U.S. Is Added to Human Rights Watchlist
U.S. Is Added to Human Rights Watchlist
The United States was added Sunday to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, due to declining civil liberties.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/61327376
“The Trump Administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society,” said Mandeep Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS, in a press release. “Restrictive Executive Orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the Administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal.”
Don't give the Administration all the credit, Congress deserves some credit, also, for enabling this imperial Presidency and abdicating its role as a check on the Presidency just because of the (R) after his name.
The Courts have bent over backwards, also, to find minor jurisdictional reasons to delay having to put out any firm rulings against the Administration.
The Courts have bent over backwards, also, to find minor jurisdictional reasons to delay having to put out any firm rulings against the Administration.
Can you imagine what it's going to be like teaching law in the next decade? I'm not jealous
No, it will be easy. The law will be whatever President Donald Trump Jr. and Chief Justice Eric Trump say it is. Easy peasy!
I sometimes tutor government, and I’ve had some crazy moments where just reading the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution out loud seems like it’s almost dangerous.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
Thomas Jefferson was brilliant, even he was a slaver and child rapist.
Conservatives are on record threatening to take away law school funding if they don't start teaching their made up theories like constitutionalism and originalism. The problem is there is no legal premise or theory behind them because they just made it all up.
Can you imagine what it’s going to be like teaching law in the next decade?
"Do what the President says. Class dismissed."
The US has been flagrantly and unabashedly rolling back civil rights reforms and imposing fascist dragnets since the fucking Nixon Administration. That it's taken the rest of the world this long to notice is more a sign of our deteriorating economic position than anything specific to the Trump administration.
Nobody was putting the US on a watchlist when we started snatching people and shoving them into Gitmo, over twenty years ago. Nobody seemed to care when we laid siege to the Ecuadorian Embassy in an attempt to illegally extradite Julian Assange or when we handed Israel a fresh batch of ordinance to assassinate Al-Jazeera journalists and Gaza City ambulance drivers. Hell, you can open the whole big ole Black Book of American War Crimes - from paying Contras to rape Nuns in Nicaragua to carpet bombing wedding parties in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to propping up military juntas across The Philippines and Indonesia to hunt labor organizers for sport.
Like, fuck this country. But fuck all those NATO and NAFTA shills that went along with our decades of atrocity.
this is so fucking pathetic to see, and if America keeps this up they're gonna drive all their smart capable people out of the country. I'm currently seeing if I can use my engineering experience to get a job overseas tbh. tired of living in this Idiocracy
I really think that's part of the plan. If all the smart libruls leave then they can guarantee their future electoral victories. It's the same with the anti-trans and abortion legislation in backwater states. Make life miserable for those affected, they leave to greener pastures, Repubs lock down their states for another generation.
Yeah, they don't really seem overly concerned with maintaining electoral majorites. Or the vote. Or the rule of law. Or the Constitution, etc...
Freedom of travel is a constitutional right, BTW. There is no need for internal passport, unlike Russia... whom they admire and want to emulate...
A lot of us left a loooong time ago..
Read the actual Watchlist entry instead of Time magazine: https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/
The United States of America (USA) has been added to our Watchlist as the country faces increasing undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term. Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association.
Following his inauguration on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump has issued at least 125 executive orders, dismantling federal policies with profound implications for human rights and the rule of law. Some of these orders have eliminated federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, falsely framing them as discriminatory, and have introduced measures targeting undocumented migrants and transgender and non-conforming people.
Since mid-January, many civil society organisations, both in the US and abroad, have been forced to terminate or scale back essential human rights and humanitarian programmes due to growing uncertainty caused by the arbitrary suspension of foreign aid and a broad freeze on federal funding. The lack of clear guidelines has sparked legal challenges at the national level.
The administration has taken steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a decades-old institution, and laid off thousands of its employees. It has also withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council, exited the Paris Climate Agreement, rejected the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, and announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), targeting its personnel as well as individuals and entities that cooperate with it. These actions could further undermine global efforts for climate justice, human rights, and civic freedoms.
These measures come amid a broader potential curb on the freedom of association. On 21 November 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bill allowing the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of non-profits it deems to be supporting terrorism, without due process guarantees. This would grant the executive branch sweeping authority to financially cripple civil society organisations based on broad and vague criteria.
The sustained onslaught on peaceful pro-Palestine solidarity at university campuses has seen students and faculty members increasingly subjected to harsh sanctions without justification. On 30 January 2025, President Donald Trump, signed an executive order purportedly aimed at combating antisemitism, which calls for the cancellation of visas and the deportation of non-citizen college students and others who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. On the same day, reports alleged that a far-right group was compiling a list of pro-Palestine protesters for potential deportation.
Authorities have also targeted climate justice activists protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline project in Virginia and financial institutions supporting fossil fuel expansion. Another concern is the growing role of private corporations in suppressing environmental activism. Two key developments exemplify this: the USD 300 million lawsuit against Greenpeace by the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline; and research exposing the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving the proliferation of anti-protest laws.
The first months of 2025 have seen an alarming legislative push in multiple states, further threatening restrictions on the freedom of peaceful assembly. At least 12 state-level bills introduced between January and February 2025 would impose new restrictions on protests. Notably, bills in Indiana (SB 286), Iowa (HF 25), Missouri (HB 601), New York (S 723), and North Dakota (HB 1240) seek to criminalise the use of masks during protests. They could also expose protesters to heightened surveillance technologies and intimidation tactics, as evidenced by the doxingattempts over the past year against pro-Palestine protesters.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s new bill (SF 1363) introduces new civil and criminal liabilities for those supporting protesters who engage peacefully in demonstrations on a critical public service facility, pipelines or other utility property. These restrictions show a broader trend since 2017 of escalating constraints on protests and could trigger a new wave of repression against those expressing dissenting views.
There are also serious concerns about freedom of expression and access to information, particularly for journalists covering politically sensitive issues. On 11 February 2025, two journalists from the Associated Press (AP) were banned access to White House-related press briefings due to the agency’s editorial policy to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally recognised denomination rather than the presidentially decreed “Gulf of America.” AP filed a lawsuit against administration officials, but a federal judge denied the agency’s request for the immediate restoration of full access to presidential events for its journalists, ruling that access to the president is at his discretion and not a constitutional right.
Moreover, on 25 February, the White House press secretary announced that the administration will decide which media outlets can access the presidential press pool. These recent decisions raised concerns about unprecedented restrictions on public access to independent reporting on government affairs.
Thanks for the link - not sure if this comm allows non-news links which is one reason for the time link. (the other is it's a crosspost but that's less relevant)
oh no worries, I didn't mean to come across as critical - I just was reading the Time article and then realized it was mostly regurgitation of the CIVICUS watchlist itself.
I’m happier every single day I’m not American.
I'm a newfoundlander. In some alternate history, if Newfoundland hadn't joined Canada, I might have been American
that shit is terrifying
I'm happy every day they stay on their side of the border.
Not all of America is suffering like this. There's tons of other countries here.
Good. I was afraid the human rights abuses would be overlooked just because it's the US
Well, our rates of incarceration, treatment of PoC and indigenous populations should have landed us on the list long before trump took office the first time. I think what this shows is that the USA has completely pissed away it's soft power to the point where international organizations can include the the US without fear of retaliation.
But....but....aren't we exceptional? 🙄
Exceptionally fuckin evil.
Mustache twirlingly evil even.
I'm still waiting for Europe and Canada to finally grow a pair and label Trump's government a hostile administration and deal with him accordingly. I understand they're probably hedging on the next presidency to change things, but at this rate there will never be elections again.
in Canada it won't happen before the election (my guess)
I probably would have done that a couple of months ago, but I only live here
Should have happened decades ago.