The world’s well established democracies are increasingly prepared to give credibility to authoritarian regimes, failing to probe how autocracies conduct flawed elections to bolster their international standing, a leading human rights body said on Thursday.

In its annual survey of democracy across the world, Human Rights Watch argues that the US and the European Union are too quick to support “sham democracies” in states like Pakistan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan, turning a blind eye to their abuse of underlying civil and political rights.