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The essence of being human is we are more than physical and psychological beings. Our needs extend beyond fresh air, clean water, and sufficient wholesome food. We are also entitled to liberty to use our intellect and conscience to guide our thoughts and actions. Countries with worst human rights that deny these entitlements are the anathema of what we are born to be.
Egypt, Syria, Yemen, China, Iran, North Korea, Central African Republic, Burundi, DR Congo, and Burma were the top 10 countries with worst human rights records in 2021. They have been rated among the worst human rights, civil liberties, and political rights abusers consistently for many years.
What Are Our Fundamental Human Rights?
Our fundamental human rights are universal. They belong to us all, individually and collectively. Thus, they extend beyond our colour, gender, ethnic origin, sexual preferences, religion, social status and nationality into a universal family. In 1948 diverse regions of the world gathered to confirm what those fundamental human rights should be.
QUOTE We’re all entitled to the basic human rights of clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and healthy land to call home. – Martin Luther King III
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The United Nations General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This is the cornerstone of international human rights conventions. It supplies us with objective criteria for the hallmarks of freedom.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Credit United Nations)
The UN declaration allows us to step outside our narrow limitations, and view society through a broader lens. It provides us with a legitimate framework to identify countries with worst human rights.
QUOTE All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. Winston Churchill
Human Rights are Universal and Inalienable
It follows that we cannot take away these rights from any person. Even the criminal is entitled to a free trial, a capable advocate, and an independent judge with an open mind to listen to the evidence.
Individual Liberties and Equality before the Law, 2021 (Credit Our World in Data)
The countries with worst human rights in terms of individual liberties and equality before the law, are Libya, Sudan, South Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Laos, Vietnam and Philippines.
QUOTE Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities. Pope Francis
Human Rights are Indivisible and Interdependent
Human rights are a package deal. We cannot enjoy one but be deprived of another. A political order must not suppress individual liberty in favour of economic progress. Nor may a religious society deny the right to another faith, or no belief at all.
Political and Civil Liberties in 2021 (Credit Our World in Data)
The countries with worst human rights in terms of Political and Civil Liberties are Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Afghanistan, China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia.
Human Rights Are Equal and Non-Discriminatory
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms all human beings are born free, and equal in dignity and rights. This principle of non-discrimination lies behind all major programs to free people from gender, social, and racial discrimination.
Egypt
From May 2014 to 2023, Egypt has been a country that disregards human rights, as recorded by Amnesty International.
Human rights activists and journalists in Egypt have often been detained without legal reason and then tortured in prison. And in 2022, 170 European Politicians asked the UN to monitor Egypt human rights.
Mass Sexual Assault of women started in Egypt in 2005, spreading throughout the country by 2012. During this oppressive time, 98% of foreign women and 83% of native Egyptian women were sexually harassed. Two-thirds of men admitted they sexually harassed women.
In 2013, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women reported that 99.3% of Egyptian women had been harassed.
Security administration had the right to arrest criminals and torture prisoners. The rulers and the military played a significant role in this repression frequently detaining activists without trial.
Egypt is known to have some of the worst prisons in the world, along with Turkey and China. Human Rights Watch estimated up to 60,000 political prisoners were detained in Egyptian prisons in 2019.
Syria
Influenced by a civil war that began in 2011 and was still raging in 2023, Syria is listed (Statista.com) as one of the ten countries with the worst human rights.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Russia-Syria Alliance’s attacks may constitute war crimes. And in March 2022, UNHCR reported over 13 million people had fled the country.
Additionally, 5.9 million needed help finding safe places to live. And many of them had difficulty accessing basic services such as education and healthcare.
Yemen
In 2022, because of the war (beginning 2014) between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis,
- millions of Yemenis faced one of the worst humanitarian crises the world had seen.
- the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Marib city.
- according to Human Rights Watch, more than half the population was facing acute levels of starvation.
- they suffered from a worsening economy, and
- there was a lack of essential services.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that sixty-two children died after a truce made between the government and Houthi rebels collapsed on October 2, 2014.
From 2015 to 2022 over 11,000 children were killed or injured.
China
Since 2017, the Chinese government abused Muslims’ rights under the guise of combating terrorism.
On January 20, 2020, the Council on Foreign Relations reported that Turkic Muslim groups in China were deprived of their rights.
These human rights violations include coercive methods of population control and forced labour. To condemn this practice, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution condemning human rights violations in Xinjiang in 2020.
In 8 February 2021, China blocked clubhouses, western chat apps and news media. The Personal Information Protection Law took effect on November 1, 2021, controlling cyberspace and enforcing data localisation.
All these practices made China one of the countries with worst human rights.
Iran
After 1980, the Iranian government employed deadly force against protestors. In 2019, Human Rights Watch documented multiple incidents of people being tortured by armed forces.
President Rouhani’s administration ignored these grave human rights violations by Iran’s security forces.
From 1979 until 2022, Iranian women have faced marriage, inheritance, divorce, and child-rearing inequality.
North Korea
According to World Report 2021, North Korea is listed in countries with worst human rights. Imprisonment, forced labour, and enforced disappearance are common.
After 2003, the UN General Assembly condemned the country’s human rights record year after year.
In 2017, according to the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, around 200,000 political prisoners were held in camps. And during their imprisonment, they were forced to work, beaten, and even killed.
During the worst of Covid-19, Amnesty International documented that the country isolated itself and imposed unbearable restrictions on its population. It badly affected the country’s GDP, resulting in worsening living conditions.
Central African Republic
In late 2020, a rebellion sprang up in Africa, when the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) invaded major cities.
- They stopped hundreds of thousands of people from voting in the presidential election won by Faustin Archange Touadéra on December 27.
- According to the UN, CPC fighters killed at least 61 people between December 15 and June 21.
- The UN also noted many instances of sexual abuse of women and girls.
- During the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, the World Health Organisation said that because vaccines were unavailable throughout the country it was harder to fight the disease.
- These and other violations make the Central African Republic one of the countries with worst human rights.
Burundi
Burundi’s human rights situation has marginally improved since President Évariste Ndayishimiye took office in June 2020.
However, in September 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Commission of Inquiry reported multiple cases of human rights violations in Burundi.
And it worsened as the suppression of journalists and human rights activists who advocated for human rights meant they faced jail.
These and other issues put Burundi on the list as one of the countries with worst human rights.
Democratic Republic of Congo
In 2010, United Nations Human Rights stated that the Democratic Republic of the Congo had been plagued by civil war and political unrest since 1990s.
During the last years of President Joseph Kabila’s tenure (2014 – 2016), Congo faced severe political repression. Civilian rights were also abused.
Myanmar
Myanmar is our last nation on the list of the top ten countries with worst human rights. The country has been ruled by a military government from 1962 until 2023.
The regime has been accused of committing serious violations of human rights, including torture, forced labour, and arbitrary detention. Since the coup in 2021 up to June 2022, the UN says 1,900 were killed by the military.
Myanmar has been accused of religious discrimination and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, such as the Rohingyas. The Rohingya Muslim minority community were subjected to horrific abuse for many years since the start of the 21st century. Rape, torture, and unlawful killings have beleaguered them. And the UN recorded over 1 million people were internally displaced from 2021 to June 2022.