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The State Dept has issued annual US report on human rights issues in countries around the world. Preface: "The policy of this administration is to engage with other governments, regardless of their record, if doing so will further US interests." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. /1
I’m not sure why, but it feels shocking to see, written down, an official statement that the US doesn’t give a damn about a country’s human rights record as long as we get what we want. And what we want is apparently not protection of human rights. /2
This is, of course, consistent with Trump administration’s actions, and cozy relations with despots such as Putin, Kim, and Saudi royal family. Why bother with pretense that we care about their torture, murder, and oppression, when we are rolling back rights at furious pace? /3
Particularly galling as I write from Geneva, where I’m spending week speaking with UN Human Rights Council delegations about human rights issues in several countries. So far, there hasn’t been single person warming chair of US delegate in council chamber in my many visits /4
US itself will be up for another cycle of review of its human rights record next year. Rather than progress in any area, it has made a disgraceful retreat. I won’t be entirely surprised if US doesn’t show up for or participate in process. Or bother appointing an ambassador. /5
.@GOP should be ashamed. In its lust for power, it relinquished position of leadership on human rights and diminished influence for good (and confidence in trustworthiness) around world. Even if we save ourselves from fascism and restore democracy, we may never regain those. END
Postscript: end of the week, no Etats-Unis (United States). In and out of the council chamber all day each day. We never saw anyone in that seat.
And naturally, the US is absent from a Human Rights Council debate on the mitigation and countering of rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies.
I feel sick reading this.
Don’t we all!
Do you have a link to the report?
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