Recalling his own experience living under dictatorship in Portugal, Mr. Guterres told participants at the Global Assembly of the international rights charity Amnesty International on Friday that the fight for human rights is “more important than ever”.
He called on States to uphold international law and defend human rights “consistently and universally, even or especially when inconvenient”, urging collective action to restore global trust, dignity and justice.
Mr. Guterres painted a stark picture of a world in turmoil, citing multiple ongoing crises, foremost among them, the war in Gaza.
While reiterating his condemnation of the 7 October 2023 terror attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Israel, the Secretary-General said that “nothing can justify the explosion of death and destruction since”.
“The scale and scope is beyond anything we have seen in recent times,” he said.“I cannot explain the level of indifference and inaction we see by too many in the international community. The lack of compassion. The lack of truth. The lack of humanity.”
He described UN staff in Gaza as working in “unimaginable conditions”, many of them so depleted they “say they feel neither dead nor alive”. Since late May, he noted, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed trying to access food – not in combat, but “in desperation – while the entire population starves”.
“This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a moral crisis that challenges the global conscience.” The Secretary-General warned that authoritarian tactics are on the rise globally.
“We are witnessing a surge in repressive tactics aiming at corroding respect for human rights,” he said. “And these are contaminating some democracies.”
Political opposition movements are being crushed, accountability mechanisms dismantled, journalists and activists silenced, civic space strangled and minorities scapegoated. Rights of women and girls in particular are being rolled back, most starkly, he said, in Afghanistan. “This is not a series of isolated events. It is a global contagion.