Radio Liberty: the worst year in the history of Russia

The State Department of the United States published on Thursday the regular annual report on the human rights situation in the world. Russia was not included in it among the most flagrant violators of these rights, perhaps only because it is being subjected to tireless criticism from the American authorities. According to the expert of the human rights organization Freedom House, because of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, violations of human rights in other countries have faded a little, and the State Department report is intended to correct this situation.

If the scale of America’s geopolitical enemies coincided with the list of the most flagrant human rights violators on Earth according to the State Department, then the main opponents of Washington would be Iran, Syria and China. There was also a place for self-criticism in the State Department report: “The past year was marked by numerous racial incidents that occurred in the United States. Therefore, we are very critical of ourselves and do not believe that any country has the right to rest on its laurels as regards the observance of human rights, ”Secretary of State John Kerry said in the preamble of the report.

“No nation can realize its creative potential if it violates the freedoms of citizens,” said the Secretary of State. “This also applies to our allies in the fight against extremism, in particular, Saudi Arabia, which suppresses freedom of expression.” According to Kerry, "fair trial, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are still the cornerstones of US policy." “At the same time, we are now paying increasing attention to new challenges in the field of human rights: trafficking in persons, lack of unhindered access to the Internet, disregard for the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, such as Iraqi Yezidis, persecuted by Islamists, as well as people with disabilities LGBT. Last but not least, we are concerned about the encroachment on the safety and lives of journalists, the apotheosis of which was the massacre of Charlie Hebdo journalists. Our understanding of the detrimental effect that official abuse of office and deep-seated corruption in state institutions has on the state of human rights has deepened. When the population loses confidence in the government, it becomes more susceptible to the promises of criminal organizations and terrorist groups such as ISIL, Al-Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and Boko Haram, the report says in the preamble.

“In our report,” added John Kerry, “we did not ignore the fact that human rights are nowhere violated in such a blatant manner as in zones of armed conflict that we see in the examples of Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, the Central African Republic and Ukraine, the victim of aggression unleashed by its powerful neighbor, Russia. There are now two hundred and thirteen million people in combat zones, including women and children. ”

By law, the State Department report should be issued annually on February 25. Delays have happened before, but never in the entire history of these reports has his release been delayed for as long as this time - 120 days. Perhaps the delay would have been even greater if it had not been for the threat of Republican Senator Ted Cruz to fine the State Department in the amount of 5 percent of its budget for each month of delays. The Foreign Ministry itself explains the delay in the unusually tight schedule of Secretary of State Kerry's overseas travel (and the severe leg injury he suffered), and making a presentation of the report in his absence would be disrespectful to the priority topic of American diplomacy.

Critics, on the contrary, consider publication of a negligence to human rights issues, and the reason for it is seen in the fact that the Obama administration conducted difficult negotiations with Iran, Cuba and China, not wanting to interfere with these negotiations with unflattering comments on the state of human rights in counteragent countries. This is especially true of Iran, with which the administration, in addition to the nuclear dialogue, hoped to establish long-term cooperation of the most extensive plan. Judging by the harsh criticism of Iran in the State Department report, these hopes did not come true at this stage. The last round of the US-China negotiations in the framework of the economic and strategic dialogue ended in vain.

In Iran today, 895 political prisoners, thirty of them - journalists, including American, accused of espionage, the report says. They are treated in prisons inhumanely. In Iran, 721 was executed during the reporting period, often without trial, rather than 268, as was officially announced. The number of executions is growing, as is the persecution of people who converted to Christianity; last year, 18 people were convicted for this. Tehran also continues to sponsor terrorism in different parts of the Middle East and to support the bloody regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The political system of China is named in the report of a ruthlessly repressive, unlawfully punishing any manifestation of dissent, especially among the national minorities of the Uighurs and Tibetans.

Cuba no longer sponsors terrorism, of which the State Department assured Congress in order to secure its consent to the opening of the American embassy in Havana. The Castro regime also received praise for lifting many restrictions on travel of its citizens abroad, but was also condemned for refusing to issue foreign passports to a number of opposition members or their oppression upon returning home.

The part of the State Department’s report on Russia was commented on by the Deputy Director for Science of the leading human rights organization Freedom House, Arch Paddington:

- State Department reports enjoy great confidence of civil society, since the facts are consistently carefully verified, the terms are clearly defined, and the conclusions are balanced. In the current document, relatively little space is devoted to human rights violations in the east of Ukraine, and this, in my opinion, is a result of the fact that it is very difficult to obtain truly reliable information about the abuse of Russian troops and their local proteges. An independent press from the area of ​​hostilities expelled, even from settlements captured by Islamists in Iraq and Syria, receives more objective information than from self-proclaimed “DPR” and “LPR”. As for Russia itself, the report does not count examples of judicial arbitrariness, violations of electoral legislation, suppression of freedom of speech, independent media, non-governmental organizations. At the same time, the last report speaks about Cuba and China more than about Russia, while Cuba as a whole is now moving in a positive direction, while China and Russia are moving in the direction of deterioration.

- Why did Russia get a less condemnation report than Cuba or China?

- It seems to me that the whole thing is in the aspiration of our diplomats to balance. Russia has been subjected to tireless criticism lately, therefore, I believe, the State Department has decided that other violators should be brought out of the shadows into the light, whose unsightly actions were obscured by the central opposition of Russia and the West. We should not forget that, from the point of view of the State Department, it is not worthwhile to paint the only black country with which America has important points of contact, for example, the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Freedom House human rights report, published a few days ago, was not constrained by the considerations of high diplomacy to which the State Department is biased, and we conclude that 2014 was the worst year in modern Russian history man, says Arch Paddington.

Two days before the publication of a State Department report in the South Korean capital Seoul, at the initiative of the United States and other Western countries, the United Nations Office for the Monitoring of Human Rights in the DPRK opened. The response of the North Korean authorities to this “provocative”, in their opinion, step was the conviction for life penal servitude of two South Koreans detained last year on charges of gathering secret information and trying to implant a “bourgeois lifestyle and culture” in the country. Prosecutors demanded the death penalty for the accused.