The state of human rights in the world worsened last year, and the Czech Republic also has problems

Nationalist and racist forces are on the rise in the world, the status of women has deteriorated and civilians are often left to fend for themselves in conflicts as governments, militaries and armed groups trample human rights standards. Julia Duchrow, head of the German branch of the international organization Amnesty International, stated this in Berlin during the presentation of the annual report on the state of human rights in the world.

According to Duchrow, human rights suffer not only in Ukraine, which is facing a Russian invasion, but also in the Palestinian Gaza Strip or China.

“Bottom line, 2023 was a bad year for human rights because too few governments and people are consistently standing up for them. Too many (governments and people) want to discard human rights as unnecessary burdens,” Duchrow said.

The report, published on Wednesday by the human rights organization Amnesty International, assesses the situation in more than 150 countries and regions. The document notes four negative trends affecting human rights in the world. The first is the worsening situation of civilians in armed conflicts, the second is the failure to fight for gender equality, the third is attacks on human rights activists, and the last area is the misuse of artificial intelligence and surveillance technology.

Duchrow called the war in Ukraine an obvious example of the suffering of civilians. “Even in 2023, Russia continued to commit massive war crimes in Ukraine,” she said. She also mentioned the conflict in Sudan, which she said is not so visible in Europe, but which has left ten million people on the run and 25 million dependent on food aid.

She also strongly criticized the situation in Gaza. She said that the radical Palestinian movement Hamas had committed a war crime by attacking Israel last October. “However, the military intervention of the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip has surpassed all peace. It is accompanied by numerous war crimes and violations of humanitarian law,” she said.

According to Amnesty International, the situation has also worsened in the area of gender equality and the rights of sexual minorities. For example, the report mentions that it is increasingly difficult for women in the US to abort a pregnancy, as abortion is prohibited or severely restricted in 15 states there. Women and girls in Afghanistan face new restrictions, who, according to Duchrow, can no longer work for the UN or non-governmental organizations or in public services. Iran has stepped up its crackdown on women who refuse to cover their hair. They face up to ten years in prison, Duchrow said.

In the section on activists, Amnesty International criticizes the deteriorating conditions for those who defend human rights, fight for better climate protection or promote equal rights of ethnic groups. According to Duchrow, the situation is serious in Colombia, for example, but also in Russia.

The abuse of artificial intelligence is on the rise

Amnesty International’s expert on the digital world, Lena Rohrbach, pointed to the growing problem of abuse of artificial intelligence and control systems. Such technology is deployed by some governments against refugees, opposition and minorities. Amnesty has documented how Facebook fueled violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and how Vietnamese journalists in exile in Berlin faced Predator spyware attacks.

Rohrbach drew attention to the fact that artificial intelligence is being misused by Russia for camera identification of regime opponents and anti-regime demonstrators. In this way, China in turn distinguishes members of the Uyghur Muslim minority, who face discrimination in the country. According to Rohrbach, artificial intelligence was also used by the New York police to recognize faces at demonstrations by activists from the Black Lives Matter movement.

Duchrow also drew attention not only in Germany to the growth of radical attitudes, which are fueled by growing social inequality, uncertainty and fear of the future. “Bad economic times are good times for populists,” she said. She added that populists are also heard in the so-called centrist civil society.

Czech problems

Criticism did not escape the Czech Republic either, to which Amnesty devoted a page and a half in the almost 420-page document.

“Against the background of economic recession and rising inflation, Ukrainians have been exposed to hate speech, harassment and hate crimes,” Amnesty said about the situation of refugees in the Czech Republic. According to the report, Ukrainians also faced obstacles in integration. Although their employment rate was 64 percent, these were mostly poorly paid and unskilled jobs.

Last year, according to Amnesty, the Czech Republic did not even make progress in solving the ongoing de facto segregation of Roma children in education. The Czech branch of the international organization noted that measures to improve the situation were presented by the Ministry of Education at the beginning of this year.

Amnesty noted that Czech MPs rejected an amendment to the Marriage Act for all couples. “Which creates uncertainty about the future of equal rights in marriage,” the report said. And she pointed out that transsexuals seeking legal gender recognition were still required by law to undergo sterilization. “And this despite the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in 2017, according to which this is a violation of human rights,” noted Amnesty.

According to Amnesty, the law on access to abortion remains problematic in the Czech Republic. “Many medical facilities refused to provide abortions to citizens of non-EU countries due to incorrect claims by the Czech Medical Chamber – repeatedly refuted by the Ministry of Health and the Office of the Ombudsman – that the law does not allow this,” the report said.

Amnesty has called arms exports to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates irresponsible because of the risk that they could be used to commit serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

The report also stated that although the Czech government is committed to carbon neutrality by 2050, the country has not yet adopted any law with specific climate goals.