World leaders abandoning human rights: Amnesty

World leaders are undermining human rights for millions of people with regressive policies and hate-filled rhetoric, but their actions have ignited global protest movements in response, a rights group said.

US President Donald Trump, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and China's President Xi Jinpingwere among a number of politicians who rolled out regressive policies in 2017, according to Amnesty International's annual human rights report published on Thursday.

The human rights body also mentioned the leaders of Egypt, the Philippines and Venezuela.

"The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times," Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary-general, said.

"Instead, leaders such as el-Sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin, Trump and Xi are callously undermining the rights of millions."

Amnesty's The State of the World's Human Rights report cites Trump's controversial travel ban prohibiting entrants to the US from six Muslim-majority countries, Venezuelan authorities' use of force against demonstrators and unlawful killings in the Philippines' anti-drug war as evidence of policies resulting in an international regression on human rights.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since June 2016 in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug campaign, according to an internal report.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN's human rights chief, has denounced Venezuela's excessive use of force against anti-government protesters, stating pro-government security forces and armed groups were responsible for dozens of demonstrator deaths between April and July last year.

New era of activism

The regressive approach to human rights adopted by a number of world leaders has, however, inspired new waves of social activism and protest, Amnesty said, highlighting the example of the Women's March in January last year, which began in the US before becoming a global protest.

Margaret Huang, Amnesty's executive director in the US, said the movement had showcased the power of public protest.

"Defenders of human rights around the world can look to the people of the United States to stand with them, even where the US government has failed," Huang said.

"Activists from across the country remind us that the fight for universal human rights has always been waged and won by people in their communities."

The Women's March movement saw rallies take place in several US cities, and more than 600 locations worldwide, during January 2017 in protest over perceived anti-women comments made by Trump during his successful presidential election campaign

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