![Chinese President Xi Jinping leaves the podium following his speech after a ceremony to inaugurate Hong Kong's new leader and government on July 1, the 25th anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. [Selim Chtayti/Pool/AFP]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/08/30/36880-000_32dl262-739_416.webp)
NEW YORK -- After three decades at the helm of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Kenneth Roth says that strong human rights movements have the power to uncover the "ugly reality" of authoritarian regimes' repression of citizens' rights.
In an interview ahead of vacating his role at the end of August, Roth looked back on the "endless struggle", the ups and downs, victories and defeats since he became HRW's executive director in 1993.
"I think the big trend over the last 30 years is that the human rights movement has deepened and strengthened," he told AFP in New York. "Every country I visit has human rights defenders in it."
"Does that mean that human rights violations go away? Obviously not," said Roth.
![An Orthodox priest in Bucha, Ukraine, on August 17 holds a funeral ceremony for 20 unidentified Ukrainians killed in February-March 2022. Russian forces are accused of summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture during their occupation of the town. [Sergei Zhuzavkov/AFP]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/08/30/36881-000_32gn78x-739_416.webp)
An Orthodox priest in Bucha, Ukraine, on August 17 holds a funeral ceremony for 20 unidentified Ukrainians killed in February-March 2022. Russian forces are accused of summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture during their occupation of the town. [Sergei Zhuzavkov/AFP]
![This photo taken in 2019 shows park construction under way on the former site of a Uighur cemetery in Kuche, Xinjiang region, China. China has destroyed burial grounds where generations of Uighur families have been laid to rest, leaving behind human bones and broken tombs in what activists call an effort to eradicate the ethnic group's identity in Xinjiang. [Hector Retamal/AFP]](/cnmi_st/images/2022/08/30/36882-000_1ku8n9-739_416.webp)
This photo taken in 2019 shows park construction under way on the former site of a Uighur cemetery in Kuche, Xinjiang region, China. China has destroyed burial grounds where generations of Uighur families have been laid to rest, leaving behind human bones and broken tombs in what activists call an effort to eradicate the ethnic group's identity in Xinjiang. [Hector Retamal/AFP]
"Governments are always tempted to violate human rights," he said, citing China's repression of Uighurs, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and regions he says receive less attention, such as Tigray in Ethiopia, and Yemen.
But thanks to stronger activism, "it's virtually impossible for governments to hide their abuses, particularly in an era of social media where everybody has a smartphone".
"And by spotlighting that discrepancy between the pretence and the ugly reality, we do generate pressure," he said.
Looking back over the past 30 years, he said the world has witnessed "enormous changes, some for the good, some for the bad".
'Shame them'
As for Russia and China, after a "positive evolution with significant opening", Moscow is "reverting" to the Soviet era and Beijing to Maoist-style rule, he said.
"It's a struggle; it's an endless struggle," said the former lawyer, who plans to devote his time after HRW to a book about how to put pressure on governments.
"At a minimum, you can shame them; you can embarrass them," Roth said. "But we also go to allied governments around the world and say, would you use your influence on our behalf to push for positive change?"
"[And] abusive governments, they always care about something: they want the next military aid package, they want a trade deal, they want to be invited to some fancy summit," he said.
But does it work?
"I don't pretend that we turn these governments into good guys," he said. "Often, all they care about is staying in power."
"But if we put enough pressure on them, the benefits they see from violating human rights begin to be outweighed by the cost to their reputation," Roth said.
"Sometimes we succeed in changing the cost-benefit analysis to make governments feel that it's just not worth it to violate human rights, but other times we fail. And that's just inevitable."
Litany of abuses
HRW has been among those who have denounced China for a litany of abuses in the Xinjiang region, including mass incarceration, forced labour, compulsory sterilisation, systematic rape, and the destruction of Uighur cultural and Islamic sites.
Beijing is accused of detaining more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people, in the far-western region a secretive network of detention centres and prisons as part of a years-long security crackdown.
The United States and other Western countries have said that China is committing "genocide" of Muslim minority groups.
Beijing has vehemently rejects the claims and has long insisted it is running "vocational training centres" in Xinjiang designed to counter extremism.
Meanwhile, activists have been compiling lists of Russian forces' war crimes in occupied territories of Ukraine since the start of their invasion on February 24.
These war crimes include massacring civilians in Bucha and Irpin, looting Ukrainians' homes for consumer goods and shipping them back to Russia, and bombing the Mariupol drama theatre, which had hundreds of civilians inside at the time.
Moscow is also forcibly taking tens of thousands of Ukrainians, often singled out for their resistance to the invasion, to "filtration" camps in Russian-controlled territory where they undergo brutal interrogations and in some cases enforced disappearances, rights groups say.
Kremlin-backed Wagner Group mercenaries are also accused of killing civilians and committing other serious human rights violations in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world, including in the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya and Syria.
Through Salam Times, I request the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan not to enter into any agreement with China. As a result, China will build railways inside Afghanistan and make Afghanistan indebted in return. The truth is that China needs markets to sell its goods. To reach the markets, China wants to build railways and roads. And as Pakistan's CPEC project is a clear example for us like a mirror, for the construction of such roads and railways, the land of the host countries is taken, and they are trapped in debt. Pashtuns say we will do brotherhood, but our account should be clear. If China wants to build roads to our big cities or to deliver its goods through our homeland to markets in Central Asia, Iran, or elsewhere and wants to build highways for this purpose, they should reward us for these roads. They should compensate, not force us to take a loan from him. For example, if you want to bring Chinese goods to Herat province, which has a population of about three million people, you will need to build a road and a railway for it, and these infrastructures occupy the land of my homeland. Likewise, China should pay Afghanistan for delivery to other big cities and neighboring countries of Afghanistan. This money should be as, for example, we should be paid for the land occupied by roads and railways from Torkham to Herat. If it becomes 20 billion dollars, China will pay 10 billion dollars to Afghanistan because Afghanistan will also use it, and then they will also pay the rig
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Meanwhile, the United Nations has published a report revealing that the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang province. According to the BBC, in a report on allegations of mistreatment of the Muslim minority in China's Xinjiang province, the United Nations has accused the Chinese government of committing "serious violations of human rights." This report assesses allegations of mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. China has denied these accusations. Investigators said they had found a series of detentions and "credible evidence" of torture. They accuse China of ambiguously using national security laws to suppress minority rights and creating an "arbitrary detention system." Nearly 12 million Uyghurs, most of whom are Muslims, live in Xinjiang. The UN said that non-Muslim members of the minority group might also have been subjected to the abuses described in the report, but despite the publication of this report and undeniable evidence, China is not willing to admit its crimes and shamelessly rejects all the accusations.
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Iran and Pakistan are the biggest hypocrites, and China shamelessly exploits the world's poor countries. From Sri Lanka to Kenya, Malaysia, and Taiwan, it has spread its net and tends to target other countries too. China is now leaning toward stealing Afghanistan's mines. After Afghanistan, the Russians brutally attacked Ukraine; looking at the situation in Ukraine, I recalled the situation in Afghanistan. Everywhere children's lips are dry, and they are sleeping in the dirt. No one is going to take care of them.
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The problem is that no one cares about whatever human rights groups say. The ruling regimes in China and Russia remain in power due to these policies and the persecution of their people, and if they would continue these cruelties, it is not far as they would be collapsed. The world system is built in a way where one person takes advantage of another person's exploitation and, as a result, controls it. This process is going on in the West similarly, but the difference is that people in Western countries are kept busy with meaningless issues and are not left to think about other things. Democracy and social justice are a joke.
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A proverb in Pashto says, if I would not feel ashamed, who will shame me? The thing is that neither China nor Russia nor America is ashamed. Iran and Pakistan are the biggest hypocrites. China is exploiting the poor countries of the world with complete indecency. From Sri Lanka to Kenya, Malaysia, and Taiwan, it has also invaded other countries. Now it is committed to stealing the mines of Afghanistan. After Afghanistan, the Russians brutally invaded Ukraine. Ukrainian girls and children, beautiful as flowers, were killed by bombs and rockets, and others either disappeared into the forests or spent their days as refugees, just like Afghans. America invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya under the false title of terrorism, resulting from which these countries were turned into ruins, and innocent civilians were killed. Pakistan, Iran, and Israel were created to kill and torture people in the name of religion. May God guide everyone. May Allah bring peace to the whole world.
ReplyLooking at the situation in Ukraine reminds me of the situation in Afghanistan. Children everywhere have gray faces and dry lips and are lying in the dirt. No one is going to pick them up. What did Russia do to the Afghan people, and since the last 40 years, Afghans have been burning in the fire caused by Russia, so Ukrainians will also be burned. But I wish that no people in the world get oppressed like Afghans. And you mentioned the thefts by China, but if the situation continues like this, it is not unlikely that China will make Afghanistan a piece of junk that will deserve neither keeping nor throwing away.
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China is like a young boy who has just grown up, and its brain does not work properly. China believes that its economic and military power entitles it to suppress, kill, and even destroy the generation of minorities inside the country. China also presumes it can steal the wealth of emerging and developing countries outside and trap them in its ploys and hypocritical games. China doesn’t know how to use this power and therefore meets daily scandals. Many countries in the world now understand the actual face of this country. After witnessing the situation in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and other African countries, people of different countries put pressure on their governments to withhold friendship with China. I heard the news that several Eastern European countries, including Latvia and Lithuania, withdrew from the so-called 17th trade pact with China. Furthermore, the crimes committed by the Chinese communist regime against Muslims inside China have made Muslims in various countries sensitive toward this country. If China urgently doesn’t terminate its aggressive policy, it will get isolated worldwide. This country would have no friends except for a few dictatorial and totalitarian countries like Russia and Iran. And Russia, this country is isolated on the world stage. The collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the isolation of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and its failure against the Ukrainian forces, has made this country spiteful, and now it's trying to take revenge on t
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