Geneva (AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s attacks on Muslims and his support for strongman leaders are exacerbating an already dramatic rights decline in the Arab world, two Arab Spring champions said Thursday.

Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki told reporters in Geneva that the respect for human rights in Arab countries “has never been worse than now,” pointing to a harsh backlash since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Marzouki, who oversaw Tunisia’s sometimes troubled transition to democracy, pointed to crackdowns to foil revolutions in places like Egypt, Yemen and of course Syria that have left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions to flee their homes.

“Rights have shrunk immensely,” he said, speaking through a translator on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council.

While governments in the region are to blamed for the downward spiral of rights since the Arab Spring, Marzouki stressed that “the future looks even darker because the Trump administration is adding insult to injury”.

He accused Washington under Trump of “supporting all the dictatorships” in the region, pointing to his backing of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former military chief who overthrew his Islamist predecessor in 2013.

And Trump’s attacks on the media are seen by less-than-democratic governments around the world as a green light to do the same, he said.

“The US will lose all the moral leverage over these dictatorships, and this will lead to an increase in terrorism, not a decrease,” he said.

Tawakkol Karman, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her role in the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen, agreed.

She slammed Trump’s often repeated phrase “Islamic terrorism” as “a racist and discriminatory slogan” that if anything is bolstering the Islamic State group.

“It serves the purpose of IS that the West is at war with Islam and Muslims. It serves terrorism and it serves dictatorships, and it weakens the power of the moderate people and those who are seeking freedom,” she warned, speaking through a translator.

Karman also criticised the West in general for not doing enough to support the Arab Spring uprisings, including the one in Yemen which forced the ouster of strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh after 33 years in power, only to see the country slide into a brutal civil war.

“Unfortunately the West let down the Arab youth who had aspirations and dreams of freedom and democracy, and allowed them to be devoured by both dictatorships and terrorism,” she said.

The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman has said that establishing a national state that guarantees rights and freedoms in the Arab Spring countries is a noble purpose and a holy battle,

The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman has arrived in Geneva to participate in a side-event on March 2, 2017 on the sidelines of meetings of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 

The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman said Yemen now is not in good condition, but it will recover and be free when it restores its state.

The Arab Spring countries’ revolutionaries will embrace the choice of freedom and dignity protected and ensured by a democratic system, and their demand for change is going to be fulfilled despite all conspiracies, coups and counterrevolutions,

The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkol Karman has expressed condolences on the killing of Yemen's deputy chief of staff. 

The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman has reiterated her rejection of any political settlement allowing ousted president Ali Saleh to continue in politics and overlooking justice whereby there should be no impunity for war criminals, indicating she may run for presidential election when there will be a democratic state where equal opportunities exist for all.