Stoking Fear to Undermine Rights in Hungary: Daily Brief

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November 29, 2023
By Andrew Stroehlein
Contact me at DailyBriefTeam@hrw.org and Twitter @astroehlein.

In today's Daily Brief:

Pakistan’s New Wave of Abuse
Stoking Fear to Undermine Rights in Hungary
16 Days of Activism on Gender-Based Violence
Take Note: Other Key Stories

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Pakistan Unleashes Abuse against Afghans

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Pakistani authorities’ fresh efforts to “convince” Afghans there to return to Afghanistan can be summarized in one word: abuse.

Police and other officials have carried out mass detentions, night raids, and beatings against Afghans. They’ve seized property and livestock, and bulldozed homes. They’ve also demanded bribes, confiscated jewelry, and destroyed identity documents. Pakistani police have sometimes sexually harassed Afghan women and girls and threatened them with sexual assault.

This wave of ugliness is all aimed at pushing Afghan refugees and asylum seekers to leave Pakistan. The deportations we highlighted here previously are now happening in larger numbers – some 20,000 people have been deported since mid-September. The threats and abuses have forced out far more: some 355,000.

It’s all completely at odds with Pakistan’s international obligations not to forcibly return people to countries where they face a clear risk of torture or other persecution.

Among those being deported or coerced to leave are people who would be at risk of persecution in Afghanistan, including women and girls, human rights defenders, journalists, and former government employees who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

Some of those at risk had previously been promised resettlement in the US, UK, Germany, and Canada, but resettlement processes are not proceeding quickly enough. Those governments need to get moving.

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of people into Afghanistan “couldn’t have come at a worse time,” as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said. The country faces a prolonged economic crisis that has left two thirds of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, and now, winter is setting in.

The new arrivals come with almost nothing, because Pakistani authorities have prohibited Afghans from taking out more than 50,000 Pakistani rupees (US$ 175) each. Humanitarian agencies have described shortages of tents and other basic services for those arriving.

Forcing people into life-threatening conditions in Afghanistan is unconscionable. Pakistani authorities have unleashed a wave of abuses and put hundreds of thousands at risk. They need to reverse course. Quickly.

Stoking Fear to Undermine Rights in Hungary

Be afraid.

That’s what Hungary’s ruling party is telling the Hungarian public in submitting a new bill to parliament. And people should be afraid of mysterious foreign forces most of all.

Hungary’s new “defence of national sovereignty” bill is the latest move by the ruling party to silence critical voices. If it becomes law, it would give a government-controlled body broad powers to target civil society and independent media.

Predictably, the head of the powerful, new office would be hand-picked by the prime minister, Viktor Orbán. The bill’s vague wording would enable the government to target exactly those groups seeking to hold the government to account.

It’s all supposedly justified, because, according to the bill: “Hungary's sovereignty is increasingly under attack.”

This is right out of the authoritarian playbook: invent an enemy, and then pretend to fight that enemy. That’s how you try to convince people to go along with their rights being undermined. Be afraid, but we’ll protect you. Eyeroll.

Hungary is still an EU member state, however, and it has related obligations concerning fundamental rights. If the law is adopted, the EU Commission should recognize it as yet another attack by Hungary’s ruling party on democracy and the rule of law, and respond accordingly.

Ending Gender-Based Violence at Work

(written by Emily Palomo)

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The “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence” is a global campaign from November 25 to December 10. This year, Human Rights Watch will be highlighting the stories of activists pushing their governments to end violence and harassment at work.

Dur e Shawar, vice president of Pakistan Worker’s Federation, is one of Pakistan’s activists leading the campaign to push Pakistan’s government to ratify the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Violence and Harassment at Work (C190).

Dur e believes the convention is a powerful tool to eliminate gender-based violence for women workers, including those in the informal economy.

According to the ILO, there are nearly two billion workers in informal employment, representing 6 in 10 workers globally. In low-income countries, informal workers make up 89 percent of total employment, where women workers are overrepresented in the least secure and lowest-paying occupations.

Ratifying C190 is a fundamental aspect of creating a “safe and equitable work environment that benefits everyone involved”, especially high-risk informal workers.