
Trump's first 100 days supercharged a global ‘freefall of rights', says Amnesty
The first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency have 'supercharged' a global rollback of human rights, pushing the world towards an authoritarian era defined by impunity and unchecked corporate power, Amnesty International warns today.
In its annual report on the state of human rights in 150 countries, the organisation said the immediate ramifications of Trump's second term had been the undermining of decades of progress and the emboldening of authoritarian leaders.
Describing a 'freefall' in human rights, the report said growing inaction over the climate crisis, violent crackdowns on dissent and a mounting backlash against the rights of migrants, refugees, women, girls and LGBTQ+ people could be traced to the so-called Trump effect.
Amnesty warned the situation would deteriorate further this year as Trump continued to dismantle the rules-based world order that Washington helped to build from the devastation of the second world war.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, described the US president's swift and deliberate targeting of international institutions designed to make the world safer and fairer as 'terrifying'.
'You look forward to the end of this decade and wonder whether the basic frameworks and underpinnings of not just human rights but international law will still be standing. You probably haven't been able to say that since 1935,' he said.
Amnesty's report also documents how mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and lethal force are becoming increasingly widespread tools of repression.
In Bangladesh, 'shoot-on-sight' orders during student protests led to hundreds of deaths; Mozambique's disputed elections similarly sparked a deadly crackdown; and Turkey also imposed draconian bans on demonstrations.
The report also identified global inaction as an area of concern, particularly in relation to Sudan's ruinous civil war. One of the warring sides there, the Rapid Support Forces, has been accused of repeatedly carrying out mass sexual violence against women and girls yet international action remains muted.
Trump's sweeping foreign aid cuts had made conditions worse across the world, Amnesty said, closing crucial programmes in states such as Yemen and Syria, leaving children and survivors of conflict without access to food, shelter or healthcare.
Amnesty also raised concerns over failures to uphold international humanitarian law, citing Israel's military operations in Gaza.
In Europe, Amnesty said Russia killed more Ukrainian civilians in 2024 than the previous year and continued to target non-military infrastructure. Trump is proposing that Ukraine cede territory to Russia as part of peace proposals dismissed as appeasement by critics.
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Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general, said: 'Trump has shown only utter contempt for universal human rights – emboldening anti-rights movements worldwide and letting corporate allies run amok.'
Looking further ahead, the report warned that governments risked failing future generations on the climate, economic inequality and corporate power.
It cited the collapse of the UN's Cop29 climate conference, under fossil-fuel corporations' influence, while rich countries 'bullied' low-income nations into accepting inadequate climate financing.
Trump's exit from the crucial Paris climate agreement threatened 'to drag others with him', Amnesty warned.
Elsewhere, against a backdrop of scapegoating migrants, 'billionaires gained wealth as global poverty reduction stalled', it said.
Women, girls and LGBTQ+ people faced intensifying attacks in a number of countries including Afghanistan and Iran, while LGBTQ+ rights were targeted in Uganda, Georgia and Bulgaria.
'The Trump administration fanned the flames, cutting support for gender equality and dismantling protections for trans people and women globally,' Amnesty said.
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The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
Veterans slam Trump's ‘political' deployment of Marines and National Guard to LA: ‘Citizens are not enemy combatants'
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'When I joined the Marine Corps, I swore an oath — not to a person, not to a party, but to the Constitution,' said Marine veteran Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, a national nonpartisan advocacy group. 'What we're seeing now is a deliberate effort to turn the military into a political prop,' she told The Independent. Trump is not deploying troops for national defense but 'domestic intimidation,' she added. 'That's not just just politicizing the military — it's crossing a dangerous line,' Goldbeck told The Independent. Trump's military threats are 'how authoritarian regimes take power' and signal the president's wider ambitions for 'the weaponization of the military for political gain,' according to veterans advocacy group Common Defense. 'The militarized response to protests in Los Angeles is a dangerous escalation that undermines civil rights and betrays the principles we swore to uphold,' Army veteran and Common Defense political director Naveed Shah said. 'The idea that Marines would be deployed to suppress the very people we're meant to protect is a disgrace. It's un-American,' Marine Corps veteran and Common Defense organizer Jojo Sweatt added. The last time a president federalized the National Guard against the will of a state governor was in 1965, when then-President Lyndon Johnson deployed troops to protect civil rights advocates marching from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery — two weeks after the violence of 'Bloody Sunday' on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Johnson did so after Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace told the president that his state 'refuses to provide for the safety and welfare' of the marchers, according to Johnson's proclamation. But 60 years later, Trump is deploying troops not to defend civil rights activists but to protect law enforcement and federal property. Activating troops against the wishes of California Gov. 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Invoking 'protective power' authority without any geographical limits effectively creates an unprecedented and 'dangerous' nationwide order, according to Lee. Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act, though the president and administration officials have repeatedly labeled protesters 'insurrectionists' and 'seditionists' — sparking fears that the president is laying the groundwork for mass deployment of military assets across the country. Instead, Trump is currently relying on a far more limited statute that taps his 'protective power' authority, which does not allow the military to conduct law enforcement activities — unlike the Insurrection Act, which is excluded from federal statute that bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement. 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We could see a clash and crisis between Trump and governors and mayors across America like we've never seen.' A lawsuit from watchdog group American Oversight called the deployment 'an opening salvo in a coordinated national strategy and not simply an isolated incident.' The lawsuit is seeking records from the Trump administration regarding the use of military assets in immigration enforcement and 'potential authorities his administration would invoke to authorize federalizing law enforcement.' 'Deploying the military to quash protests over the administration's inhumane and legally dubious immigration policies — especially over the objection of elected state leaders — is a dangerous, though unfortunately predictable, escalation by the Trump administration,' according to American Oversight executive director Chioma Chukwu. 'If left unchecked, this abuse of power under thin legal pretense can be readily replicated across other states in the future,' he said in a statement. 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NBC News
26 minutes ago
- NBC News
Harvard gets new legal backing from 5 Ivies and over 12,000 alumni
Twenty four universities, including five Ivy League schools, and more than 12,000 alumni took measures to back Harvard University in its legal battle against the Trump administration, which has threatened it with slashing billions of dollars in grants. Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania, along with several other schools, filed an amicus brief on Monday in support of the nation's oldest university, arguing that the funding freeze would impact more than just Harvard, due to the interconnectedness of scientific research, and would ultimately hinder American innovation and economic growth. Also on Monday, the group of 12,041 Harvard alumni filed a separate brief describing the withholding of funds as a 'reckless and unlawful' attempt to assert control over the school and other higher education institutions. 'The escalating campaign against Harvard threatens the very foundation of who we are as a nation,' the alumni said in the brief. 'We embrace our responsibility to stand up for our freedoms and values, to safeguard liberty and democracy, and to serve as bulwarks against these threats to the safety and well-being of all.' The amicus briefs aim to provide expertise or insight to the court, but the schools and individuals are not parties in the lawsuit itself. The filings come after Harvard in April rejected the government's list of 10 demands, including auditing viewpoints of the student body, a move that the administration says is aimed at addressing antisemitism on campus. After the government threatened to freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60 million 'in multi-year contract value,' Harvard hit back with a lawsuit. The brief filed by the universities included other prominent institutions like Georgetown, Johns Hopkins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The only Ivy League schools missing were Cornell and Columbia universities. The schools argued that the partnership between the government and academia has long led to critical advancements, from the The Human Genome Project to the Covid-19 vaccine. And that funding cuts to one school could endanger research at others. Harvard, MIT and Princeton, for example, have received funding from the National Institutes of Health for a project that could potentially yield tools to treat Alzheimer's disease. 'The work cannot continue at individual sites; MIT cannot use machine learning to uncover patterns, for example, without data from Princeton and Harvard,' the brief said. The universities said in the brief that the cuts would only cause more harm to the United States' ability to compete in science and academia. 'These cuts to research funding risk a future where the next pathbreaking innovation — whether it is a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's, a military technology, or the next Internet — is discovered beyond our shores, if at all,' the brief said. 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'We unequivocally condemn antisemitism and every other form of discrimination and hate, which have no place at Harvard or anywhere else in our society,' the alumni said in its brief. 'Yet charges of antisemitism — particularly without due process and proper bases and findings by the Government — should not be used as a pretext for the illegal and unconstitutional punishment and takeover of an academic institution by the Government.' The government's demands on Harvard, the alumni said in the brief, 'have little or nothing to do with combating antisemitism' or any other form of discrimination on campus. 'Rather, its demands stifle the very engagement, teaching, and research that bring communities together, heighten our understanding of one another, and advance solutions that directly benefit us all,' the brief said. The show of legal support comes amid a monthslong back-and-forth between the administration and Harvard University. 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The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
People in Los Angeles: share your reaction to the protests and military mobilization
Los Angeles is reeling after a series of immigration raids led to widespread protests over the weekend and Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of ordering thousands of US military troops to descend on the city, a move that California leaders have decried as 'inflammatory'. Raids on Friday in areas of the city with large Latino populations led to mainly peaceful demonstrations, but the protests turned violent when federal immigration authorities used flashbang grenades and teargas against demonstrators. Over the weekend, fiery and chaotic scenes played out in downtown LA, Compton and Paramount, with dozens of people arrested. Donald Trump has been accused of intentionally fanning the flames with his decision on Monday to send in 700 marines and another 2,000 national guard troops to LA, adding to 2,000 already sent to the city on Saturday. While Trump has said the deployment was essential for maintaining order, the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, accused the administration of using the city as an 'experiment', while Gavin Newsom, California's governor, called the decision to send in troops without his permission 'purposefully inflammatory'. We would like to hear from people living in LA about the latest events in the city. How do you feel about the immigration raids? What is your reaction to the national guard and marines being deployed? You can send us your thoughts on recent events in LA using this form. Please share your story if you are 18 or over, anonymously if you wish. For more information, please see our terms of service and privacy policy. Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For true anonymity please use our SecureDrop service instead. If you're having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.