US President Donald Trump’s rise to power and his knack for populist policies has dealt a blow to the global campaign for human rights, says Human Rights Watch, hailing the growing wave of resistance against “authoritarian populists.”
The non-profit dedicated a large part of its annual report released Thursday to review Trump’s first year in the White House.
Describing the businessman-turned-politician’s 2016 victory over former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a “moment of despair,” the group’s executive director Ken Roth told AFP there was still hope that leaders like him could be stopped.
“The big theme this year is really how much the world has changed,” Roth said. “Because a year ago, just as Donald Trump was entering the White House, it was a moment of despair.
“It seemed as if the authoritarian populists were in the ascendancy and there was nothing we could do to stop them,” he added.
“What has been…