State Department slashes reports on human rights violations : NPR

The seal of the State Department is seen on the Lectern briefing room in the Washington State Department, DC, January 31, 2022.

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Mandel ngan / ap

The seal of the State Department is seen on the Lectern briefing room in the Washington State Department, DC, January 31, 2022.

Mandel ngan / ap

The State Department published its long-awaited reports on international human rights on Tuesday, and considerably reduce the types of government repression and abuse that the United States under President Trump deem criticism.

The agency said that “rationalized” reports on human rights adhere more closely to what was to be in them by law. But criticisms say that the reduced content allows the authorities to trigger.

The new report on El Salvador abandons the references to the wrong prison conditions – simply saying in the summary of the executive: “There was no credible report of significant human rights violations”. The same coverage insurance appears in the summary of the executive in Hungary, and disappeared is an in -depth documentation of the corruption of the government. The violations of the freedom to meet peacefully in China have disappeared.

An NPR analysis of documents shows that this year’s reports represent approximately a third the duration of last year. Reports on Salvador and Moldova are more than 75% shorter.

Since the 1970s, The United States has compiled these reports In all countries of the world, highlighting abuses such as restrictions on the free assembly, unfair elections and the punishment of minority groups. None of these categories are documented in new reports.

Congress is based on assessments to shape decisions on foreign aid and arms sales. Reports are eagerly awaited by diplomats, activists and journalists and have the reputation of being impartial and complete. But defenders say they fear that recent changes mean that this year’s reports take a more political fold.

The release of this year was delayed by month while the State Department spent more time suppressing thousands of violations of the versions prepared in 2024 by agents of the external service and their contacts abroad.

President Trump telegraphed the new approach this spring during his visit to Saudi Arabia, which has long been criticized for authoritarianism and the abuse of women and children. Trump praised Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is widely thought to have ordered The torture and assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying that the success of Saudi Arabia did not come from Western manufacturers who give conferences on the way of living and how to govern your own affairs. “”

Traditionally, the Secretary of State presents reports in a public briefing. This year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has chosen not to plan a dedicated event, although he praised reports in the past when he was an American senator. One of his former Senate colleagues criticized what he considered as a new attitude of Rubio to reports.

“I regretted my vote for Senator Rubio,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland democrat who sits on the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations and voted to confirm Rubio as Secretary of State. “When he was a member of the Senate, he got up and supported an American foreign policy based on the promotion of democracy and human rights. But since he was confirmed, he seems to have forgotten all of this.”

Two thirds of the content cut off from reports

Earlier this year, NPR obtained an internal service note from the State Department instrumenting employees publishing the reports to suppress entire categories of violations not “explicitly required by law”, including sexist violence and environmental justice. They were told to delete about two thirds of the content in what managers call for an effort to comply with administration policies and make reports “more readable”.

The deleted material includes questions widely considered as fundamental rights under international law, such as the right to a fair public trial. In memo, publishers have been ordered to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion, sexual violence against children and interference in privacy. References to restrictions on government political participation and corruption, violence against minorities and LGBTQ persons and the harassment of human rights organizations were to be abolished.

“Massive narrowing” surprise the defenders

Human rights defenders had prepared the change under the Trump administration, but some say that the extent of the cuts is still shocking.

“We expected that women’s rights and minority rights are deleted,” said Yaqui Wang, a long -standing human rights researcher in China, more recently with Freedom House. “But even freedom of expression – international understanding of what the United States considers human rights, number one – has been cut. I’m just shocked.”

Freedom of expression for the press is always followed in new relationships, but there is no category covering the expression for ordinary citizens.

Wang says that for human rights defenders and journalists, reports are more than a record – they are a tool. They are used to support asylum affairs and they are mentioned in judicial affairs.

And the stripping goes beyond the elimination of whole categories. For the categories which are legally required, the note ordered the publishers to reduce the number of examples of each violation to a single “illustrative incident”, regardless of the distribution of abuses. In practice, this means that a country with a model of press or torture intimidation is criticized for a single violation, erasing the wider repression scale.

Amanda Klasing, national director of government relations and advocacy at Amnesty International USA, said that the changes meant that the United States went easily for offenders.

“If you undress it in one case, it allows governments – and in particular authoritarian governments – to say that, you know, this is only a case. Tell us a real problem,” said Klasing.

Van Hollen described the revisions “an irresponsible use of dollars of taxes” which refuse both political decision -makers and the public “the truthless truth” on human rights situations abroad.

Political guardian

The memo also orders that reports on 20 specific countries, notably Canada, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, be reported by Samuel Samson, appointed politics to the Office of Democracy, Human and Labor Rights. Samson, who did not respond to the request for an NPR interview, graduated in 2021 from the University of Texas. His curriculum vitae understands the work at “The American Moment”, a conservative political organization whose mission, According to the CEOIt is to place right -wing activists in “well -paid jobs where they will have an influence”.

Van Hollen said the changes are raising issues about the priorities of administration at home.

“If the Trump administration will undermine human rights here,” he said, “they don’t want to report on what is happening in other countries.”

The report should be noted on the United Kingdom. While in most country reports, there is little mention of freedom of expression, in the new British report, there is in -depth documentation of government restrictions censoring the “hate speech”. Vice-president JD Vance has has publicly raised the question Infractions to expression outside the abortion clinics in the United Kingdom and restrictions on prayer.

Legal obligations in question

The administration insists that it remains determined to defend human rights. But Van Hollen maintains that minimalist rewriting may no longer comply with the law, which requires “complete” accounting of internationally recognized human rights.

“You cannot eliminate the main categories of human rights here,” said Van Hollen, adding: “They don’t want to report on what is happening in other countries.”