JOHANNESBURG (AP) – Dumbfounded and nailed for the riot that engulfed the American Capitol, pro-democracy and human rights campaigners around the world have also been reassured – because democracy is finally valid. The system was tested but not overturned.
“The institutions have gone through and defended democracy. It inspires me, ”said Hopewell Chin’ono, a Zimbabwean investigative journalist who is under pressure from authorities to call for peaceful protests against corruption.
Chin’ono is on bail from a prison with maximum security where he was detained for six weeks last year, is due to appear in court again on February 18 on charges of inciting violence and obstruction of justice. The 49-year-old spoke by telephone from his goat farm to The Associated Press before tweeting on Friday what would be re-arrested. His lawyers later confirmed the arrest – his third in six months.
For outspoken activists who often fight lone fights against big and small political bullies, there have been morale-enhancing lessons in the failure of President Donald Trump to cling to power by shouting rebellious supporters against US lawmakers confirming President-elect Joe Biden as his successor.
“The only people who enjoyed the spectacle were the dictators. They wanted that chaos, they were hoping Trump would win. “But they were disappointed and fortunately the institutions came through,” Chin’ono told AP. “For someone like me, for other dissidents who criticize their government in African countries and other places in the world, there is no place like America yet.”
But the fight against dissent elsewhere has continued.
Hong Kong police have tightened their grip on the city’s democratic movement and arrested 53 on Wednesday. The meticulously executed mass assembly, involving 1,000 officers, was quickly overshadowed by the deadly hooliganism later in the day in Washington.
Pro-democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan is concerned that the capitol rampage will strengthen the hand of the Chinese territory’s communist rulers in Beijing and provide a propaganda opportunity to crack down on democracy that has seized the Chinese state-run media. Lee is facing charges of illegal assembly for organizing a banned pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong last year.
“So it’s very discouraging,” says Lee. “But for me personally, I believe the system is more important than a person.”
“People are still striving for the American model of democracy because the system is there, the constitution guarantees the separation of powers,” Lee adds.
Hong Kong-based activist Nathan Law, who was banned in London, says the US system has shown its resilience against mob violence.
“The checks and balances, those are the things we recognize,” he says.
Among the autocratic leaders who tried to turn the Washington rampage to their advantage was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Violent protesters demanded his resignation after an election in August, widely regarded as rigged, gave him a sixth term. Security forces raided the protesters, arresting and beating many of them.
Lukashenko said on Thursday: “I warned you: it’s bad when they walk down the street, it’s worse when they walk inside, it’s going to be unbearable when they get to your apartments. We must not allow this. ”
The exiled Belarussian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya regards the American events as a good reminder that democracy is not taken for granted. Democracy is an ongoing process, and that is what we make of it. ”
In an email to the AP, she dismissed Lukashenko’s comments as one of several “propaganda outbursts.”
“They say, ‘Look at America, the same scoundrels as here,'” wrote Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenko’s biggest opponent in the election. “Nobody trusts propaganda anymore. People understand that dictators in such situations try to cover up the ugliness and incompetence of their government systems. … The US has had a serious wake-up call, and American society and the government are responding. ‘
In Poland, Judge Bartlomiej Przymusinski also ruled that Wednesday was a bad day for autocrats.
“If American democracy emerges victorious and demonstrates its institutional perseverance, it will be easier for all who are still far from victory to persevere and not give up,” said Przymusinski, spokesman for Poland’s largest association. , said that resisting the efforts of the right-wing government to prevent judicial independence.
“The alternative is a world in which power and lies would lead us in dark times without values, under the rule of dictators from Turkey, from Russia or mini-dictators, as in Hungary,” he said in an email.
“This is why the events in the US are not an internal matter, but the future of the whole world,” he added. ” A successful defense of democracy could be the vaccination against authoritarian viruses in even healthier countries. ‘
Alfredo Romero, a human rights lawyer in Venezuela, feared that the American violence would provide political cover for oppression elsewhere.
“Seeing these horrific images generates a lot of frustration,” said Romero, who was 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 word ‘freedom’, which is the origin of the American republic, is a fundamental pillar of our human rights work and efforts to strengthen the rule of law in Venezuela. ‘
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian activist Issa Amro was not so excited. Hours before the Capitol was stormed, an Israeli military court found him guilty on six charges related to his participation in protests against Jewish settlements. The trial is part of what Palestinians say is an escalating struggle against peaceful protests that the US has ignored or even actively encouraged.
Amro, who is now awaiting sentencing, warns that Trump’s influence on global affairs will survive him.
“I am very pessimistic about the right wing around the world, not just the United States, and the energy it has given to anarchists, racists and extremists,” he said.
But in Morocco, human rights activist Abdellatif El Hamamouchi was excited about what he saw as an incredible failure for Trump. Hamamouchi, who says he is followed almost daily by ordinary police, has seen hope in Biden’s government.
“I said, ‘This is the end of Trump!’ “Populists and ‘neo-fascists’ cannot control the oldest democratic institutions not only in America but also in the world,” he says. “I firmly believed that this event would advance American democracy by reopening the debate on the dangers of populism and nationalist law.”
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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.