Human rights in jeopardy worldwide – Amnesty International

The human rights are currently in danger even in the developed countries with long-standing traditions.

They are being treated with utter contempt by many governments around the world, reads the annual report of Amnesty International human rights organization.

Primarily, the human rights are in jeopardy because of the threat of war and terrorism.

“The misguided reaction of many governments to national security threats has been the crushing of civil society, the right to privacy and the right to free speech; and outright attempts to make human rights dirty words, packaging them in opposition to national security, law and order and ‘national values’,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, introducing the report in London.

The authors note that the rich countries also resort to violations. First of all, the EU countries that have faced an unprecedented flow of refugees.

“The EU, the world’s richest political bloc with a total population of over 500 million people, singularly failed to come up with a coherent, humane and rights-respecting response to this challenge,” the report says.

Amnesty International claims that 2015 was the difficult year for human rights throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union countries.

Russia extended the trend of significant restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly and of repression against the civil society through national security laws and extremism.

“In Russia we saw the prosecution of people who criticized Putin’s policy towards Ukraine on the Internet. The bloggers or people who shared the critical materials were taken to court. It is a sign for everybody: if you want to criticize Russia’s policy in relation to Ukraine, this will happen to you,” Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International, said.

Amnesty International also saw the limitations of freedom of expression in Ukraine.

“Pro-Russian journalist Oles Buzyna was shot dead. Journalist Ruslan Kotsaba, who publicly criticized the war in the east and mobilization, became Ukraine’s first prisoner of conscience for five years when he was remanded in custody on charges of treason in February,” Krivosheev noted.

The human rights are violated in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, who are trying to use the “Russian methods”, reads the report by Amnesty International. Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are mentioned among these countries.

The human rights activists also point out the terrible human rights abuses in the conflict-torn countries.