US denounces Europe on speech in pared-down rights report
The State Department's congressionally required report historically has offered extensive accounts of all nations' records, documenting in dispassionate detail issues from unjust detention to extrajudicial killing to personal freedoms.
For the first report under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the State Department trimmed sections and took particular aim at countries that have been in Trump's crosshairs, including Brazil and South Africa.
On China, which has been identified as a top US adversary across administrations, the State Department report said "genocide" was ongoing against the mostly Muslim Uyghur people, whose plight Rubio took up as a senator.
But the report also took aim at some close US allies, saying human rights have worsened in Britain, France and Germany due to restrictions on online hate speech.
In Britain, following the stabbing deaths of three young girls, authorities took action against internet users who falsely alleged that a migrant was responsible and urged revenge.
The State Department report accused British officials of having "repeatedly intervened to chill speech." State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, without naming Britain specifically, said online restrictions have targeted "disfavored voices on political or religious grounds."
"No matter really how disagreeable someone's speech may be, criminalizing it or silencing it by force only serves as a catalyst for further hatred, suppression or polarization," Bruce told reporters.
The criticism comes despite Rubio moving aggressively to deny or strip US visas of foreign nationals over their statements and social media postings, especially student activists who have criticized Israel.
Bruce said previous State Department rights reports had been "politically biased" and, on the level of detail, "sometimes less is more." But a group of former State Department officials called some omissions "shocking," like LGBTQ rights in Uganda, where a severe law against homosexuality passed in 2023.
Democratic party lawmakers accused Trump and Rubio of treating human rights only as a cudgel against adversaries, inviting charges by Beijing and Moscow of US hypocrisy.
Rubio's State Department has "shamelessly turned a once-credible tool of US foreign policy mandated by Congress into yet another instrument to advance MAGA political grievances and culture war obsessions," said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The report said there were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" in El Salvador and instead noted a "historic low" in crime.
President Nayib Bukele has unleashed a sweeping crackdown on crime, which rights groups say has put many innocent people in detention.
Bukele took migrants from Trump's mass deportation drive and held them in a maximum-security prison, where some have reported mistreatment too recently to be covered by the report.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration admits was wrongly deported, filed a lawsuit alleging severe beatings, sleep deprivation and inadequate nutrition in El Salvador's CECOT prison.
The report trimmed down its section on Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. It acknowledged cases of arbitrary arrests and killings by Israel but said authorities took "credible steps" to identify those responsible.
In contrast, the report said rights deteriorated in 2024 in Brazil, where Trump has decried the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, his ally accused of a coup attempt that echoes the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol by Trump's supporters.
Brazil, the report said, has "undermined democratic debate by restricting access to online content deemed to 'undermine democracy.'" The report also said rights "significantly worsened" in South Africa, where Trump has embraced the cause of the white minority.
Amnesty International USA's Amanda Klasing said the report sent a "chilling message" that the US will overlook abuses if doing so suits its political agenda.
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