Never again? It takes more than words to take on the tyrants – protect human rights

There will be no shortage of well-meaning statements to mark a trio of human rights anniversaries this weekend. But, all the while, tyrants around the world are flouting the rules and committing atrocities. It’s time for action, says Benedict Rogers

Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy campaigner from Hong Kong, looks set to spend the rest of his life behind bars (AFP via Getty)

Over the next three days, we will be marking three important and interrelated anniversaries.

Today we remember the 76th birthday of Hong Kong entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper, who has spent the past three years in jail and looks set to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention. Those words “never again” – repeated by political leaders at so many junctures in recent decades after Rwanda and Srebrenica – echo in our minds as we reflect on the contemporary, continuing genocides of the Uyghurs in China; the Rohingyas in Myanmar; the plight of the Yazidis and Christians across the Middle East; repression in Tibet, crimes against humanity in North Korea; the renewed war against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and Vladimir Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine.