The origins of conflicts and tension between or within countries is complex. Keep in mind that there is rarely a single cause. More often than not, there are several sources.
One cause is the exercise of human rights and freedoms. The link between tension and conflict and the violation of human rights can be viewed in 2 ways.
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On the one hand, people whose rights are violated may demand to have their rights respected. This can be done by organizing protests, petitions or strikes, etc. These demands can sometimes turn violent and become riots or armed uprisings. This explains why the failure to respect human rights causes tension or gives rise to armed conflict.
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On the other hand, these protests may be repressed by force (violent interventions by the police or the army, shooting at protesters, etc.). Human rights violations then become the consequence of conflicts or severe tensions.
The tension and conflicts caused by the violation of rights and freedoms do not always have the same intensity depending on the situation and the country. Sometimes, the population simply expresses its disagreement with the authority in power, while at other times there are massive popular uprisings and even civil wars. This often depends on how the state reacts to the discontent expressed by the population.
To find out more about rights and freedoms around the world, use the interactive map available on this website, which shows the level of freedom in each country.
In 1948, after World War II (1939-1945), the members of the United Nations (UN) (58 countries at the time) signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the first time, states unanimously recognized that all human beings have fundamental rights and that everyone is born free, with equal dignity and rights. The declaration lists the rights and freedoms that should be respected for all humans, simply because they are human. No other criteria is necessary to benefit from these rights and freedoms.
This document holds great value. In principle, it should serve as an inspiration for all governments in leading their states. However, its value is symbolic. Due to the principle of sovereignty, the UN cannot force member states to implement this text and it cannot impose consequences on states that violate these human rights. Institutions such as the International Criminal Court or the International Criminal Tribunals can enforce certain sanctions when serious international crimes that violate rights and freedoms with international implications are committed.
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Sovereignty is the absolute power of a state to govern itself by making its own laws and enforcing them within its territory. A sovereign state is independent, meaning that it cannot be controlled by another state or institution.
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An institution is an organization governed by rules and laws that plays a specific role in society. This role can be political, social, economic, religious, etc.
The Declaration contains 30 articles. They are summarized below.
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All human beings are born free and equal.
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Discrimination is not tolerated.
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Everyone has the right to life, freedom and safety.
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Slavery is not tolerated.
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Torture is not tolerated.
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All human beings have rights everywhere they go.
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We are all equal before the law.
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Our rights are protected by law.
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No arbitrary arrest, detention or exile is tolerated.
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Everyone has the right to justice.
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We are all innocent until proven guilty.
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Everyone has the right to privacy.
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The freedom of movement within a state is ensured.
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Everyone has the right to seek asylum in another country if they are persecuted in their own country.
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Everyone has the right to a nationality.
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Everyone has the right to marry and found a family.
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Everyone has the right to own property.
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Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
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Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
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Everyone has the right to freedom to assemble peacefully in public.
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Everyone has the right to take part in democracy.
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Everyone has the right to social security.
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Everyone has the right to work, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
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Everyone has the right to rest and leisure.
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Everyone has the right to food, shelter and an adequate standard of living.
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Everyone has the right to education.
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Everyone has the right to copyright their materials and to participate in the cultural life of their community.
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Everyone is entitled to a free and equitable world.
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We all have a responsibility to respect the freedom of others.
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No one can ignore or undermine these rights and freedoms.
The following website provides further information on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its articles: United For Human Rights.
Despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international community’s efforts to uphold it, human rights are regularly violated in many parts of the world.
In authoritarian political regimes such as dictatorships, rights and freedoms are often not respected. To stay in power, the leaders of these regimes often have to control the information circulating about them (Article 19) and arrest political opponents (Article 9).
However, it is important to understand that rights and freedoms are also not always respected in democratic regimes.
December 2010. This was the start of a series of anti-government protests that broke out in several Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The movement spread and became so large that it was called the Arab Spring. It ended in 2012, although some people continued to protest.
The first protest took place in Tunisia, where President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in power since 1989, had to step down and leave the country. His dictatorial regime violated many human rights, including using torture, censoring the media and violently repressing his opponents. This popular uprising quickly spread to other Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. In general, these countries called for the establishment of democracy, which is one of the human rights. The people of Egypt forced their president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign, and the people of Yemen overthrew their leader. In Syria, the largely peaceful demonstrations in favour of democracy turned to civil war between people loyal to the government and people who opposed it. In 2020, the Syrian civil war was still being waged. Syrians are living in appalling conditions and it has become a major humanitarian crisis that is largely unnoticed by the rest of the world.
October 2019. In just one week, more than 150 people were killed in popular protests. The people wanted to overthrow the regime of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The government was corrupt and much of the state’s money was not reinvested in improving the country’s conditions for the population. The population was living in harsh conditions:
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unemployment rate of 25% affecting mostly young people
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shortage of drinking water and electricity.
The protests were not peaceful. Protesters burned down two provincial headquarters and attacked dozens of headquarters of political parties and armed groups, including the paramilitary coalition al-Hashd al-Shaabi, an important ally of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The protests continued. By the beginning of December, the death toll had risen to 420 Iraqis, and thousands more were wounded. Adil Abdul-Mahdi resigned, but that was not enough. The population demanded better living conditions and a non-corrupt political regime. The new Prime Minister, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, was rejected by protesters in February 2020.
A paramilitary coalition is a military force that is not part of a state’s armed forces.
In June 2019, more than a million people reportedly marched through the streets of Hong Kong to protest against the introduction of an extradition bill. Extradition is when one legal authority (in this case, Hong Kong) hands over an offender to another political authority (in this case, China) to be tried for a crime.
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. SARs are regions with greater autonomy that are politically and economically separate from China. Hong Kong’s legal system provides more freedom than China’s legal system.
The bill proposed by the Chinese government, which maintains strong ties with Hong Kong, proposed that citizens of Hong Kong could be extradited to mainland China for trial and imprisonment. The people of Hong Kong found this bill unfair and frightening since China’s laws are different from Hong Kong’s laws. China is much less tolerant of people who publicly express their dissatisfaction with the government. This increases the risk that activists from Hong Kong who make anti-Beijing or anti-communist statements will be extradited, tried and imprisoned in Beijing. Freedom of expression would then be severely restricted for the population of Hong Kong. This law would increase Beijing’s power over Hong Kong. It would weaken the justice system in Hong Kong, which has always protected certain freedoms.
The protest on June 9, 2019, was peaceful, but the one on June 12 resulted in the police using 150 bullets and tear gas.
Eventually, the focus of the protests shifted from opposing the extradition bill to fighting for democracy in general. These protests occurred in July and August 2019. At the end of August 2019, the Chinese government threatened Hong Kong protesters who supported democracy and went against the communist regime. Some protests continued through February 2020.
Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines in 2016. Some consider his regime to have been a dictatorship. Several human rights violations reportedly took place in the Philippines as part of Duterte’s war on drugs, which had been waging since he took power.
He planned to fight the drug problem through violence by targeting members of drug syndicates. However, the definition of a drug syndicate member was used loosely. Anyone could be considered a member of a drug syndicate just by being accused of using, buying or selling drugs, even if authorities had no proof of this.
In many cases, these people were not prosecuted. Those killed were often only suspected of using, selling or buying drugs. People could accuse someone of using drugs so that the police would kill them immediately. In 2019, the Philippine government reported that the police killed at least 6600 people. However, certain human rights groups believe the total number of victims could be as high as 27 000. Official police reports state that the suspects were armed, that they resisted arrest and that the police had to use force. But the families of victims and witnesses to these executions reject these reports.
Some victims were considered collateral damage, and some were executed right in front of their families. In June 2019, a police raid as part of this war resulted in the death of a three-year-old girl named Myka. One hundred children just like Myka have been collateral victims of this war on drugs.
In the Philippines, the lower-income social class was deeply affected by the war on drugs. This violence created a climate of fear for the population.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into this anti-drug campaign in 2018. Upon hearing this, Duterte claimed that the Philippines would withdraw from the ICC by revoking its ratification of the Rome Statute. The Philippines officially withdrew in March 2019, which meant that the Philippines no longer recognized the ICC and could therefore not be brought before it.
May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis. George Floyd, an African-American man, died after a white police officer choked him with his knee during a minor arrest.
This is not the first time an African-American has died during an interaction with police, but this incident was filmed and posted on social media. This incident reignited racial tensions in the United States and incited people to protest and riot in Minneapolis on May 27. More protests broke out in over 30 US states. Attention was drawn to racism against the Black community and the many instances where Black people have been killed due to police misconduct. People protested police violence against Black people and stood up for equality and justice for all.
In response to these protests, some cities introduced curfews, banning people from gathering in the streets after a certain time. However, some protesters disobeyed this ban and police responded with force, sometimes using tear gas.
This movement rallied around the hashtag #BLM, which stands for “Black Lives Matter.” This is not a new movement. In 2013, a neighbourhood watch patrolman murdered Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, 17-year-old African American from Florida, and was acquitted. Supporters of this movement held protests in 2014 and during the 2016 US election that Donald Trump won.
President Trump’s response to these protests did not help to ease tensions. He took a hard stance and promised to restore order. He made it clear that he would use military force against the protesters, despite the fact that the US Secretary of Defense opposed this idea. The US Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum and several protests soon broke out in other countries such as Spain, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.
| Pays | Manifestation pour les droits et libertés |
| Amérique centrale et Amérique du Sud | |
| Bolivie | Manifestations des opposants d’Evo Morales qui affirment que les élections de l’automne 2019 ont été truquées. Toutefois, plusieurs affirment qu’il s’agirait d’un coup de la droite politique qui désire reprendre le pouvoir du pays. Bolivie : 6 minutes pour comprendre la crise | AFP News |
| Chili | Mouvement de soulèvement populaire contre la situation socioéconomique difficile, les inégalités, la corruption et l'augmentation du prix des services publics. Au coeur des manifestations au Chili |
| Colombie |
Manifestations contre l’État colombien qui avait signé un accord de paix avec la Force armée révolutionnaire de Colombie - armée populaire (FARC-EP) qu’il n’a pas respecté. Cet accord permettait, pour une fois, de lutter contre les inégalités socioéconomiques et politiques du pays. |
| Équateur |
Protestations contre la hausse massive du prix du carburant et le faible niveau socioéconomique de la population. Équateur: cinq morts dans les manifestations, selon un nouveau bilan |
| Haïti |
Manifestations demandant la démission du président Jovenel Moïse, qu’on accuse de corruption. On demande à ce qu’il subisse un procès. |
| Honduras |
Manifestations demandant la démission du président Juan Orlando Hernandez, qu’on accuse de corruption et d’être de mèche avec des trafiquants de drogues. Honduras : Affrontements lors d'une nouvelle manifestation étudiante contre le président |
| Nicaragua |
Le soulèvement contre le président Daniel Ortega et pour la libération de prisonniers politiques qui a débuté en 2018 se poursuit en 2019. Nicaragua : manifestations meurtrières et scènes de pillage Au Nicaragua, de nouvelles manifestations pour la libération des "prisonniers politiques" |
| Porto Rico |
Manifestations réclamant la démission du gouverneur Ricardo Rossello, qu’on accuse de corruption et de tenir des propos homophobes et sexistes. Porto Rico: manifestation géante pour exiger le départ du gouverneur |
| Venezuela |
Manifestations qui demandent la démission du président Nicolas Maduro, qu’on accuse d’agir comme un dictateur. La population demande une vraie démocratie. |
| Afrique | |
| Algérie |
Série de manifestations - nommées le Hirak - pour dénoncer la corruption politique et le régime de Bouteflika, qui n’est pas considéré comme une vraie démocratie par le peuple, et pour la libération de prisonniers d’opinions. |
| Égypte |
Manifestations (illégales, puisqu’elles sont interdites) qui réclament la démission du président Abdel-Fattah Al-Sissi, accusé de corruption. |
| Guinée |
Manifestations contre Alpha Condé, qui veut modifier la constitution pour rendre possible l'exécution d’un troisième mandat. Nouvelle manifestation monstre en Guinée contre une « présidence à vie » d'Alpha Condé |
| Soudan |
Manifestations contre le gouvernement soudanais. Dans la foulée de la révolution soudanaise qui a débuté en 2018, la population revendique des élections libres et démocratiques et la fin du régime militaire qui brime les libertés. Sept points à connaître sur les dernières manifestations au Soudan |
| Asie | |
| Hong Kong |
Soulèvement populaire contre le projet de loi permettant l’extradition des Hongkongais vers la Chine continentale (où les lois sont plus sévères) lors de procès pour y être jugés et emprisonnés. Ce soulèvement a mené au développement d’un mouvement pro-démocratie. |
| Inde |
Protestations contre la proposition d’une nouvelle loi concernant la citoyenneté, qui est jugée discriminatoire envers les musulmans. Les réfugiés Afghans, Bangladais et Pakistanais y voit l’obtention de la citoyenneté indienne facilitée, mais cela exclut les musulmans. Inde : La nouvelle loi sur la citoyenneté déclenche manifestations et affrontements |
| Indonésie |
Manifestations contre le projet gouvernemental de révision du code pénal (qui menace la vie privée). Il prévoit, par exemple, des peines d’emprisonnement pour les relations sexuelles hors mariage et les relations homosexuelles. On y inclut l’interdiction de montrer ou d’offrir des moyens de contraception à des mineurs. Indonésie: vague de manifestations contre des lois controversées L'Indonésie renonce pour l'instant à une loi punissant le sexe hors mariage |
| Irak |
Soulèvement populaire contre le pouvoir en place, accusé de corruption et de n’avoir pas tenu sa promesse électorale d’améliorer les conditions de vie des Irakiens. Les manifestations ont été réprimées violemment et cette répression violente a fait augmenter l’ampleur des manifestations. |
| Iran |
Manifestations populaires causées par la hausse du prix du carburant (alors que le pays est en crise économique) annoncée par le gouvernement. Elles sont réprimées par la violence et la limitation de l’accès à Internet. Manifestations en Iran : la coupure d'Internet, "révélatrice de la panique du pouvoir" |
| Liban |
Manifestations déclenchées par l'annonce de taxes sur, entre autres, les appels passés sur l’application Whatsapp et Viber, dénonçant la corruption des dirigeants politiques et leurs décisions allant contre la qualité de vie des Libanais. Manifestations massives au Liban contre une taxe « Whatsapp » |
| Europe | |
| Espagne |
Manifestations contre les lourdes peines de prison qu’ont subi les dirigeants séparatistes en Catalogne. On dénonce également la répression policière. En Espagne, des centaines de milliers de manifestants indépendantistes dans les rues de Barcelone |
| France |
Dans la foulée des gilets jaunes de 2018, le Mouvement social contre la réforme des retraites en France, qui repousse l’âge de la retraite, prend forme. La population ne semble pas faire confiance à son gouvernement. Quatre raisons pour expliquer la résistance des Français à la réforme des retraites |
| République Tchèque (Tchéquie) |
Manifestations contre le premier ministre Andrej Babis - milliardaire - qu’on accuse de corruption et de mettre en danger la démocratie. |
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organization (NGO). Its main role is to document violations of rights and freedoms around the world. It also raises awareness about these human rights violations and works towards stopping them.