Biden’s Summit for Democracy and Human Rights around the World

Prachi Mishra / New Delhi The United States of America under the leadership of President Biden launched the first Summit for Democracy, held virtually on 9th and 10th of December 2021. This Summit lays the foundation for deliberation and discussion on the preservation of democracy and human rights in the coming decade. A week before the Summit, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) released a paper on total democracy under one party rule as a strong assertion to the Summit. In a white paper released by the CPC, titled, “China: Democracy That Works”, China stated that it is the ‘largest democracy’ in the world. This is the first time that both the PRC and the CPC have claimed that China’s governance structures and policies run on democratic principles. U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit and CPC’s white paper provide a fitting context to this analysis on human rights in various forms of governance systems around the world.   In the last few years, there have been unprecedented challenges that have plagued most democracies. Be it the widening digital divide or the issue of gender-based crime, the nature of socio-economic challenges seemed to have weakened the democratic systems around the world. Similarly, over the course of the last decade, human rights violations around the world have also increased manifold. Non-democratic regimes, like China and Qatar, witness growing number of such cases but owing to their system of governance and media reportage, human rights violations in these countries are underreported or not reported at all. In this context, there is a pressing need to strengthen democratic systems and ensure that violation of people’s basic rights is addressed. In this brief, we draw a comparative analysis of human rights violations in different forms of governance systems. We present – Communist regimes, with a focus on China Theocratic regimes, with a focus on Pakistan Absolute monarchies, with a focus on Qatar Democracies, with a focus on India; and Totalitarian regimes, with a focus on North Korea The analysis is based on several indicators, viz., the nature of rights that are most often violated in a regime. These include women’s rights, rights to freedom of religion, children’s rights, freedom of expression and privacy, minority rights inter alia. Be it the suppression of Uyghur Muslims in China or the unlawful persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan or the inequality faced by women in Qatar, human rights are violated in each of these regimes but are sparsely covered in the media. In totalitarian regimes, like North Korea, violations are seldom reported, and data is unavailable for most of these indicators. In a functioning democracy, reasonably India, where the four pillars of democracy work independent of each other, human rights violations are duly reported, and the judiciary has been playing a crucial role in providing justice to the aggrieved. The independence of media has led to greater reportage of violations which is often misconceived as failure of democratic systems. This calls for a balanced view of all governance systems and how reporting of violations are suppressed in many of them. Based on the interventions provided during the Summit, this brief lays down a few recommendations on upholding the human rights in democratic systems. Violations based on the nature of governance system Qatar Qatar’s political system is a de facto absolute monarchy, with the Emir of Qatar serving as the country’s head of state and administration. Qatari legislation is primarily based on Sharia law. According to the 2003 Qatari constitutional referendum, it was decided that the state of Qatar will be a constitutional monarchy with an elected legislature, yet elections were repeatedly postponed since 2013. Finally, in November 2020, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani announced that the elections will take place in October 2021. Following an announcement by the Emir of Qatar on August 22, 2021, general elections were held for the first time on October 2, 2021. Men and women over the age of 18 years were eligible to vote for thirty (30) of the fourty-five (45) seats in the Consultative Assembly, with the remaining fifteen (15) selected by the Emir. The thirty 30 seats were contested by two hundred eighty-four (284) individuals, including 29 women aspiring leaders. All candidates ran as independents as political parties are prohibited by constitution. No female candidates were elected and according to various non-governmental organisations, thousands of Qataris were denied the right to vote. Thereby, casting shadows on the Qatari constitutional monarchy claims. Freedom of Expression Qatar’s hereditary emir is in charge of all executive and legislative powers, as well as the judiciary. There are no political parties allowed, and while Qatari citizens are among the world’s wealthiest, the vast bulk of the population is made up of non-citizens who lack political rights, civil liberties, curtailed freedom of expression, freedom of religion and economic opportunities. In Qatar both print and broadcast media are influenced by powerful families and censored by the government. The international television network Al-Jazeera is showcased and branded to be exhibited as privately owned, however, the government is said to have compensated for its operating costs since 1996. In Qatar, all journalists practice some form of self-censorship and may risk jail time for defamation and other press violations. Access to the independent English-language website Doha News was restored in May 2020, after it had been prohibited in late 2016 due to a lack of an operating authorization. In 2017, and 2020, the outlet once more changed hands before resuming full operations. A change to the penal code in January 2020 makes spreading or publishing “fake news” punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of 100,000 riyals ($27,500). The new ambiguously written rule that criminalises a wide variety of speech and publication activities threatens to severely curtail Qatar’s freedom of expression in Qatar. Religious Freedom Islam is the official religion in the State of Qatar. There is no constitutional protection for freedom of religion. However, the constitution