Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns that the rise of populist leaders in the United States and Europe poses a dangerous threat to basic rights protections while encouraging abuse by autocrats around the world.
The international rights group says in its World Report 2017 that the past 12 months have seen many authoritarian rulers further roll back the rule of law by tightening bans on protests and increasing controls over free speech.
At the same time, HRW says, 2016 saw the rise of populist leaders in the West who "treat rights as an impediment to their conception of the majority will."
The HRW report notes that in Central Asia 2016 saw a brief flicker of hope that the death of long-term authoritarian leader Islam Karimov in September might lead to an easing of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. But HRW says new President Shavkat Mirziyaev has maintained the authoritarian structures set up by Karimov despite his early promises to make improving the life of average citizens a priority.
HRW says the situation for human rights in Tajikistan has deteriorated sharply over the past 12 months as authorities sentenced the leadership of the country’s main opposition party to lengthy prison terms, imprisoned human rights lawyers and other perceived government critics, and predetermined the result of a constitutional referendum that will allow authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon to remain president for life.
Authorities reportedly organized and led numerous acts of retaliation, including incidents of mob violence, against relatives of government critics abroad. Activists reported cases of torture and deaths in custody of persons imprisoned on politically motivated charges. The government continued its multi-year campaign to enforce severe restrictions on religious practice, according to the report.
HRW says the Tajik government has imprisoned more than 150 activists on politically motivated charges since the middle of 2015. Most are lawyers, perceived critics, and members of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT)—the country’s largest opposition party before the government banned it in September 2015. It also continued to seek the extradition of peaceful opposition activists living abroad, mainly those from the opposition movement Group 24.
In September 2016, during the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw, opposition activists staged peaceful protests to raise attention to human rights issues in Tajikistan and also spoke at the conference’s several public sessions. In response, mobs attacked homes belonging to relatives of the activists over the next several days in Kulob, Khujand, Roudaki, Dushanbe, and Danghara. The government organized rallies among college students labeling the activists “enemies of the people.”
In 2016, authorities continued a pattern of arresting, imprisoning, and intimidating numerous attorneys in retaliation for representing political opponents or their willingness to take on politically sensitive cases, according to the report.
HRW notes that with a few notable exceptions, the response of key international partners to Tajikistan’s crackdown on the opposition and perceived critics has remained largely muted.
