World Report: The Dangerous Rise of Populism. Human rights exist to protect people from government abuse and neglect. Rights limit what a state can do and impose obligations for how a state must act. Yet today a new generation of populists is turning this protection on its head. Claiming to speak for “the people,” they treat rights as an impediment to their conception of the majority will, a needless obstacle to defending the nation from perceived threats and evils.

Instead of accepting rights as protecting everyone, they privilege the declared interests of the majority, encouraging people to adopt the dangerous belief that they will never themselves need to assert rights against an overreaching government claiming to act in their name. The appeal of the populists has grown with mounting public discontent over the status quo. In the West, many people feel left behind by technological change, the global economy, and growing inequality.

Horrific incidents of terrorism generate apprehension and fear. Some are uneasy with societies that have become more ethnically, religiously and racially diverse. There is an increasing sense that governments and the elite ignore public concerns.

In this cauldron of discontent, certain politicians are flourishing and even gaining power by portraying rights as protecting only the terrorist suspect or the asylum seeker at the expense of the safety, economic welfare, and cultural preferences of the presumed majority. They scapegoat refugees, immigrant communities, and minorities. Truth is a frequent casualty. Nativism, xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia are on the rise. This dangerous trend threatens to reverse the accomplishments of the modern human rights movement. In its early years, that movement was preoccupied with the atrocities of World War II and the repression associated with the Cold War.

Having seen the evil that governments can do, states adopted a series of human rights treaties to limit and deter future abuse. Modern Family Season 6 Full Episode 1. Protecting these rights was understood as necessary for individuals to live in dignity. Growing respect for rights laid the foundation for freer, safer, and more prosperous societies. But today, a growing number of people have come to see rights not as protecting them from the state but as undermining governmental efforts to defend them. In the United States and Europe, the perceived threat at the top of the list is migration, where concerns about cultural identity, economic opportunity, and terrorism intersect. Encouraged by populists, an expanding segment of the public sees rights as protecting only these “other” people, not themselves, and thus as dispensable. If the majority wants to limit the rights of refugees, migrants, or minorities, the populists suggest, it should be free to do so.

That international treaties and institutions stand in the way only intensifies this antipathy toward rights in a world where nativism is often prized over globalism. It is perhaps human nature that it is harder to identify with people who differ from oneself, and easier to accept violation of their rights. People take solace in the hazardous assumption that the selective enforcement of rights is possible—that the rights of others can be compromised while their own remain secure. But rights by their nature do not admit an à la carte approach. You may not like your neighbors, but if you sacrifice their rights today, you jeopardize your own tomorrow, because ultimately rights are grounded on the reciprocal duty to treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. To violate the rights of some is to erode the edifice of rights that inevitably will be needed by members of the presumed majority in whose name current violations occur. We forget at our peril the demagogues of yesteryear—the fascists, communists, and their ilk who claimed privileged insight into the majority’s interest but ended up crushing the individual.

When populists treat rights as an obstacle to their vision of the majority will, it is only a matter of time before they turn on those who disagree with their agenda. The risk only heightens when populists attack the independence of the judiciary for upholding the rule of law—that is, for enforcing the limits on governmental conduct that rights impose. Such claims of unfettered majoritarianism, and the attacks on the checks and balances that constrain governmental power, are perhaps the greatest danger today to the future of democracy in the West. Spreading Threat and Tepid Response. Rather than confronting this populist surge, too many Western political leaders seem to have lost confidence in human rights values, offering only tepid support. Few leaders have been willing to offer a vigorous defense, with the notable exception, at times, of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and US President Barack Obama. Some leaders seem to have buried their heads in the sand, hoping the winds of populism will blow over. Others, if not seeking to profit from populist passions, seem to wish that emulation of the populists might temper their ascendancy.

British Prime Minister Theresa May denounced “activist left wing human rights lawyers” who dare to challenge British forces for torture in Iraq. French President François Hollande borrowed from the National Front playbook to try to make depriving French- born dual citizens of their nationality a central part of his counterterrorism policy, an initiative he later abandoned and said he regretted. The Dutch government supports restrictions on face veils for Muslim women. Many European leaders now back the call of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to close Europe’s borders, leaving refugees in the lurch. Such mimicry of the populists only reinforces and legitimizes the politicians attacking human rights values. Hungarian PM Orbán and his Bulgarian counterpart Borisov inspect the barbed wire fence constructed on the Bulgarian- Turkish border,  September 1.

Reuters. A similar trend can be found outside the West. Indeed, the rise of Western populists seems to have emboldened several leaders to intensify their flouting of human rights. The Kremlin, for example, has eagerly defended President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule as no worse than the West’s increasingly troubled human rights record. China's Xi Jinping, like Putin, has pursued the toughest crackdown on critical voices in two decades. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey took advantage of a coup attempt to crush opposition voices. President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi of Egypt intensified the crackdown begun after his own coup. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has openly called for summary executions of suspected drug dealers and users—and even of human rights activists who defend them.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India tried to shut down critical civic groups as he closed his eyes to intimidation and hate crimes by Hindu nationalist groups against religious and ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, confident that there is little to fear in the West’s occasional protests, Syrian President Bashir al- Assad, backed by Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has shredded the international laws of war, ruthlessly attacking civilians in opposition- held parts of the country including eastern Aleppo. Several African leaders, feeling vulnerable to domestic or international prosecution themselves, have harshly criticized the International Criminal Court and, in three cases, announced their intention to withdraw from it. To counter these trends, a broad reaffirmation of human rights is urgently needed. The rise of the populists should certainly lead to some soul- searching among mainstream politicians, but not to an abandonment of first principles, by officials or the public. Governments committed to respecting human rights serve their people better by being more likely to avoid the corruption, self- aggrandizing, and arbitrariness that so often accompany autocratic rule.

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Pakistan's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at UNGA says won't be scapegoat in Afghan war, expresses concern over US onus. A month after US President Donald Trump warned Islamabad against providing safe havens to terrorists, Pakistan's prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday said that it cannot be a "scapegoat" for Afghanistan's bloodshed and refused to endorse any "failed strategy" that will prolong suffering of the people in the region. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Abbasi did not explicitly criticise US president Donald Trump's new strategy on Afghanistan but made clear his displeasure with the renewed onus on Pakistan and claimed that there are no Taliban safe havens in his country."Having suffered and sacrificed so much due to our role in the global counter terrorism campaign, it is especially galling for Pakistan to be blamed for the military or political stalemate in Afghanistan," Abbasi said."We are not prepared to be anyone's scapegoat.

Pakistan refuses to be a "scapegoat" for Afghanistan's bloodshed or to fight wars for others, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told the United Nations on Thursday.

Taliban 'safe havens' are located not in Pakistan but in the large tracts of territory controlled by the Taliban in Afghanistan,” he said. Prime Minister of Pakistan Shahid Khaqan Abbasi addressed the United Nations General Assembly Thursday. AP“Yes, cross border attacks do occur. These are mostly conducted by anti- Pakistan terrorists from 'safe havens' across the border. To end all cross border attacks we ask the Afghanistan government and the Coalition to support and complement Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to strengthen border controls and monitor all movement across it,” Abbasi said. However, he said that what Pakistan is not prepared to do is to fight the Afghanistan war on Pakistan's soil.

Nor can it endorse any failed strategy that will prolong and intensify the suffering of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan and other regional countries," Abbasi said in an apparent rebuttal of Trump's new South Asia policy. Watch Online Watch Cardinal Matter Full Movie Online Film more. Abbasi said that 2. Pakistanis have been killed by extremists since the launch of the US war on terror after the 1. September, 2. 00. Abbasi called for a priority on eliminating extremists, including from the Islamic State group and Al- Qaeda, in Afghanistan but ultimately a political solution with the Taliban."Pakistan believes that the urgent and realistic goals in Afghanistan should be: One, concerted action to eliminate the presence in Afghanistan of Daesh, Al- Qaeda and their affiliates including the TTP and Jamaat- ul- Ahrar, which was recently declared a terrorist organisation by the UNSC."Two, promote negotiations between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban – in the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) or any trilateral format – to evolve a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan.

These two steps offer the most realistic prospect of restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan and our region,” he said. Abbasi said apart from the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and its people have suffered the most from four decades of foreign intervention and civil wars in Afghanistan."These wars have blighted our country with the flow of extremists and terrorists, guns and drugs as well as an influx of millions of refugees. They have set back our economic development by decades. Even today, Pakistan is host to over 3 million Afghan refugees.

No one desires peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan,” he said. He said that from 1. Afghanistan, it is clear that peace will not be restored by the continuing resort to military force."Neither Kabul and the Coalition, nor the Afghan Taliban, can impose a military solution on each other. The international community – as expressed in several United Nations resolutions – has concluded that peace can be restored in Afghanistan only through a negotiated settlement,” he said. US and Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of playing a double- game, with the powerful intelligence services - not the civilian government - maintaining ties with extremists. US forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden in 2. Abbottabad, a popular resort for Pakistan's military elite.

Trump, unveiling a new strategy in August, pledged to take a tougher line on Pakistan — making public what had long been more private US frustrations. Trump has sent thousands more US troops into Afghanistan in a bid to defeat the Taliban, reversing his previous calls to end America's longest- ever war. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in his own speech to the United Nations appealed to Pakistan for dialogue, saying that the neighbors can work together to eliminate extremism. With inputs from agencies.