The human rights organization Human Rights Watch warned on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump is transforming the United States into an authoritarian state, as democracy globally is at its lowest level in 40 years.
This is stated in the organization's annual report.
According to Human Rights Watch, Trump's return to the White House has accelerated what the organization describes as a global downward spiral of human rights, which is already under pressure from Russia and China.
- The rules-based international order is being shattered, says Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Blatant violation of rights
In the United States, Trump has, according to the organization, demonstrated "blatant disregard for human rights and flagrant violations."
HRW points, among other things, to the deployment of masked, armed agents in the form of the immigration authority ICE and the "hundreds of unnecessarily violent and crude raids".
It assesses that a number of elements under Trump point to a clear shift towards authoritarianism in the United States.
Authoritarianism is characterized by the concentration of power in a few hands, while political freedoms and democratic rights are restricted.
Among them are what HRW calls the Trump administration's racial and ethnic scapegoating policy and repeated reprisals against individuals perceived as Trump's political enemies as well as former officials who are now critical of him.
Democracy in the world has fallen to the level of 1985
HRW also mentions attempts to expand the powers of the executive branch and to weaken democratic checks and balances.
The organization also reiterates its assessment that the United States has been behind enforced disappearances - a violation of international law - by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security mega-prison in El Salvador.
In a recent report, HRW documented that the men who were eventually allowed to enter Venezuela had been tortured and subjected to both violence and sexual assault.
HRW estimates that democracy has fallen to the level of 1985, when the Soviet Union still existed.
- Russia and China are less free today than they were 20 years ago. And so is the United States, it says.
/ritzau/AFP
