In the last few years, some European countries have refused to take in refugees, prejudiced views have entered the mainstream, and leaders demonize religious minorities and attack the free press. Nils Muiznieks has raised alarms about many of these issues. He's just finished his six-year term as the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, the continent's main human rights watchdog. "My mandate was marked by a whole succession of crises," Muiznieks tells NPR. "The economic crisis and the fallout that had on human rights, the Ukraine crisis and the tensions and suffering that that created, the migration policy crisis, which fueled a lot of racism and nationalism within Europe and undermined European solidarity, and a whole string of terrorist attacks and very problematic responses on the parts of governments." He says those crises developed along with backsliding on a range of human rights issues. Muiznieks' own parents were refugees. They left Latvia during World War II and lived
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