Democracy Now! Audio - Time of Monsters: U.N. Human Rights Chief on Gaza, Immigration, Climate Crisis, and Lack of Solidarity (Extended Interview)

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Full interview with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in Geneva, Switzerland.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. I was in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday on Monday, at the headquarters of the United Nations Human Rights Council. I had the chance to sit down and speak with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, about a number of issues. In a statement last month, Volker Turk just characterized Israel's actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing, saying, quote, this latest barrage of bombs forcing people to move amid the threat of intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighborhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance underlined that there appears to be a push for a

permanent demographic shift in Gaza that's in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing, unquote. I ask Volker Turk about his comments. you must imagine over the last over 20 months or so that the population inside Gaza has been displaced multiple times I've heard it directly from some of our staff who told me that they had to move from the north to the south back to the north and back to the south and within these areas again and again so it shows a group of people multiply displaced

and with the latest orders they are essentially now confined to one-fifth of the territory. So you basically ask people to go again to one-fifth of the territory and empty up the land. That's what prompted me to call it ethnic displacement and ethnic cleansing. And just this past weekend, officials in Gaza say at least 81 Palestinians were killed, 400 injured just over a day period. You have accused Israel of inflicting horrifying, unconscionable suffering on Palestinians.

What is your response to the latest developments? Well, you have seen that they established the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is essentially a militarized form of providing humanitarian assistance. We have seen at least over 600 people killed when they tried to go to these distribution points. We used to have, when the UN was still able to work a little bit more, we were having about 400 distribution points. Now it's limited to four or five, and it's heavily militarized. And as a result, you see people being killed, you see chaos,

because the fundamental principles of humanitarian action are not respected. So, yes, humanitarian action is extremely important in these circumstances, and it's just not happening at the scale and speed that is required in order to save people's lives. about Israel's attack on UNRWA itself on the UN agency. So the fact that UNR was vilified in the way that it was actually shows that there is a total misunderstanding of the role of the United Nations. We are here to provide relief. We are here to help people in need.

We are here also in humanitarian action to do this type of work. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to do it. And UNRR was the prime target in all of this, which is very, very unfortunate and has really real-life consequences. Is it a war crime? I mean, the UNRWA, there are many things that happen in this war that are clearly war crimes, you know, collective punishment, issues of denying of humanitarian assistance. It's a very complex legal issue how to deal with UNRWA, and in fact it's currently before the International Court of Justice. I mean, the number of health care workers that have been killed, the hundreds of journalists who have been killed, those that are there to provide humanitarian aid. I just have to ask that the United Nations, some 80 years ago, was founded to end war, promote fundamental human rights, reaffirm international law.

When you watch what is unfolding in Gaza, you might think the UN is totally. useless. Well, the principles are there, and the principles need to be respected. Let's not forget. Why was the United Nations created? The United Nations were created after two world wars with horrific suffering. 60 million people in Europe alone displaced as refugees. The Holocaust, atrocity crimes, massive violations of human rights. There was a central Never again. We are going to establish a world order that respects territorial integrity, independence, that respects human rights and international humanitarian law. And yes, 80 years later, I'm indeed shocked at what I see around the world because we have the highest number of conflicts and utter disrespect for international law. And that is worrying and should wake us all up because we don't need a world where anarchy reigns and chaos.

How do you see a ceasefire taking place after Iran, Israel and U.S. bombing Iran? That happened quite quickly, but not in Gaza. The violence is only intensifying. No, I really hope. My most fervent hope is that there is a permanent ceasefire, that all the remaining hostages are released unconditionally, that indeed humanitarian aid is finally coming in at a scale and a magnitude that is required

and that there will be a political solution which means a two-state solution there's no way around that and yeah I mean and we can never never give up on any of this even when at the moment it looks very unrealistic

but one should never ever cast this aside that's the only solution for both Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in peace so Volker Turk let's talk about the role of the United States the most powerful country on earth. In March, you express deep concern about a fundamental shift in direction in the

United States under President Trump. Can you elaborate? Look, I have been very worried about what happens on the deportations and the treatment of migrants, for example. And I've been worried about it because I see also the vilification of migrants and refugees in the public debate. I was living, I lived in New York during COVID. I was every day grateful for the migrant workers that kept the city going in terms of making sure that the garbage is collected, that we get our food. I was actually at some stage wondering if they didn't work for, if they didn't work, what would happen to all of us? We might actually starve. And now I see the vilification of migrant workers.

I see a debate that reminds me of times that we thought we had all overcome. And yes, that worries me, because it polarizes and divides the society, and it pits one group against the other. And that's not what I know the United States to be. The United States, for me, is a country that helped resell refugees who were extremely vulnerable, who were persecuted. I remember when in previous times the highest number of refugees that came from war-torn countries were accepted and hosted in the United States. and I wish that this part of the United States comes out much more strongly in an environment that, frankly, is so divided.

So let's talk about Seikot for a minute. In May, you expressed alarm over the Trump administration's use of the Salvadoran mega-prison to detain immigrants without due process, potentially for life. Your office has received information from family members and lawyers, regarding more than a hundred Venezuelans believed to be held at Seikot. Can you talk about the men who have been shipped to this mega-prison?

So we were in touch with family members who didn't know where their loved ones were, which for us, of course, always raises the alarm bells when it comes to, are they missing, are they disappeared, what happened to them? and it is an obligation of the state when you engage in deportations to inform to provide information and frankly the fact that it went to a third country and not to the country of origin

after due process because due process always has to be guaranteed is a huge worry and a huge concern we don't have I wrote to the president of El Salvador about the conditions we don't have access there President Bucheli who called himself

the coolest dictator in the world? Well, we wrote to him, and we have engaged with the El Salvadorian authorities, because, of course, there are human rights concerns that are attached to what's happening, and we have just, we have not been able to have access. Has he responded? No, he has not. Which happens sometimes, but at the same time, as you know, including in the council that you see behind you,

the council is also for us the place where we can put issues and situations into the spotlight of international attention. So for us it's also very important when we don't get the cooperation that we need to actually mention it then in the public arena. And he hasn't let you into that prison? We have not had access since that period. Talking about immigration, what's happening to immigrants in the United States, You urged U.S. authorities earlier this month to respect the right to peaceful assembly and refrain from using military force in the context of the huge protests around Trump's policies. Your reaction to Trump overriding California's governor deciding in to send in the First National Guard,

then the Marines, to crack down on the protests? Well, I made it absolutely clear before the council that any, militarized response to the freedom of peaceful assembly is absolutely not warranted when indeed you have peaceful assembly. That's a fundamental freedom. So I hope that it will come to a rethink of this type of approaches in the future because we know what it means when you militarize responses to essentially law enforcement issues. But there is always the fundamental right of freedom of expression, of peaceful assembly,

of solidarity with people who are vulnerable, and that needs to be respected. You once quoted the 20th century philosopher Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned by the Italian fascist Mussolini for 12 years till his death. You were making

a comparison between fascism and Europe during early 20th century in the surge of populism and nationalism and xenophobia today. You quoted Gramsci saying the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born

now is the time of monsters who are the monsters today the monsters today are the lack of solidarity and empathy and compassion that we see unfortunately rain not just in North America but also in Europe in other parts of the world I mean I just came from Sri Lanka just to give you an example after 16 years of when the war ended in a brutal way,

I still see the ghosts of the past haunting the present. And it's as a result of fundamental divisions and polarizations and prejudice and racism that we saw what happened in the past. And I do think that the monsters of today is the absence of a public space where you can have a proper discussion, They can agree to disagree, but you actually have a debate about challenges. What I see is people getting warped into their own bubbles, their echo chambers, not listening to the other anymore, and not understanding the grievances that exist and trying to find a solution to it.

So for me, it's actually politics that has become quite tone deaf to the real concerns that people have. And that worries me a lot, because the absence of a public space means the absence of compromise, the absence of finding a solution, the absence of debating and disagreeing or agreeing and fighting it out, but in a constructive way that actually leads to solutions. There's just a piece in the Washington Post about the cutting of USAID funding in the world. And it said children clung to life in Sudan by the slenderest of threads, supported by community soup kitchens. Then the USAID funding cuts came, and their mothers watched them starve to death one by one. Can you talk about the effects of this drastic cut, the ending essentially of USAID in the world,

programs that had been established for years, and also the cuts to the United Nations and the effects that that has had, those cuts by the United States by President Trump. So it is extremely, extremely unfortunate that USAID is no longer there in the way that we know it, because USAID provided immediate relief to millions of people. It made sure that human rights NGOs at the grassroots level, for example, I've met many of them, are running out of funding and may no longer be able to be the fighters for freedom and justice. It means that, as you just mentioned, in many conflict situations around the world, we simply will not be able to provide the humanitarian assistance that is required. And that means, again, real life consequences. People will die, people will end up in extremely vulnerable situations,

and it will lead to potentially more conflict. I mean, what the U.S. generously has done for decades has been its soft power. It has also influenced things in a positive way. Now that's gone, and yes, I'm worried about it. The same with the United Nations. I mean, the fact that some of the massive fun in my own organization, we are not going, our funding was cut, which means that we will not be able to continue doing the monitoring

and the reporting and the documenting and the intervening and being the bridge between civil society and the institutions of the state, for example, in Colombia. We have to cut our operation by half. And that has, again, we have an important part of the peace process. It means that this will suffer. And yes, these are the real-life consequences of such decisions, which I regret very much.

just watched you give an opening address here at the UN Human Rights Council. You were talking about climate change. We, at Democracy Now, have attended the UN climate summits from Copenhagen in 2009 on to what will be on the edge of the rainforest, the Brazil UN climate summit. We also just came here from New York. We were experiencing a major heat dome in New York, came to to Geneva. You're experiencing here the same thing. Extreme weather raging across the globe. The Financial Times reporting Sunday, quote, temperatures reach dangerous highs as heat domes hit Europe and the U.S. Volker Turk, you've called for states, corporations, to be held to account, including for damage to our climate and environment. Can you relate the climate catastrophe,

that we are experiencing to immigration, to the crises that we're experiencing around the world with that, to poverty, to indigenous rights, and who is responsible? So the climate crisis is absolutely a human rights crisis. There's no doubt about it. And one of the big collateral damages of the wars that we see today is actually that there is less focus on the big challenges of our time, such as climate change.

I mean, a couple of years ago, I remember when I came to New York in 2019, there were young people on the streets. Everyone was protesting and, you know, activating Fridays for future. There were all these movements about making sure that climate change and climate action is addressed properly. Today, you don't see it in the same way. And despite the fact that we already live the consequences. I mean, the heat dome over the Europe, I mean, we decided not to wear ties anymore. result but it shows when it also affects us what does it mean for indigenous peoples

what does it mean for the most vulnerable what does it mean for a woman who has six children in the Sahel how she's going to survive and yes people will will probably have to leave behind their livelihoods and and what will happen he will see massive internal migration in the countries in the climate hot spots around the world I don't think we should ever go into this, that they will all come to Europe or the United States, they won't. They will try to survive in their own countries, but under abominable circumstances. So yes, the climate emergency is one of the big, big challenges of our time.

And I hope that politicians refocus on it and spend their political capital and their political energy on trying to resolve it. And we have the solutions to it. Your response to President Trump, basically his mantra is drill, maybe. Drew? Well, renew energy, renew energy, renew energy, and let's get into a much better world. I mean, we know that the fossil fuel is not going to be the future. That's long, it's the past and even behind the past.

So we absolutely need a rethink of all of these things. Just outside the UN Human Rights Council, right outside the main door in the hallway, The council has agreed to the Sahrawi women building a haima, a tent that is so familiar to the indigenous people of western Sahara. They have fought for decades to organize a UN-backed referendum on independence. Falkertr, I saw you a few years ago. You reiterated the right to self-determination when addressing the Sahrawi issue, calling for placing human rights. at the heart of the issue. What's been the Security Council,

the UN General Assembly's decisions regarding the issue of Western Sahara? Basically, we have decisions taken by the Security Council that have not been implemented. That's the fact of the matter. Occupied by Morocco since 1975. So we have, and that's, again, one of those long, protracted situations

where we haven't seen a resolution. On the human rights front, I've asked to send a mission there, but unfortunately I have not been successful in this. On big tech, unchecked power, you've warned a handful of unelected tech oligarchs have our data. Can you talk about why you find all of this so risky,

so ripe for opportunities of oppression, subjugation, even tyranny? Well, if you even look at the recent past, we have seen how election campaigns and elections themselves are influenced by social media, by micro-targeting, by disinformation, by harmful messaging and hate speech, that gives you an idea of what democracy means

if we are essentially brainwashed into thinking that basically again lets us do things or pushes us to vote for things that are not part of reason and compassion. And yes, I'm very worried about that because there is a responsibility on the part of tech companies to ensure that human rights are respected. If you look at conflict situations around the world, Myanmar comes to mind, Ethiopia comes to mind, a lot of the hate speech happened on social media platforms and it actually fueled incitement to violence. And if it's not addressed through a regulation, if it's not

addressed through a framework that make sure that everyone is bound by that, you will have chaos and anarchy. And people will benefit from it because they make a lot of money out of all of this. So how can you have regulation? In the United States, there is a push in the new bill, the budget bill, that states cannot regulate big tech for 10 years artificial intelligence. So it is absolutely clear, and we have some good experience in Europe, we have the Data, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Market Act, and both have actually provided a framework that is predictable and clear to the tech companies on how to actually respect the rights of privacy.

of data, of our data. These are our data. They know everything that we do and what we do. They even probably know us better than we know ourselves. So it is so important that indeed there is a regulatory framework that constrains power. And human rights is precisely

these. Human rights are the guardrails on unchecked power. I just have a few more questions. Human Rights Watch has urged you to promote the establishment of the UN investigation into China's abuses of the U.S. in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch has also asked her office to provide public update on measures

taken by the Chinese government to address the human rights situation in Xinjiang. So my predecessor just very shortly before she ended her office published a report on the situation in Xinjiang with a lot of recommendations. I have been following it up with the Chinese government and I keep the council informed on progress when it comes to, I mean, in particular, frankly, massive legal reform in China itself, because the criminal justice system from our perspective is not in line with international human rights law and needs to be changed and reformed. And how do you see the crisis in Chen Chang? What is the problem of the Uyghurs? I mean, there are issues of essentially moving those who are critical into the criminal justice

system. There are the issues of family separations. There are issues of discrimination. on the basis of culture, basis of religion, and indeed they need to be addressed, as we have pointed out in the past. Finally, as a child growing up in Austria, how did human rights become such a critical issue for you? Talk about your time also at the UN Refugee Agency, Burma, Kosovo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what do you want your legacy to be out of the U.N.

UN Human Rights Council. So I grew up in Austria. I was born 20 years after the end of the Second World War, and I remember so well how much Austria did not realize its own history. They thought that they were the victims of Nazism. In fact, they were perpetrators. And I had very early on a very strong sense of justice, of the history of my own country,

and I really wanted to dedicate my life to a better world, to human rights, to refit, to protect. refugees because I also saw that many Austrians, some of whom I knew, were refugees from my own country. They had to flee because they were persecuted on account of their cultural affiliation because they were Jews or they were in the political opposition. And I wanted to dedicate my life to doing precisely fighting for the right to asylum, fighting for refugees for refugee protection and for human rights more generally. And yes, I hope that what we will able to achieve on the human rights front is a much stronger realization that human rights is not only the present, but also the future.

And I have to say there are strong tendencies to push an anti-rights agenda. We need to really counter this in the most effective way possible because it is at the same. It is what unites us as humanity, what brings us together and what also establishes a consensus in a society about how. to behave with each other and how to interact with each other and with the environment and defining the relationship between us and the institutions of the state. I think that's extremely important in our times.