The sad reality is that governments are always tempted to violate human rights. These days, a big problem that the human rights movement faces is that some governments like to pretend that we live in a post-truth reality. They like to pretend that if they just spew disinformation, if they spin, that they can somehow avoid public scrutiny.

That's wrong.  

Because even dictatorships require a public consent to the bulk of what they do. They have these elaborate machineries that spew out falsehoods. But even they don't rely only on that disinformation. They also censor because they realise that their people want access to the truth. And if they get it, their disinformation won't work. That gives the human rights movement power.  

A key beginning for any human rights activism is to document what the government or institution that is your target is doing wrong, and that's a simple matter of investigating and recording what has happened. You know, build a clear record of the misconduct. And once you have that, you can shine that up against the pretences, the claims of decent behaviour that the government or institution makes. 

Every government, every institution, has to pretend to respect human rights. 

So if we want to move a government, we have to begin by moving ourselves, by building our public sense of right and wrong that governments ignore at their peril to defend human rights.   

Obviously, one can go on the streets, one can protest, one can write letters.   

But in many ways, the most important thing to do is to just express your views about what a government is doing. Do this to your friends, your family members, your work acquaintances. Do it on social media because as you comment about a government's conduct, you build this broad public sense of right and wrong, which ultimately is what constrains governments, enforces them to behave better.