Date for now those are the latest headlines from us here at aljazeera coming up next its inside story. Once held in one of australias toughest Detention Centers now a world renowned surgeon one of when his fellows dr moon us as returns to his hometown baghdad to give amputees the hope of walking again at this time on aljazeera. Amnesty international slams what it calls trump led politics of hate for eating away at human rights around the world as things deteriorate protest movements have been created to fight back but will activism turn the tide on certain policies this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program. Its a report which frankly paints one of the bleakest pictures in living memory of the state of human rights around the world u. S. President donald trump has been singled out by Amnesty International for in its words setting a dangerous precedent for other governments to follow the organizations annual report says trump and other leaders including Russias Vladimir Putin china xi jinping and egypt and the fact that his sisi are callously undermining the rights of millions of people amnesty says weve seen the ultimate consequence of hateful politics in what it describes as the horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing against me and mars or him to people and it accuses the world of having a feeble response to reports of severe rights abuses not only in me and more but also at all of south sudan syria and yemen well get to our guests in a moment but first this report from pedicle hanan washington. A bleak assessment on the state of human rights in twenty seventeen they will not look back and draw any lessons from this they will look back and they will see that they will all have to draw the drafting of some of the dockers chapter in modern history the forward of the four hundred page report takes aim at specific countries first and foremost me and mar accusing the government of committing crimes against humanity which forced almost seven hundred thousand Rohingya Muslims to flee it singles out saudi arabias blockade for creating a humanitarian catastrophe in yemen all of the countries fighting eisel in iraq and syria for not protecting civilians and south sudan for crimes which forced thousands of people to flee from their donald j. Trump is called it calls out the United States calling president Donald Trumps plan to ban entry from citizens of several muslim majority countries a transparently hateful move and it blames european leaders for creating the conditions for what it calls shocking abuses of refugees in libya it names countries it says are consistently violating human rights such as turkey china russia then israel and egypt and iran it also pointed the finger at six african countries for stifling public protests this is the very first time that Amnesty International has chosen to unveil their annual report here in the United States and they chose the Capitol Building they say in large part because they believe what they call his nationalistic and sometimes even hateful rhetoric and policies of President Donald Trump are spreading across the globe anything of the us does has a massive in a Multiplier Effect across the world but they want em boredom by the fact that you know playing on human rights abandon me human values is something which is acceptable today we asked the white house for a response but didnt hear back as for Amnesty International it says its not all bad out there it sees the rise of hate being met with the rise of a resistance from the u. S. One. To poland. Then its way lower to iran. Which embassy says gives it some hope that just maybe twenty eighteen wont be quite as bleak in so many places the party calling aljazeera washington. All right lets bring in our guests now in washington so little shaddy secretary general of Amnesty International and london im all that you care a codirector of the institute on statelessness and inclusion and joining us on skype from jakarta been germans a walkie a human rights researcher and Southeast Asia analyst thank you all for joining us i want to start with you you say efforts of u. S. President donald trump to ban him free to all citizens of several muslim majority countries based on their nationality was a transparently hateful move what kind of effect has that had on the rest of the world. Its the United States is one of the most powerful countries in the world and president tom started as Electoral Campaign with a very hateful divisive rhetoric against women against minorities against muslims and then in the last one report shows how this is played out into concrete actions and policies its not just the discriminatory muslim travel ban its also the massive reduction in the refugee settlement numbers in the United States its never been as low as the since one nine hundred eighty hes also introduced the global gag rule which means that one point eight billion dollars have been cut in terms of womens reproductive rights now i travel across the world and meet leaders from so many countries and you know youll see you immediately hear them talk about you know why are you asking us about our human rights record when the country which has been the long term champion of human rights itself is flagrantly violating human rights i mean the two people that come to mind immediately the two countries and the two leaders presidency seen egypt and Prime Minister netanyahu in israel who you know you can see them starting out on the world stage you know brazenly while eating human rights because they feel a direct sense of empowerment and emboldening with the great image from president jumper and his administration but i can give you many more examples of this been jamin the amnesty report says that hate filled rhetoric by leaders was normalizing discrimination against minorities what is your reaction to that and how do you see that playing out where you are. Well i would echo what selena has said about the rest of the world the examples he gave were in the middle east israel and and egypt but certainly the same can be said in Southeast Asia its an area in which at the minorities political rate in some cases i think minorities if put together would would make up a much larger majority in their in their individual countries than the the predominant ethnic majority does and you have the religious minorities as well which sometimes overlap with those ethnic minorities and what you have throughout Southeast Asia is likewise leaders at the National Level saying saying too to me and to others look the president of the most powerful country in the world has essentially legitimized racism both within his country these are the minorities and in terms of some of the statements he has made about other countries offhand statements derogatory statements racist statements and also be his policies in denying refugees from certain countries from being able to to enter the country not to mention that those countries are also predominately muslim and so you have throughout Southeast Asia a situation in which you have both ethnic and religious minorities sometimes with those labels being conflated more blatantly being discriminated the discriminated against and having their rights violated on account of an example being set as far away as washington im of building on what benjamin just said how much harder does that make the work that you and your colleagues do in trying to stand up for human rights in the regions where you work. But we were globally on the on the sure statelessness which we see very much as. One of the most fundamental human rights issues and what the Amnesty International report very powerfully can with is that states increasingly. Using nationality using migration status or a lack of migration status as a means of discrimination and exclusion against Minority Groups and we see this having a terrible impact in terms of the right to nationality and the rights that flow once people do have a nationality and then in the report itself there are examples from the Dominican Republic from bahrain obviously me and man the ruling a situation and many others which could to this very important. Overlap between the right to nationality and the right to other rights and the role that discrimination plays in terms of this this report of Amnesty International and it shows that theres a lot more work to be done in this field so will one of the issues at the forefront of amnesties reporting this year is of course the return to refugee crisis now when i was reporting on the ranger crisis out of bangladesh this past october i met a woman a really interrupt you g. Who said to me that the fact that this can happen in this day and age doesnt just mean that her people are in danger it means that everybody around the world is in danger is that sentiment in line with what is being reported by Amnesty International this year absolutely at a many levels because you know crisis which sort of erupted in august of last year is not a new crisis amnesty is when reporting on the discrimination against iran there for a long time and you know what happened in august of last year was that hundreds of of thousands. People in just a Minority Group will pushed out of me and murder which is clearly a case of ethnic cleansing and i think shes absolutely right that you know this this phenomenon is happening in so many places in so many different ways and what is shocking is that its not just the callousness of the Myanmar Military you know and particularly general on mainland whos really directly responsible for what would happen in myanmar but its also the kind of complete indifference of the International Community and the cynical way in which the we do is used in the Security Council because at the end of the day if the Security Council is not the permanent five members are not able to act on something as you know the kind of levels of crimes against humanity walk rahms that we are seeing in in syria in in myanmar myanmar is a very clear case where you know people of fairly sure the permanent fire sure that any resolution put to take action to hold the Myanmar Military accountable will be vetoed by china so shes absolutely right that you know what we are seeing is a mainstreaming and normalization of hate divisiveness and you know really an us was is them a kind of scapegoating of minorities which were seeing in so many parts of the world bitterman building on what sylvia was just saying in the past youve written that although the root causes of the range of crisis are within me and more their effects are felt regionally and or of relevance elsewhere where are those effects being felt and how. Well i think the being felt to echo so little as far away this as new york i mean look there is there is it would be wrong to take the onus of responsibility for the for the ethnic cleansing for the potential genocide in myanmar away from the me im our army of the man im our authorities but the larger failure here we are six months removed from the beginning of this crisis and you referred to it earlier as a as a refugee crisis thats been referred to a state was this crisis those are crises that then are more more appropriately labeled in times of peace but you still have people being being forced out of myanmar you have people being exploited in bangladesh and its been six months since this has taken place over seven hundred thousand ranges have crossed the border have been forced across the border as grave as the as the commission of crimes against humanity potentially genocide has been by the b. M. R. Authorities as great has been the International Communitys refusal to take to take action that the world is increasingly globalized there is no no longer is there is there the plausible denial or the plausible ignorance of what has taken place. So when it comes to International Peace and security the very mandate of the u. N. Security council it is abjectly failed the United States china and the other three permanent members of an object we failed the ridges in for years for decades indeed weve talked about never again and yet it seems that every five to ten years theres a situation that that gives the world the opportunity to make good on that pledge to make good on that promise and yet time and time again we have failed. So imo when we talk about statelessness son and we talk about the oh sorry so well go go ahead were you going to say no i was just wanting to i was just going to make one point you know because in all of these places interestingly were talking a lot about you know developing countries where. This kind of atrocity crimes are happening but our report also refers to the way in which europe is treating its. People who are fleeing from war and persecution reaching the shores of europe i mean were talking more pushbacks into libya where where the conditions are just shocking but the pattern youll seen all these countries where the myanmar example or syria or or yemen you know the language thats used to attack and push secured minorities and people who are weak good and what is less is always couched around two main themes one is the National Security and counterterrorism so essentially anybody you dont like is a terrorist and secondly the language of Economic Development and growth that you know this is putting our Country Economic you know this is a sort of trumps argument in this country which is that you know we have to make America Great again and we will make America Great again by violating other peoples human rights i mean its the most absurd conception but this is what has gained currency amongst this group of leaders which is the head hunted center and i want to get back for a minute to the issue of statements is because obviously its in the report by Amnesty International but also with something youve written about what are some of the key factors of being stateless and how much of the human rights of stateless people affected nowadays. I mean swiss is statelessness is largely a phenomenon that relates to discrimination where because of gender discrimination discrimination against race racial or ethnic groups religious groups sometimes discrimination against disabled people you have individuals and entire communities when it comes to play the role in the dominican of haitian region being deprived of their nationality we also have bitterness anger coming into play here just picking up on what sally said so where increasingly political dissent is being punished by stripping individuals of their citizenship and we see this happening a lot in the middle east region but as a global phenomenon we its safe to say that states are giving themselves more power to strip citizens of their nationality under the guise of National Security and counterterrorism actually i want to follow up with you on this one surplus sorry to interrupt i want to ask you specifically about that because in the world stateless report from your group this past year it was written that the renewed instrumental ization of citizenship policy as a means to punish and exclude people who are different from society was growing what do you mean by the renewed instrumental ization of citizenship policy does that tie into what youre saying now. It is then and i think i mean i think states are increasingly and this is a generalization but states are increasingly taking quite a cynical approach to nationality weight where it is seen as a weapon that can be used to stifle dissent its seen as a weapon that can be used to exclude those who are not seen as being part of the mainstream so nationality which people should have by right based on where they were born or who their parents are is now. Increasingly being seen as something that the state can take away from your d. N. A. You outright and the implications of that in terms of access to Education Access to health care but also Civil Liberties deprivation of of liberty detention removal from countries i mean its a whole host of issues and much we see as actually statelessness. And migration and such issues now playing out at the very cutting edge of of the human rights challenges and problems you see around the world if i may also just want to pick up on one other thing that sally said which was the use of language and i completely agree theres a very dangerous swing in terms of the use of rhetoric in terms of commitments to protect refugees to not refuel refugees. But i think that here there is also a role for us in the human rights field to take a more principled approach to to stick by our guns and to not used that are used by states in and in in a detrimental way. An example in the wringer would be i think we are on much stronger territory using the language of crimes against humanity than we are using the language of it the cleansing which is a euphemism and this is this is a challenge that i think i would like to push out of human rights. So we all know getting around the fact that this years report is extremely bleak but there are all. Are notes of optimism that you and your colleagues have written about among them the kind of active activism that were seeing in the u. S. Particularly by