Your rights in jeopardy.

2015 was a year that saw a global assault on people’s basic freedoms, with many governments brazenly breaking international law and deliberately undermining institutions meant to protect people’s rights.

International protection of human rights is in danger of unravelling as short-term national self-interest and draconian security crackdowns have led to a wholesale assault on basic freedoms and rights, warned Amnesty International as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world. MAKE THIS A CLICKABLE LINK TO DOWNLOAD REPORT

“Your rights are in jeopardy: they are being treated with utter contempt by many governments around the world,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“Millions of people are suffering enormously at the hands of states and armed groups, while governments  are shamelessly painting the protection of human rights as a threat to security, law and order or national ‘values’.”

Amnesty International is warning of an insidious and creeping trend undermining human rights which has come from governments deliberately attacking, underfunding or neglecting institutions that have been set up to help protect our rights.

“Not only are our rights under threat, so are the laws and the system that protect them. More than 70 years of hard work and human progress lies at risk,” said Salil Shetty.

The United Nations’ human rights bodies, the International Criminal Court, and regional mechanisms such as the Council of Europe and the Inter American Human Rights system, are being undermined by governments attempting to evade oversight of their domestic records.

Amnesty International is calling on governments to politically support and fully fund systems that exist to uphold international law and to protect people’s rights.