Daily Brief Audio Series

A year ago, gunmen attacked Crocus City Hall in the outskirts of Moscow during a concert. They killed at least 144 people and injured many hundreds more.

In the wake of this horrific attack, Russian authorities detained four main suspects, all citizens of Tajikistan. Some 23 others were also arrested, mostly of Central Asian origin.

Millions of Central Asians across Russia are, of course, completely innocent of this crime. Yet, they are paying the price anyway. The innocent are essentially being blamed for their ethnicity, as the law and parts of society turn against them in vicious ways.

Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on migrant labor. There are nearly 3.3 million migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia.

Given long-standing xenophobia in Russian society, migrants from Central Asia and other people of non-Slavic appearance have never had an easy time of things. However, the past year has been particularly difficult.

Authorities have been changing the legal landscape for migrants in nasty ways. New regulations give police broader authority to expel migrants without specific court orders. Other changes have prevented hundreds of migrants who were in the country legally from accessing their Russian bank accounts. It’s also now much harder for migrants to send their kids to school in Russia.

With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities have been increasingly targetting Central Asian migrants for military recruitment. Russian authorities often use arbitrary detention and threats of deportation to force them to enlist.

In the streets, things are getting uglier. Migrants have been facing ethnic profiling and arbitrary arrests by police. They’re subject to harassment not only by police but by others, including ultranationalist groups.

There have been coordinated physical assaults by young Slavic-looking men on Central Asian workers. Videos taken by the assailants and shared on social media show beatings and pepper-spray attacks accompanied by ethnic slurs.

As one migrant from Tajikistan living in Moscow told Human Rights Watch for a new report, “the life of migrants here today is mired in constant fear and humiliation to put it mildly.”

Of course, Russia has obligations under international human rights law to protect the rights of everyone within their territory without discrimination, including on grounds of national or ethnic origin.

Those rights include the rights to life and to security, freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment and arbitrary detention, freedom of movement, privacy, education, and equality before the law.

But Central Asians in Russia aren’t seeing any of it.

“We look for higher ground—again.”

With these words, one member of the Indigenous community of Walande in Solomon Islands summed up their experience of recent years. Rising sea levels due to climate change have displaced them once already. And they’re still not safe.

The community of about 800 people used to live on a small island just off the coast. They would be hit by occasional storms, even cyclones, but the people of Walande were able to repair their houses and adapt in place.

Things really started to change in 2009, with devastating “king” tides – waves and water levels higher than anyone could remember. A powerful new HRW video tracks the destruction: properties destroyed, houses washed away over the course of just a few years.

By the mid-2010s, the community had relocated to a small area on the mainland that was given to their ancestors. Their island simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Theirs was a community-led relocation. They didn’t get much assistance from the Solomon Islands’ government. 

As one community member put it, the “government supported the community by providing ten cartons of nails to build a house. Yeah...”

Of course, when, as a last resort, people on the frontlines of climate change have to make a planned move like this, the community should be front and center in all the decision-making. That doesn’t mean they should be left alone, however.

The Solomon Islands’ government has obligations under international law to protect communities from foreseeable climate risks. It needs to help people adapt to the risks in ways that respect their rights.

To be fair, the Solomon Islands’ government has been getting more engaged on this issue generally. It launched national Planned Relocation Guidelines in 2022. It was a positive step, though the guidelines can’t be implemented yet without further details – Standard Operating Procedures – that are still under development.

The wider world also has a role to play. Under international climate and human rights law, “developed” nations have obligations to support climate adaptation in the least-developed countries, like Solomon Islands. A few countries have begun supporting community-led adaptation efforts, including Australia, which supported preparation of Walande’s new site.

But international donors should rapidly scale up financial and technical assistance.

There are countless other Walandes around the globe. The need for planned relocations is only going to increase.

Are governments ready to respond? And will they respond in ways that respect people’s rights?

Walande’s story itself is far from over. Seawater is breaching protective seawalls at the new site. The community’s traditional food sources are under threat: gardens are getting washed away, and fish are harder to find.

What’s next for Walande is what’s next for a lot of the world. 

Most of us – or, at least, most of us who read a human rights newsletter – surely give some ethical consideration to the choices we make when spending our money. We don’t want to inadvertently support, say, environmental degradation or labor abuses with our purchases.

So, we maybe do a bit of reading to learn how things are made, how they get to us, and who might be hurt in the process. Sometimes, it can be frustrating. There’s a cacophony of voices. Exactly how much research are we expected to do before buying a sandwich or taking a taxi?

Gig-based businesses have come under such scrutiny in recent years. More formally known as platform work, it’s where workers find and perform jobs through digital labor platforms like Uber, DoorDash, and Instacart.

There’s more and more of them about, because such businesses provide goods and services consumers want at prices they’re willing to pay. And the app on your phone makes it so convenient, right?

But what about the workers?

Some argue platform companies promote flexibility and independence for their workforce.

However, the reality for many is not so rosy. They are getting cut off from labor and social security rights.

Without regulation, this happens in a number of ways.

Platform companies regularly misclassify workers as independent contractors to cut costs and evade employer obligations. They routinely pay below the minimum wage, deny workers compensation for job-related injuries, and avoid contributions to social security programs.

Human Rights Watch research in the United States, Georgia, Mexico, and the European Union backs this up.

Our research also found that platform companies use opaque algorithms, surveillance technologies, and behavioral tactics to control workers. Such things shatter the illusion many companies try to promote of gig workers enjoying “flexibility” and “independence.”

It’s not innovation. It’s just old-fashinoed erosion of labor rights.

So, what should you do as an ethical consumer? Should you do exhaustive research to understand which companies might be behaving better than others? Do you give up on using all of these services regardless? Do you hand your next delivery driver a nice cash tip to assuage your guilt?

That’s all up to you, of course. However, one thing you can and should certainly do is support better regulations and, if you can, help push your political representatives to make it happen.

Governments should strengthen employment classification laws so platform workers aren’t misclassified. They should extend wage protections, social security, and workplace safety protections to platform workers. They should ensure algorithmic management of workers is fair and transparent.

In short, governments need to make sure platform work is not simply a legal loophole for exploitation.

There’s hugely positive news for a change today: former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been sent to The Hague.

Acting on an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), Philippine authorities arrested Duterte in Manila yesterday and put him on a plane to the Netherlands.

It is a historic step toward justice.

The ICC sought Duterte’s arrest on a charge of crimes against humanity in relation to alleged extrajudicial killings between 2011 and 2019. This covers both his years as mayor of Davao City and the brutal nationwide “war on drugs” after he became president in 2016.

The killings generally followed a pattern. National police officers or their agents would raid homes at night without warrants. They would arrest suspects and then execute them. They frequently planted evidence to justify their murders.

The scale of these killings was staggering. More than 6,000 Filipinos were killed in the “drug war” – that’s according to official police statistics. Human rights groups in the Philippines say the number is more than 30,000.

Most of the victims were impoverished people in urban areas. Many children were among those killed. Others were orphaned in drug raids.

Those seeking justice for these crimes have had little luck until now. Only a very small number of the thousands of cases have been investigated or prosecuted. Only four cases resulted in convictions for extrajudicial killings, all of low-ranking police officers.

Yesterday’s arrest of former president Duterte and his departure for The Hague thus mark “a long-overdue victory” that could bring victims and their families a step closer to justice.

It’s also an encouraging moment for international justice generally. Lately, the ICC itself has been under attack by some governments, most recently by US President Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the court’s prosecutor.

The arrest of Duterte and his transfer to The Hague remind the world of the court’s relevance and its significance in ensuring accountability for grave crimes.

Of course, there is still much to be done, including in the Philippines. There have been more recent extrajudicial killings and attacks against activists and civil society groups. Current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. needs to address continuing human rights violations in the country. The Philippines police need to be comprehensively reformed.

However, today at least, let’s savor this moment and enjoy seeing justice take a step forward.

Such moments don’t come around often enough.

How Do You Deal with Hate?

A friend in the US got in touch the other day with a depressing, but sadly revealing, story.

She was out shopping with her daughter, and the two of them were chatting normally. A passerby overheard them and approached to tell them that Trump had won the election, and he had signed an executive order making English the official language of the United States. So, the person told them, they shouldn’t be speaking Spanish as they were.

The daughter, born in the US, started to reply in perfect English, but the stranger just shouted, “go back to your country.”

It’s a simple story of nasty verbal aggression and sadly not a unique one. However, in their absurd, dangerous, and frustrating aspects, offensive incidents like this can tell us something important – and present us with at least one tricky question, which we’ll put to you, the reader.

First, it’s absurd because, the rude interrupter clearly doesn’t understand what “official language” means. The clue is in the name: a language used for official purposes. It’s to direct how government agencies and such should operate and interact with the public in an agreed tongue.

An official language is most certainly not about what individuals are allowed to speak in public. If we have freedom of speech as individuals, we certainly have the freedom to speak in whatever language we choose.

Still, incidents like this reveal something dangerous developing. When politicians come to power after making hatred of immigrants central to their campaign, they feel they need to do to take steps to prove to their supporters that they are fulfilling their promises.

They do this with laws, executive orders, rules, and other formal ways, but the overall tone leading politicians set can be just as important.

With actions and with words, Trump and his administration have been adding layer after layer of fear and anxiety in immigrant communities. Many people are terrified. Some now avoid going to church or the hospital. Many children don’t go to school.

It’s not just ICE raids people are worried about; it’s members of the public, riled up in their racist hatreds by a president who’s sending all the worst signals. Meanness is the message, and it is received loud and clear by people like the one who accosted the mother and daughter last week.

It’s all so enraging, too. You can rationalize that such rude behavior stems from deep ignorance and gutter hatred, but when you’re face to face with it, what do you do?

For the mother and daughter pair, it was a terrible experience. They were so taken aback, they didn’t know what to say to the person. There’s always a temptation to try to engage, to stand your ground – but then, what if things escalate beyond words? The daughter wanted to say something; the mother pulled her back.

“Let’s go. Don’t argue.”

Later, she wondered if that was the right thing to do and asked friends and family, “What should we have done?”

We agreed we would ask Daily Brief readers: What would you have said and done?

How do you deal with people who’ve been so worked up by politicians – and likely other hateful voices in media and social media – that they think they now have the authority to tell you what to do and how to speak? These are not people on screens saying nasty things and posting ugly comments. They are there, in person, in your face.

What’s the right response?

Dear readers, let’s hear your ideas, please, via email, Mastodon, LinkedIn, or Bluesky. We’ll collect your responses for a future edition of the Daily Brief, so let us know if we can use your name or not. Thanks.