Impunity, Corruption Called Out In Human Rights Report, Offending Politician

Michael Hedges April 5, 2021 - Follow on Twitter

Human rights issues are, like almost everything else, highly politicized. Country to country there is wide disparity of judgement on what is and is not important. Press freedom and freedom of expression are included by some, not by others. And the differences have grown wider since all nations adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), which vowed that "human rights should be protected by the rule of law."

Human rights issues are, like almost everything else, highly politicized. Country to country there is wide disparity of judgement on what is and is not important. Press freedom and freedom of expression are included by some, not by others. And the differences have grown wider since all nations adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), which vowed that “human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”

The United States Department of State (DoS) last week issued its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. DoS Secretary Antony Blinken rebuked the previous US administration which gave a rank-order value to “rights” salient to its right-wing supporters. “One of the core principles of human rights is that they are universal,” said as introduction. “All people are entitled to these rights, no matter where they’re born, what they believe, whom they love, or any other characteristic. Human rights are also co-equal; there is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others.”

The DoS Country Reports highlighted human rights abuses in China against the Uyghar minority, Russia and Belarus against dissidents, Myanmar against protestors, Cuba against free speech and Syria against everybody. Others were cited for corruption.

Mexican authorities were called out for its “grim record of impunity… including the inability to protect journalists.” The report continued: “Journalists were killed or subjected to physical and cyberattacks, harassment, and intimidation (especially by state agents and transnational criminal organizations) in response to their reporting. This limited media’s ability to investigate and report, since many of the reporters who were killed covered crime, corruption, and local politics. High levels of impunity, including for killings or attacks on journalists, resulted in self-censorship and reduced freedom of expression and the press.”

At a press conference the following day (March 31), President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, often referred to as AMLO, railed about the US DoS interfering in its internal affairs. “We don’t get involved in offering opinions about human rights violations in the United States, we’re respectful, we can’t give an opinion about what’s happening in another country.” He then tore into freedom of expression advocate Article 19, cited in the DoS report. “It turns out that this association called Article 19 is financed by foreign companies, even by the State Department. That organization is supported from abroad and what’s more all the people involved with Article 19 belong to the conservative movement that’s against us.”

“What this type of speech generates is hatred that can be translated into other much more serious acts of violence,” replied Article 19 regional director for Mexico and Central America Leopoldo Maldonado to daily newspaper Noroeste (April 1). “We are an international organization, with the support of other organizations and with global visibility, but what happens to those who do not have it?”

A week earlier, Article 19 called the weekly press conferences of President López Obrador “a worrying instrument of misinformation.” The US DoS report criticized state news agency Notimex director Sanjuana Martínez for ordering “journalists to eliminate or not publish content on certain institutions or officials.” The union representing Notimex workers, in the midst of industrial action, accused Sra. Martínez of dismissing workers “in an irregular manner” as well as closing overseas offices. "Obviously all this is a situation from which they want to distract (attention) by attacking us,” observed Sr. Maldonado, “but it is doubly serious, because on the one hand you are not making progress in the substance.”

Article 19 is an international NGO, chartered under UK law in 1987. Its primary advocacy is freedom of expression and freedom of information. The executive director is Quinn McKew, appointed in 2020. It is supported by a range of agencies and foundations including the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA), UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), DW Akademie (Germany), Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and others. Article 19 is affiliated with International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) and Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FIOAnet).

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