racism, and the particular challenge the U.S. protests pose for civil-military relations. Listen: Download: MP3 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Spotify Relevant Articles on WPR:America’s Struggle for Racial Justice Is a Barrier—and a Bridge—to the WorldAmerica […]

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso—Liberia is preparing to lift the state of emergency that has been in place since April to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as President George Weah declared that the outbreak had been sufficiently contained. But the pandemic has raised troubling questions about freedom of the press in the country, with senior members of Weah’s administration publicly threatening journalists at its onset. “Press freedom in Liberia has taken a nosedive,” James Harding Giahyue, a Liberian journalist and former colleague who reports for both local and domestic media, told me recently. In April, Liberia’s solicitor general, Sayma Syrenius Cephus, […]

A month ago, in a column about how divisions in America would undermine the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, I mentioned the U.S. soldiers who in World War II liberated the South of France as well as Nazi-occupied Belgium, where my father spent the war. It is with some embarrassment that I revisit that reference to include a mention of how those soldiers, too, were divided—along the lines of race, reflecting the segregation of much of American society at the time. My failure to mention that was not due to a lack of knowledge, but simply the result of […]