According to Cécile Coudriou, president of Amnesty International France, the rise of authoritarianism is “a big trend all over the world“. Asked about France Inter to comment on the publication this Tuesday of its 2021 report, entitled “Why the next world didn’t happen“, she believes that “it’s quite damaging” because “67 countries have created new laws to restrict what is called civic space, the space in which we can precisely express dissent“.
Cécile Coudriou indicates that “many countries also repressed these dissidents. It is in fact in 84 countries that so-called human rights defenders have been savagely repressed, in 17 out of 19 countries in the Middle East, for example“. So for the president of Amnesty International France, “these are really heavy tendencies to no longer support the slightest criticism, in particular in connection with the pandemic, but not only“.
Cécile Coudriou takes the example of China or even Russia “where there is also a lot of digital surveillance, new tools, including Pegasus, made by NSO in Israel“. And so, “increased means to be able to monitor and track people who disagree with governments“.
These drifts, Cécile Coudriou also says to observe them in democratic countries “including in France“, in particular through the fight against terrorism.”And it is also in 85 countries all the same that there was excessive use of force against demonstrators“, she recalls. “So yes, today it is very dangerous to defend human rights, whether online or in the streets“.
Finally, Amnesty International France points in its report to the multiplication of conflicts “when all eyes are on Ukraine, understandably“, says Cécile Coudriou. “But I am thinking in particular of Syria, which is entering its eleventh year of an extremely deadly conflict for civilians. (…) I am also thinking of an even more forgotten war which is that of Yemen. Yet seven years, with such devastating consequences for civilian populations“. And also to recall the war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, “where it really is atrocities that are committed“.