Human Rights Watch World Report 2016: 'Politics of Fear' Threatens Rights Beatrice Credi - West
go to original February 2, 2016

Human Rights Watch World Report 2016 (HumanRightsWatch)

World Report 2016. Cover: Asylum seekers and migrants descend from a fishing vessel used to transport them from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos, October 11, 2015.

The ‘politics of fear’ led governments around the globe to roll back human rights during 2015. This is the main conclusion of the annual report by Human Rights Watch recently published.

The spread of terrorist attacks beyond the Middle East and the huge flows of refugees spawned by repression and conflict led many governments to curtail rights in misguided efforts to protect their security.

At the same time, authoritarian governments throughout the world, fearful of peaceful dissent that is often magnified by social media, embarked on the most intense crackdown on independent groups in recent times.

Despite these enormous threats to rights, 2015 also brought positive developments.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, who are often subject to abusive laws and violent attacks, made great strides towards equality with the legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland, Mexico, and the US, and the decriminalization of homosexuality in Mozambique.

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Related: NGO Freedom House Declares 2015 the Worst Year in a Decade (PanAm Post)

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