Human Rights Watch warns US heading to 'authoritarianism'

WASHINGTON: Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump was turning the United States into an authoritarian state as democracy declines globally to its lowest ebb in four decades.

Trump’s return to the White House has intensified a “downward spiral” on human rights that was already under pressure from Russia and China, the New York-based advocacy and research group said in its annual report.

“The rules-based international order is being crushed,” HRW said.

In the United States, the group said, Trump has shown “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.”

In descriptions that would have been unthinkable in the US section of its previous annual reports, the group pointed to the deployment of masked, armed agents — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency — which has carried out “hundreds of unnecessarily violent and abusive raids.”

“The administration’s racial and ethnic scapegoating, domestic deployment of National Guard forces in pretextual power grabs, repeated acts of retaliation against perceived political enemies and former officials now critical of him, as well as attempts to expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances, underpin a decided shift toward authoritarianism in the US,” the report said.

Human Rights Watch repeated its finding that the United States engaged in enforced disappearances — a crime under international law — by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

In a recent report, HRW documented allegations by the men, who eventually were allowed into Venezuela, of being tortured including beatings and sexual violence.

‘Less free’ now

Human Rights Watch pointed to metrics by which democracy has declined to the level of 1985 — when the Soviet Union still existed.

“Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States,” it said.

Philippe Bolopion, the group’s executive director, called on countries to form alliances based on respect for human rights and to stand together — including against the tariff-wielding Trump.

“Some countries may be tempted to forge ad hoc alliances on specific issues — one day with China, another with Turkey, another with South Africa,” Bolopion told AFP.

“From our perspective, for such an alliance to be strong and lasting, it must be built on principles and values — democracy, international law, human rights,” he said.

“It can carry weight and provide a degree of security to its members,” he said.

The 529-page report stands in contrast to the latest human rights report issued by the US State Department, which toned down sections on countries friendly to Trump.

The State Department report said El Salvador in 2024 saw “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” and that President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gangs has brought crime to a “historic low.”

The Human Rights Watch report also said that gang violence had “markedly declined” but that in 2025 authorities carried out “widespread abuses, including mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment of detainees and due process violations.”

HRW again renewed its charge that Israel has carried out “crimes against humanity and acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in Gaza.

It said that Israeli authorities in 2025 “escalated their atrocities” which included “killing, maiming, starving and forcibly displacing Palestinians and destroying their homes, schools and infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine.”

Israel has angrily rejected the Human Rights Watch genocide allegation first issued in December 2024, with the United States backing Israel’s stance.