JOHANNESBURG (AP) – Stunned and overwhelmed by the riot that ravaged the U.S. Capitol, democracy and human rights defenders around the world were also reassured, because, ultimately, democracy was maintained. The system was tested but not demolished.
“The institutions came to defend democracy. That inspires me, ”said Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist in Zimbabwe who is under pressure from authorities to call for peaceful corruption protests.
Released on bail from a maximum security prison, where he was detained for six weeks last year, Chin’ono will have to return to court on February 18 for allegedly inciting violence and obstructing justice. The 49-year-old spoke by phone with The Associated Press from his goat farm before tweeting Friday that he was being arrested again. His lawyers later confirmed the arrest, the third in six months.
For outspoken activists who often fight big and small political raids, there were lessons that boosted morale in President Donald Trump’s failure. to cling to power, inciting revolted supporters of U.S. lawmakers confirming President-elect Joe Biden as his successor.
“The only people who enjoyed this show were the dictators. They wanted this chaos, they hoped Trump would win. But they were disappointed and, fortunately, the institutions arrived, “Chin’ono told AP.” For someone like me, for other dissidents who criticize his government in African countries and elsewhere in the world, not yet. there is no place like America “.
But the reduction of dissidents elsewhere still continued.
Hong Kong police tightened the city’s democratic movement, and made 53 arrests on Wednesday. That massive, carefully executed round, with 1,000 officers, was quickly overshadowed by the deadly massacre that day in Washington.
Pro-democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan is concerned that the fury of the Capitol will strengthen the hand of communist rulers in Chinese territory in Beijing, offering a propaganda opportunity to denigrate the democracy that state-controlled Chinese media take advantage. Lee faces allegations of illegal assembly for organizing a banned pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong last year.
“So it’s very discouraging in a way,” Lee says. “But for me personally I think the system is more important than a person.”
“People still aspire to the model of democracy in the United States, because the system is there, the constitution guarantees the separation of powers,” Lee adds.
Exiled to London, Hong Kong activist Nathan Law says the US system has shown its resilience against crowd violence.
“Checks and balances, those are the things we recognize,” he says.
Among the autocratic leaders who tried to quell Washington’s rage was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Peaceful protesters have demanded his resignation after an August election seen as a call gave him a sixth term. Security forces have cracked down on protesters, arresting and beating many.
Lukashenko said on Thursday: “I warned you: it’s bad when they walk down the street, it’s even worse when they enter the courtyards, it will be unbearable when they get to your apartments. We should not allow it.”
But the leader of the Belarusian opposition, exiled Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, saw the events in the United States as “a good reminder that democracy is not taken for granted. Democracy is an ongoing process and that is what we do with it.”
In an email to the AP, he dismissed Lukashenko’s comments as one of several “propaganda outbursts.”
“They say,‘ Look America, the same thugs as here, ’” wrote Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenko’s main opponent in the election. “No one trusts propaganda anymore. People understand that in these situations, dictators try to cover up the ugliness and ineptitude of their systems of government. … The United States has been on high alert and American society and the government are responding. “
In Poland, Judge Bartlomiej Przymusinski also considered Wednesday to be a bad day for autocrats.
“If American democracy comes out victorious and shows its institutional perseverance, it will be easier for all those who are still far from victory to persevere and not give up,” said Przymusinski, a spokesman for the largest association of judges. of Poland, which resists right-wing government efforts to eliminate judicial independence.
“The alternative is a world where force and lying would lead us to worthless dark times, under the rule of dictators in Turkey, Russia or mini-dictators, like in Hungary,” he said in an email.
“That’s why events in the United States are not an internal issue, but a matter of everyone’s future,” he added. “A successful defense of democracy may turn out to be the vaccine against authoritarian viruses in still healthy countries.”
Alfredo Romero, a human rights lawyer in Venezuela, feared that U.S. violence would provide political coverage for repression elsewhere.
“Seeing these terrible images is very frustrating,” said Romero, who has been honored by the U.S. State Department for his pro bono work on behalf of political prisoners in Venezuela. “For me, the United States has always been a source of inspiration. The very word “freedom”, which is at the origins of the American republic, is a basic pillar of our work and efforts in the field of human rights to strengthen the rule of law in Venezuela. “
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian activist Issa Amro was not so optimistic. Hours before the Capitol was stormed, an Israeli military tribunal found him guilty of six charges related to his involvement in demonstrations against Jewish settlements. The trial is part of what Palestinians say is a growing crackdown on peaceful protests that the U.S. has ignored or even actively encouraged.
Amro, who is now awaiting sentencing, warns that Trump’s influence in world affairs will overwhelm him.
“I am very pessimistic about the right wing around the world, not just about the United States, and about the energy it has given to anarchists, racists, and extremists,” he said.
But in Morocco, human rights activist Abdellatif El Hamamouchi was thrilled by what he considered an impressive failure for Trump. Hamamouchi, who says he is followed almost daily by plainclothes police, saw hope in the Biden administration.
“I said, ‘This is the end of Trump!’ Populists and “neo-fascists” cannot control the oldest democratic institutions, not just in America, but in the world, ”he says. “I firmly believed that this event would advance American democracy by reopening the debate on the danger of populism and the nationalist right.”
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Soo reported from Hong Kong; Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France. Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow; Joshua Goodman in Miami, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem; Sylvia Hui in London; Monika Scislowska in Warsaw; and Tarik El Barakah in Rabat, Morocco, contributed.