Michael Hernandez
13 April 2016•Update: 14 April 2016
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
The Middle East led the globe in last year’s rights violations, America’s top diplomat said Wednesday.
The “confluence” of the Syrian conflict and terrorism in the region created “the most widespread and dramatic violations in 2015” resulting in “enormous suffering”, John Kerry told reporters.
“Given the horrors of these past five years, I cannot imagine a more powerful blow for human rights than putting a decisive end to this war, to the terror, to the repression and especially to the torture and the indiscriminate bombing,” he said regarding the Syrian conflict.
“There is no guarantee that Syrians will be able to put their country together again, but I'll tell you, after all they have been through, they deserve the fairest opportunity to be able to try,” he added.
His comments come as the U.S. releases it 40th annual human rights report, chronicling alleged abuses the world over.
The congressionally mandated document said “authoritarian governments stifle civil society because they fear public scrutiny, and feel threatened by people coming together in ways they cannot control.”
The agency pointed to “historically authoritarian” governments, including North Korea, Cuba, China, Iran, Sudan and Uzbekistan as among countries that seek to control or stifle political activity and limit political opposition.
It also pointed to Daesh, which it said has taken advantage of failed governance and repression in Iraq and Syria to establish itself, and spread to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Libya and Yemen.
“It is no surprise that one of the first things the terrorist organization Daesh did when it took over the Syrian city of Raqqa was to kill or drive away civil society activists working to defend human rights and provide community services,” it said, referring to the city that has become Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital.
In addition to the non-state actor, governments have stepped up repression of popular activism with increased “vigor and viciousness,” the report said.
“In every part of the world, we see an accelerating trend by both state and non-state actors to close the space for civil society, to stifle media and Internet freedom, to marginalize opposition voices, and in the most extreme cases, to kill people or drive them from their homes,” Kerry wrote in the report's preface. "The frequently grim examples detailed in this report strengthen our resolve to promote fundamental freedoms."
