Annual State Department Report Calls Out China, Russia, India, Israel, And Mexico
March 22, 2023—In its annual report on human rights, the U.S. State Department reviewed policies and practices of governments and private groups impacting human rights in 198 countries. Overall, it’s been a bleak year for freedom of speech, democracy, and even the basic right to life.
The report criticized democratic republics, including the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as autocratic governments.
“The goal of this report is not to lecture or to shame,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Rather, it is to provide a resource for those individuals working around the world to safeguard and uphold human dignity when it’s under threat in so many ways.”
Human Rights Report
A few details from the expansive resource on human rights follow:
The authoritarian government of China continued to carry out genocide and other crimes against Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang. Abuses include arbitrary imprisonment, forced sterilization, coerced abortions, rape, torture of those detained, and forced labor. “Government officials and the security services often committed human rights abuses with impunity,” the report said. At the nationwide level, disappearances occurred at a “systemic scale.”
In India, the report cited rape by police officers and torture and extortion by the government. “The law prohibits torture and other abuses, but there were credible reports that government officials employed them,” the report said.
In Israel, there were reports of unlawful killing, unjust detention of Palestinians, interference with privacy, family, and home, “substantial interference” with peaceful assembly and association, “punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative,” censorship, violence against asylum seekers, and violence against Palestinians.
In Mexico, criminal gangs and narcotics traffickers committed acts of “homicide, torture, kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, bribery, intimidation, and other threats, resulting in high levels of violence and exploitation.” According to the State Department, the Mexican government investigated and prosecuted only a minority of the crimes.
In the constitutional republic of Turkey, reports included arbitrary killings, deaths of people in custody, forced disappearance, and others.
In the authoritarian government of Vietnam, the State Department cited “credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and punishment by government agents; arbitrary arrest and detention; political prisoners; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including arbitrary arrest and prosecution of government critics, censorship, and the use of criminal libel laws; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; restrictions on freedom of movement, including exit bans on activists; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; trafficking in persons; significant restrictions on workers’ freedom of association; and use of compulsory child labor.”
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