Amnesty blames Trump, Duterte in global rollback of rights
By John Leicester
PARIS — Amnesty International says "toxic" fear-mongering by anti-establishment politicians, among them President Donald Trump and the leaders of Turkey, Hungary and the Philippines, is contributing to a global pushback against human rights.
Releasing its 408-page annual report on rights abuses around the world Wednesday, the watchdog group described 2016 as "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," when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.
Amnesty named Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte among leaders it said are "wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanizes entire groups of people."
"Poisonous" rhetoric employed by Trump in his election campaign exemplified "the global trend of angrier and more divisive politics," Amnesty said.
"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 crosshairs."
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Amnesty: Duterte used drug war to justify repression
By Patricia Lourdes Viray
MANILA, Philippines — An international human rights watchdog has cited President Rodrigo Duterte as an example of an official blaming social problems in order to justify repressive government actions.
London-based Amnesty International noted that the erosion of human rights values was most harmful when leaders blame a specific "other" for real or perceived social problems in justifying repression.
"By casting collective responsibility for social and economic ills onto particular groups, often ethnic or religious minorities, those in power gave free rein to discrimination and hate crimes, particularly in Europe and the USA," AI said in its annual report on the state of human rights.
Such hateful, divisive and dehumanizing rhetoric brought out the "darkest instincts of human nature."
"One variant of this was demonstrated by the escalation, with enormous loss of life, of President Rodrigo Duterte’s 'war on drugs' in the Philippines," the report read.
AI noted that more than 6,000 alleged drug offenders have been killed by authorities and vigilantes following the endorsement of Duterte.
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