ANTHONY BUTLER: Worsening human rights crisis a reality that cannot be ignored

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have joined the US in painting a depressing picture of SA

First published in Business Day

15 August 2025

A dispassionate assessment may be better than a “national dialogue” even if it is wrong. After all, its findings can be rationally accepted or contested. For example, the department of international relations & co-operation reacted negatively this week to the release of the US state department’s global report on human rights, describing its SA section as “inaccurate and deeply flawed”.

The congressionally mandated annual review has long been a staple reference work for international human rights advocates. This year’s delayed issue follows a shake-up at the department’s bureau for democracy, human rights & labour, which US secretary of state Marco Rubio previously lambasted as a platform for “left-wing activists”. 

The “reoriented” state department assessment cites the signing into law of the Expropriation Bill as a “substantially worrying step towards land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country”, and highlights claimed “antisemitic rhetoric” at high levels of the government. These are tendentious claims and they can be contested.

SA is not the only country whose human rights environment has supposedly worsened in a manner convenient for US foreign policy. For example, this year’s report took aim at Brazilian courts for suppressing the speech of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Favourites of President Donald Trump, such as Israel and Russia, received implausibly positive assessments. The host of US migrant detention centres, El Salvador — castigated only a year ago for arbitrary killings, torture and harsh and life-threatening prison conditions — suddenly smells of roses. 

However, other assessments of the human rights situation in SA also paint a depressing picture of the country, most notably the annual country reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Amnesty points to a worsening situation in several areas: high levels of gender-based violence, with perpetrators enjoying impunity; the judicial system failing to process cases; a high murder rate accompanied by a decline in police capacity to respond; nationwide water shortages attributed to vandalism and ageing infrastructure and a white paper that threatens to erode refugee rights. 

HRW points to anti-immigration rhetoric and xenophobia, increasing violence against women and girls, and a growing scourge of severe child malnutrition, with severe food poverty among 23% of children. It also details unlawful arrests and deportations of asylum seekers. Both reports note excessive force in criminal justice, increasing deaths from police action, and violence against human rights defenders — including killings linked to their work by state actors. 

It is reasonable to question the veracity of the products of the Trump administration, but no doubt we should also read the publications of do-gooder international organisations with a sceptical eye. Such reports exhibit political and cultural biases, the influence of their funders, and often fail to capture the situation on the ground accurately. But when they all suggest there is a deteriorating human rights environment, it is important to sit up and listen: to go beyond reflex rebuttals and take seriously the evidence upon which these claims are based. 

SA is fortunate to have a state president who has viewed human rights not just as legal principles but as core values that should guide governance, promote equality and ensure dignity for all, driven by his understanding of constitutionalism and a belief in inherent human worth. Indeed, Amnesty had a pivotal influence on Cyril Ramaphosa’s life, campaigning for his release during his first detention, funding his family’s legal expenses, and subsequently offering support to make his life after detention more tolerable.

What differentiates the assessments of external organisations from a domestic “national dialogue” is that they allow us to compare change over time and across countries. They are grounded in factual claims that can be contested or accepted. In contrast, the national dialogue will only generate further indeterminacy and ambiguity. 

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.