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	All of us need to stand up for the basic values of human dignity and equality everywhere by Salil Shetty Secretary General of Amnesty International   22 February 2017   Politicians wielding a toxic, dehumanizing “us vs them” rhetoric are creating a more divided and dangerous world, warned Amnesty International today as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world.   The report, The State of the World’s Human Rights, delivers an analysis of the state of human rights around the world, covering 159 countries. It warns that the consequences of “us vs them” rhetoric setting the agenda in Europe, the United States and elsewhere is fuelling a global pushback against human rights and leaving the global response to mass atrocities perilously weak.   “2016 was the year when the cynical use of ‘us vs them’ narratives of blame, hate and fear took on a global prominence to a level not seen since the 1930s. Too many politicians are answering legitimate economic and security fears with a poisonous and divisive manipulation of identity politics in an attempt to win votes,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.   “Divisive fear-mongering has become a dangerous force in world affairs. Whether it is Trump, Orban, Erdogan or Duterte, more and more politicians calling themselves anti-establishment are wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanizes entire groups of people.   “Today’s politics of demonization shamelessly peddles a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others, stripping away the humanity of entire groups of people. This threatens to unleash the darkest aspects of human nature.”   Seismic political shifts in 2016 exposed the potential of hateful rhetoric to unleash the dark side of human nature. The global trend of angrier and more divisive politics was exemplified by Donald Trump’s poisonous campaign rhetoric, but political leaders in various parts of the world also wagered their future power on narratives of fear, blame and division.   This rhetoric is having an increasingly pervasive impact on policy and action. In 2016, governments turned a blind eye to war crimes, pushed through deals that undermine the right to claim asylum, passed laws that violate free expression, incited murder of people simply because they are accused of using drugs, justified torture and mass surveillance, and extended draconian police powers.   Governments also turned on refugees and migrants; often an easy target for scapegoating. Amnesty International’s Annual Report documents how 36 countries violated international law by unlawfully sending refugees back to a country where their rights were at risk.   Most recently, President Trump put his xenophobic pre-election rhetoric into action by signing an executive order in an attempt to prevent refugees from seeking resettlement in the USA; blocking people fleeing conflict and persecution from war-torn countries such as Syria from seeking safe haven in the country.   Meanwhile, Australia purposefully inflicts trajic suffering by trapping refugees on Nauru and Manus Island, the EU made an illegal and reckless deal with Turkey to send refugees back there, even though it is not safe for them, and Mexico and the USA continue to deport people fleeing rampant violence in Central America.   Elsewhere, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Thailand and Turkey carried out massive crackdowns. While other countries pursued intrusive security measures, such as prolonged emergency powers in France and unprecedented catastrophic surveillance laws in the UK.   Another feature of “strongman” politics was a rise in anti-feminist and LGBTI rhetoric, such as efforts to roll back women’s rights in Poland, which were met with massive protests.   “Instead of fighting for people’s rights, too many leaders have adopted a dehumanizing agenda for political expediency. Many are violating rights of scapegoated groups to score political points, or to distract from their own failures to ensure economic and social rights,” said Salil Shetty.   “In 2016, these most toxic forms of dehumanization became a dominant force in mainstream global politics. The limits of what is acceptable have shifted. Politicians are shamelessly and actively legitimizing all sorts of hateful rhetoric and policies based on people’s identity: misogyny, racism and homophobia.   “The first target has been refugees and, if this continues in 2017, others will be in the cross-hairs. The reverberations will lead to more attacks on the basis of race, gender, nationality and religion. When we cease to see each other as human beings with the same rights, we move closer to the abyss.”   Amnesty International is warning that 2017 will see ongoing crises exacerbated by a debilitating absence of human rights leadership on a chaotic world stage. The politics of “us vs them” is also taking shape at the international level, replacing multilateralism with a more aggressive, confrontational world order.   “With world leaders lacking political will to put pressure on other states violating human rights, basic principles from accountability for mass atrocities to the right to asylum are at stake,” said Salil Shetty.   “Even states that once claimed to champion rights abroad are now too busy rolling back human rights at home to hold others to account. The more countries backtrack on fundamental human rights commitments, the more we risk a domino effect of leaders emboldened to knock back established human rights protections.”   The world faces a long list of crises with little political will to address them: including Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Central America, Central African Republic, Burundi, Iraq, South Sudan and Sudan. Amnesty International’s Annual Report documented war crimes committed in at least 23 countries in 2016.   Despite these challenges, international indifference to war crimes has become an entrenched normality as the UN Security Council remains paralyzed by rivalries between permanent member states.   “The beginning of 2017 finds many of the world’s most powerful states pursuing narrower national interests at the expense of international cooperation. This risks taking us towards a more chaotic, dangerous world,” said Salil Shetty.   “A new world order where human rights are portrayed as a barrier to national interests makes the ability to tackle mass atrocities dangerously low, leaving the door open to abuses reminiscent of the darkest times of human history.   “The international community has already responded with deafening silence after countless atrocities in 2016: a live stream of horror from Aleppo, thousands of people killed by the police in the Philippines’ ‘war on drugs’, use of chemical weapons and hundreds of villages burned in Darfur. The big question in 2017 will be how far the world lets atrocities go before doing something about them.”   Amnesty International is calling on people around the world to resist cynical efforts to roll back long-established human rights in exchange for the distant promise of prosperity and security.   The report warns that global solidarity and public mobilization will be particularly important to defend individuals who stand up to those in power and defend human rights, who are often cast by governments as a threat to economic development, security or other priorities.   Amnesty International’s annual report documents people killed for peacefully standing up for human rights in 22 countries in 2016. They include those targeted for challenging entrenched economic interests, defending minorities and small communities or opposing traditional barriers to women’s rights. The killing of the high-profile Indigenous leader and human rights defender Berta Cáceres in Honduras on 2 March 2016 sent a chilling message to activists but nobody was brought to justice.   “We cannot passively rely on governments to stand up for human rights, we the people have to take action. With politicians increasingly willing to demonize entire groups of people, the need for all of us to stand up for the basic values of human dignity and equality everywhere has seldom been clearer,” said Salil Shetty.   “Every person must ask their government to use whatever power and influence they have to call out human rights abusers. In dark times, individuals have made a difference when they took a stand, be they civil rights activists in the USA, anti-apartheid activists in South Africa or women’s rights movements around the world. We must all rise to that challenge now.”   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2017/02/amnesty-international-annual-report-201617/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/human-rights-defenders-under-threat-shrinking-space-civil-society-enar http://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/brave/ http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ Visit the related web page
	Climate change and mass migration: a growing threat to global security by Jared Ferrie IRIN News, agencies Bangladesh   When international leaders met in the Bangladeshi capital last month for ongoing discussions about a new global migration policy, they glossed over what experts say will soon become a massive driver of migration: climate change.   “The international system is in a state of denial,” said A.N.M. Muniruzzaman, a retired major-general who now heads the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies.   The Global Forum on Migration and Development in Dhaka came less than two months after UN nation states committed to developing within two years a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Climate change figured only as a sub-theme during one roundtable at the conference, which Muniruzzaman said was typical of similar events.   “If we want an orderly management of the coming crisis, we need to sit down now – we should have sat down yesterday – to talk about how the management will take place,” he said in an interview in his office in Bangladesh’s crowded capital.   Groups like the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration, are well aware of the risks, and say they are working to bring climate change to the forefront of policy discussions. During the roundtable in Dhaka, Michele Cavinato, head of UNHCR’s Asylum and Migration Unit, called climate change “the defining challenge of our times”.   Hard to measure   It’s difficult to say exactly how many people around the world will be forced to move as the effects of climate change grow starker in the coming decades. But mass displacement is already happening as climate change contributes to natural disasters such as desertification, droughts, floods, and powerful storms.   Some 200 million people around the world were displaced by natural disasters between 2008 and 2015, and the risk has doubled since the 1970s, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s 2016 Global Report on Internal Displacement.   Most of the displacement takes place within countries, but those driven across borders are not considered refugees, because the 1951 Refugee Convention recognises only people fleeing war or persecution.   “There is a legal gap to assist and protect people who cross borders in the context of disasters and climate change,” Marine Franck, a UNHCR climate change and disaster displacement officer, told IRIN.   Another aspect of climate change, which makes it hard to quantify the exact number of people displaced by the phenomenon, is that it is a “threat multiplier”. This means it exacerbates the potential for other drivers of forced migration such as conflict; so refugees fleeing war may also be fleeing climate change. It also often triggers slow-onset disasters like droughts, which gradually erode people’s livelihoods.   How many people will be displaced by climate change depends to a great degree on what countries do now to mitigate the future effects.   Flashpoint Bangladesh   It’s hard to think of a country that encompasses more of the risks of climate change than Bangladesh.   The impoverished nation’s approximately 160 million people are squeezed into an area slightly smaller than Tunisia, which has 11 million people, making it one of the most densely-populated countries on earth. Its coastline hugs the Bay of Bengal, putting it in the path of cyclones that are increasing in frequency and intensity.   Bangladesh is also one of the world’s flattest countries, with a river delta comprising much of its territory, making it especially vulnerable to land erosion. Himalayan glaciers will continue to melt, swelling the rivers, while rising sea levels engulf coastal areas and cause salinisation further inland, contaminating drinking water and rendering agriculture impossible.   By 2050, Bangladesh could see more than 20 million people displaced, according to the government’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. Many of those will migrate to the capital, which the government predicts will swell from 14 to 40 million people. But Bangladesh’s cities will not be able to absorb the influx of people driven from their homes by climate change.   “The settlement of these environmental refugees will pose a serious problem for… densely populated Bangladesh and migration [abroad] must be considered as a valid option for the country,” says the government’s plan. "Preparations in the meantime will be made to convert this population into trained and useful citizens for any country."   Yet many countries will be dealing with crises of their own and Bangladesh will find it hard to convince them to welcome its "climate change refugees". Massive displacement within the country could further undermine a fragile political system and contribute to militancy, which is already on the rise.   “It could destabilise the country and it could also go to the point of state collapse,” said Muniruzzaman.   Officials at Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry failed to reply to repeated requests for comment.   While Bangladesh will be one of the countries hardest hit by climate change, it is of course a global issue.   Desertification is already consuming fertile land in Africa, causing people to leave their homes to find work elsewhere, including Europe. Some countries are predicted to disappear entirely into rising seas. The Pacific Island nation of Kiribati has a strategy that would ideally allow its 100,000 citizens to “migrate with dignity”.   However, South Asia, with its large population and vulnerability to various climate change effects, is particularly at risk, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration. Of the 203 million people internally displaced between 2008 and 2015 by natural disasters, 36 percent were in South Asia.   The report notes that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has recognised climate change as a threat, and made policies intended to mitigate the effects. However, “migration concerns are only scantily mentioned."   That’s a pattern worldwide, said Muniruzzaman, noting that last month’s Global Forum on Migration and Development did not include a session dedicated to climate change.   Unless the focus shifts, he warned, the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration will be unable to address mass displacement due to climate change – and the threat multiplier effects could reach far further than many expect.   For example, he said, climate change migrants with few options for employment may swell the ranks of criminal and militant groups, while the disappearance of island nations could spark armed conflict on the high seas as countries rush to claim newly vacant maritime territory.   “It will not be just a humanitarian problem,” said Muniruzzaman. “It will be an international security problem.”   * On using the latest technology to help clarify the nature of the problem faced by populations facing the extraordinary challenges presented by climate change. Can information fuel political will: http://www.unhcr.org/innovation/climate-change-induced-displacement-leveraging-transnational-advocacy-networks-to-address-operational-gaps/ http://disasterdisplacement.org/ Visit the related web page
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