State Department Releases Human Rights Reports (02/25/2009)
On February 25, 2009, the U.S. Department of State released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. These congressionally mandated reports are an annual assessment of human rights conditions in hundreds of countries that describes the performance in 2008 of governments across the globe in putting into practice their international commitments on human rights.
This year, under the Obama administration, the report notes that the United States takes no offense at scrutiny of its human rights record nor should other governments consider the report interference in their “internal affairs.”
There is, the report says, “a continuing need for vigorous United States diplomacy to act and speak out against human rights abuses, at the same time that our country carefully reviews its own performance.”
“We and all other sovereign nations have international obligations to respect the universal human rights and freedoms of our citizens, and it is the responsibility of others to speak out when they believe those obligations are not being fulfilled.”
More people worldwide are demanding greater personal and political freedom, but many governments are resisting this trend, the report says. “A disturbing number of countries imposed burdensome, restrictive or repressive laws and regulations against NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and the media, including the Internet,” the report says. “Many courageous human rights defenders who peacefully pressed for their own rights and those of their fellow countrymen and women were harassed, threatened, arrested and imprisoned, killed or subjected to violent extrajudicial means of reprisal.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in remarks at a press briefing for the release of the report, vowed to work with NGOs, businesses, religious leaders, schools and universities and individual citizens to “create a world where human rights are accepted.” She noted that the United States believes it enhances its own security, prosperity and progress when the human rights of people in other countries are protected and emphasized that the promotion of human rights is an essential piece of U.S. foreign policy.
Report on Uzbekistan