Human rights around the world 'being suffocated': UN chief

The United Nations chief warned Monday that human rights were being "suffocated" globally, including  by wars and violence as well as autocrats crushing opposition and trampling on international law.

"Human rights are the oxygen of humanity," United Nations chief Antonio Guterres told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"But one by one, human rights are being suffocated," he said, adding: "by autocrats, crushing opposition because they fear what a truly empowered people would do. By a patriarchy that keeps girls out of school and women at arm's length from basic rights."

Warmongers meanwhile "thumb their nose at international law, international humanitarian law and the UN Charter", he said, while wars and violence were stripping people "of their right to food, water and education".

Guterres also pointed to the impact of "a morally bankrupt global financial system", and to "runaway technologies like artificial intelligence that hold great promise, but also the ability to violate human rights at the touch of a button".

He highlighted "growing intolerance against entire groups -- from Indigenous peoples, to migrants and refugees, to the LGBTQI+ community, to persons with disabilities", as well as "voices of division and anger who view human rights not as a boon to humanity, but as a barrier to the power, profit and control they seek".

All combined, "this represents a direct threat to all of the hard-won mechanisms and systems established over the last 80 years to protect and advance human rights", he warned.