Human Rights Watch Deems Trump a Threat

Human Rights Watch has singled out President-elect Donald Trump as a threat to human rights after analyzing his campaign. In a 687-page report published earlier this week, the nonprofit watchdog has called Trump’s campaign “a vivid illustration of the politics of intolerance.” “Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk,” the group said in a statement on Friday. While the report – titled “Demagogues Threaten Human Rights” – analyzed politics throughout Europe in addition to the U.S. elections, Trump was given special attention. His “campaign floated proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, said in his introduction to the report. As the president-elect prepares to take office, he joins the ranks of other populist politicians who “seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism,” Roth warned. The report also calls out authorities in Russia, Turkey, China and the Philippines for ignoring basic human rights.