JOHANNESBURG (AP) – Baffled and rattled by the riot that engulfed the Capitol, pro-democracy and human rights activists around the world were also reassured – because democracy eventually held up. The system has been tested but not overthrown.
“The institutions came through and defended democracy. That inspires me, ”said Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist in Zimbabwe who is under pressure from the authorities to call for peaceful protests against corruption.
On bail from a maximum-security prison where he was held for six weeks last year, Chin’ono must appear in court on Feb. 18 to be charged with inciting violence and obstructing justice. The 49-year-old spoke to The Associated Press by phone from his goat farm before tweeting on Friday that he was being taken back into custody. His lawyers later confirmed the arrest – his third in six months.
For outspoken activists who often fight lonely against political bullies big and small, there were morale-boosting lessons in President Donald Trump’s failure to stay in power by rousing riotous supporters of US lawmakers who confirmed President-elect Joe Biden as his successor.
The only people who enjoyed that spectacle were the dictators. They wanted that chaos, they hoped Trump would win. But they were disappointed and luckily the institutions got 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 still no place like America.”
But the crackdown on dissidents elsewhere still continued.
Hong Kong police tightened their grip on the city’s controversial democracy movement and made 53 arrests on Wednesday. That meticulously executed mass raid, involving 1,000 officers, was quickly overshadowed by the deadly calamity in Washington later that day.
Pro-democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan is concerned that the Capitol calamity is strengthening the hand of the Communist rulers of Chinese territory in Beijing and providing a propaganda opportunity to belittle democracy that has been seized by the Chinese state-controlled media. Lee is accused of unlawful meeting for staging a banned pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong last year.
“So it’s very discouraging in a way,” 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 separation of powers,” added Lee.
Hong Kong activist Nathan Law, exiled in London, says the American system has shown its resilience against mafia violence.
“The checks and balances, these are the things we recognize,” he says.
Among autocratic leaders trying to turn the disaster in Washington in their favor was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Peaceful protesters have demanded his resignation after an August election widely seen as falsified earned him a sixth term. Security forces have cracked down on the protesters, arresting and beating many of them.
Lukashenko said on Thursday: “I warned you: it is bad if they walk down the street, it is worse if they walk into the courtyards, it will be excruciating when they come to your apartments. We cannot allow this. “
But exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya saw events in the US as “a good reminder that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Democracy is an ongoing process and that’s what we make of it ourselves. “
In an email to the AP, she dismissed Lukashenko’s comments as one of many “propaganda outbursts”.
They say, ‘Look at America, the same hooligans as here,’ wrote Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenko’s main opponent in the election. “Nobody trusts propaganda anymore. People understand that in such situations dictators try to cover up the ugliness and incompetence of their administrative systems. … The US has had a serious wake-up call, and American society and the government are responding. “
In Poland, Judge Bartlomiej Przymusinski also found Wednesday was a bad day for autocrats.
“If American democracy triumphs and shows its institutional persistence, then it will be easier for anyone far from victory to press on and not give up,” said Przymusinski, spokesman for Poland’s largest association of judges. , which opposes attempts by the right-wing government to eradicate judicial independence.
“The alternative is a world where violence and lies would lead us to dark times without values, under the rule of dictators from Turkey, from Russia or mini-dictators, as in Hungary,” he said by email.
“Therefore, events in the US are not an internal issue, but a question of the future of the whole world,” he added. “A successful defense of democracy could turn out to be the vaccine against authoritarian viruses in still healthy countries.”
Alfredo Romero, a human rights lawyer in Venezuela, feared the US violence would provide political cover for crackdowns elsewhere.
“Seeing these horrible images is very frustrating,” said Romero, who has been honored by the US State Department for his pro bono work on behalf of political prisoners in Venezuela. “The US has always been a source of inspiration for me. The word “freedom”, which is at the origin of the American republic, is a fundamental pillar of our human rights work and our efforts to strengthen the rule of law in Venezuela. “
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian activist Issa Amro was less optimistic. Hours before the Capitol was stormed, an Israeli military court found him guilty of six charges related to his participation in demonstrations against Jewish settlements. The trial is part of what the Palestinians are saying, a growing crackdown on peaceful protests that the US has ignored or even actively encouraged.
Amro, now pending sentencing, warns Trump’s influence on global affairs will outlive 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 thrilled by what he saw as a stunning failure for Trump. Hamamouchi, who says he is followed almost daily by plainclothes police, saw hope in the Biden government.
“I said, ‘This is the end of Trump!’ Populists and ‘neo-fascists’ have no control over the oldest democratic institutions, not only in America, but in the world, “he says.” I was firmly convinced that this event would advance American democracy through the debate about the danger of reopen 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.