A/HRC/45/45 and authoritarian systems alike. And with each broken norm, the pillars of our common humanity are weakened.55 95. In places where there are ongoing conflicts – particularly the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen – the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, other humanitarian and human rights organizations, independent media outlets and even private individuals have documented the bombings of numerous hospitals, schools and other protected sites in total disregard of international law. However, the reporting of these atrocities and the subsequent protests have neither changed the behaviour of the warring groups56 nor led the Security Council to intervene appropriately. VIII. Progressive development of memory and non-regression 96. Progressivity is a principle that informs international human rights law from a pro personae perspective. 57 Memorialization processes must also be progressively developed: progress must be made in the search for the truth and in the active establishment of policies on memory with regard to serious violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law that have occurred. Such policies require the establishment of programmes at all levels of formal and informal education, both as a human rights obligation and with a view to preventing future violations by moving towards a culture of peace. It is also essential to encourage new memory processes reflecting contemporary human rights perspectives, such as the gender perspective, and to review memory processes that have not taken account of it in order to ensure that it is properly incorporated. 97. There can be no regression or reversal: the denial of extermination policies such as the Holocaust, genocides and other crimes against humanity committed in the past, as well as the whitewashing or praise of the regimes that carried them out, must be fully repudiated and deemed unacceptable. Governments and other public authorities must refrain from giving voice to such ideas, which are unethical and revictimize victims, offend the international community and violate States’ international obligations. The Special Rapporteur has expressed his deep concern about statements made by the President of Brazil vindicating the military dictatorship that ravaged that country and calling the Truth Commission’s report into question.58 98. In this regard, any memorialization policy that is designed and implemented must be bound by the obligation not to distort or diminish the conclusions of legitimate mechanisms established to shed light on the events – truth commissions – and/or of any tribunals that have tried and convicted those responsible for them. IX. Conclusion and recommendations 99. The obligation to adopt memorialization processes in societies that have suffered gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law derives from both primary and secondary sources of international human rights law and therefore cannot be circumvented by Governments on the basis of budgetary, political or structural arguments or claims that efforts should be focused on other areas of transitional justice. 55 56 57 58 GE.20-09155 https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/advising-andmobilizing/Action_plan_on_hate_speech_EN.pdf. www.icrc.org/en/document/yemen-attacks-health-care-facilities-must-stop. Salvioli, Fabián, “La perspectiva pro persona como método hermenéutico para la aplicación del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos”, in Jon-Mirena Landa Gorostiza (ed.), Retos emergentes de los derechos humanos: ¿garantías en peligro?, pp. 31–41, Valencia, ed. Tirant lo Blanch, 2019. President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the work carried out by the Truth Commission, which had shed light on 443 murders and enforced disappearances committed by the military dictatorship. See the Special Rapporteur’s press release at www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Display News.aspx?NewsID=24431&LangID=E, and Naiara Galarraga Gortázar, “El presidente Bolsonaro cuestiona la verdad oficial sobre la dictadura de Brasil”, El País, 31 July 2019, elpais.com/internacional/2019/07/30/actualidad/1564516182_689279.html. 17