In the annual U.S. look at global human rights, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that many governments are engaging in politically motivated prosecutions and using new technologies to control dissent, whether in public squares or through various types of technology.
Kerry singled out several governments he said have abused the human rights of their countrymen, including Syria, Russia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Bangladesh and the recently ousted government in Ukraine. He said 80 governments around the world have enacted laws discriminating against homosexuals.
He said the U.S. record on human rights, where slavery was legal in the 1800s, is not perfect, but that it stands for the advance of human dignity.
"We join with many other nations in reaffirming our commitment to a world where speaking one's mind does not lead to prosecution. And where professing one's love does not lead to persecution, a world where practicing or changing one's faith does not lead to imprisonment and where marching peacefully in the streets does not get you beaten up in a blind alley or even killed in plain sight."
The chief U.S. diplomat said that countries that commit human rights violations and fail to hold officials accountable for abuses are acting against their own best interest, as well as those of the United States.
Kerry said that violent extremism and crime take root in countries where human rights are denied, which in turn contributes to instability, insecurity and economic deprivation.
The report said the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has engaged in "systematic and widespread use of torture," carried our massacres and displaced and starved people during nearly three years of fighting in the Mideast country.
The State Department said Russia has "continued its crackdown on dissent that began after Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency." It said Moscow also adopted anti-gay laws and used laws against extremism to prosecute religious minorities.
The human rights report alleged that in China repression against civil and political rights organizations are routine and that increasingly officials have harassed relatives and associates of rights advocates.
It said that Cuba has largely dropped travel restrictions that prevented people from leaving the island nation. But the report said Cuba has denied the passport requests for some opposition figures or harassed them as they returned to Cuba.
The State Department said that in Egypt both the government of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and the interim military government have engaged in human rights violations.
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-alleges-widespread-global-human-rights-violations/1860661.html
27/2/14
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- Remarks on the Release of the Annual Country Report on Human Rights. -John Kerry,Secretary of State, Press Briefing Room....
Well, good morning, everybody. Excuse me. I’ve got a little allergies this morning, I think.
I’m delighted to be here this morning for the second Human Rights report
that I have issued as Secretary, and I’m particularly pleased to be
here with our Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights,
and Labor, Uzra Zeya, who as I think all of you know, is performing
these responsibilities in the capacity as an interim assistant secretary
but who has done just a spectacular job and has led the Department in a
year-long process to track and make the assessments that are reflected
here. So I thank her for a job particularly well done on this year’s
Human Rights Report.
The fundamental struggle for dignity, for decency in the treatment of human beings between each other and between states and citizens, is a driving force in all of human history. And from our own nation’s journey, we know that this is a work in progress. Slavery was written into our Constitution before it was written out. And we know that the struggle for equal rights, for women, for others – for LGBT community and others – is an ongoing struggle. And it’s because of the courage and commitment of citizens in each generation that the United States has come closer to living up to our own ideals.
Even as we come together today to issue a report on other nations, we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we expect accountability here at home too. And we know that we’re not perfect. We don’t speak with any arrogance whatsoever, but with a concern for the human condition.
Our own journey has not been without great difficulty, and at times, contradiction. But even as we remain humble about the challenges of our own history, we are proud that no country has more opportunity to advance the cause of democracy and no country is as committed to the cause of human rights as we are...................................http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/222645.htm
27/2/14
The fundamental struggle for dignity, for decency in the treatment of human beings between each other and between states and citizens, is a driving force in all of human history. And from our own nation’s journey, we know that this is a work in progress. Slavery was written into our Constitution before it was written out. And we know that the struggle for equal rights, for women, for others – for LGBT community and others – is an ongoing struggle. And it’s because of the courage and commitment of citizens in each generation that the United States has come closer to living up to our own ideals.
Even as we come together today to issue a report on other nations, we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we expect accountability here at home too. And we know that we’re not perfect. We don’t speak with any arrogance whatsoever, but with a concern for the human condition.
Our own journey has not been without great difficulty, and at times, contradiction. But even as we remain humble about the challenges of our own history, we are proud that no country has more opportunity to advance the cause of democracy and no country is as committed to the cause of human rights as we are...................................http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/222645.htm
27/2/14
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China denuncia violaciones de derechos humanos en EE.UU.....
ReplyDeleteChina denunció este viernes una serie de violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidos en Estados Unidos durante el 2013. En un informe publicado por la Oficina de Información del Consejo de Estado China abordó el espionaje del Gobierno estadounidense contra sus propios ciudadanos que constituye "una flagrante violación de la ley Internacional y transgrede seriamente los derechos humanos".
El texto también señala la discriminación racial y de las mujeres, la violencia con armas, que cobra cada año 11 mil vidas en esa nación, los castigos crueles e inusuales en las cárceles, donde unos 80 mil prisioneros sufren confinamiento en solitario, algunos por más de 40 años.
El uso de drones para bombardear otros países como Pakistán y Yemen, con numerosas víctimas civiles, y la ausencia de Estados Unidos en una serie de convenciones centrales sobre derechos humanos también es reflejado en el documento del Consejo de Estado de China.
Entre esas convenciones que Estados Unidos no ha ratificado, cita la vinculada a los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales, la de eliminación de todas formas de discriminación contra la mujer, la de los derechos de los niños y la de los discapacitados.
Por otra parte, China denuncia la tasa de desempleo en Estados Unidos, que afecta el 21 por ciento de las familias de bajos ingresos, y la cantidad de personas sin hogar, que aumentó 16 por ciento de 2011 a 2013.
Este reporte, el décimo quinto que publica China en respuesta a ataques de Estados Unidos en la esfera de los derechos humanos, incluyen el uso de niños como labriegos en el sector agrícola estadounidense, en detrimento de su salud física y mental.
http://www.telesurtv.net/articulos/2014/02/28/china-denuncia-serie-de-violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-en-ee.uu-2876.html
28/2/14
US-Senatorin„CIA behinderte Untersuchung zu Foltermethoden“
ReplyDeleteDie CIA-Praktiken im Anti-Terror-Krieg der USA sind noch nicht endgültig aufgedeckt. Nun soll der Geheimdienst Untersuchungen behindert haben. Kommt die ganze Wahrheit über das Vorgehen der US-Agenten jemals ans Licht?
Der US-Geheimdienst CIA soll Untersuchungen zu seinen umstrittenen Verhörmethoden, darunter auch die Folterung mutmaßlicher Terroristen, mit illegalen Mitteln behindert haben. Diesen und weitere schwere Vorwürfe erhob die Vorsitzende im Geheimdienstausschuss des Senats, Dianne Feinstein, am Dienstag im Kongress. Der Spionagedienst habe Computer von Mitarbeitern der Senatoren angezapft und Dokumente entfernt, die CIA-Programme aus der Amtszeit des ehemaligen US-Präsidenten George W. Bush betrafen............................http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/us-senatorin-cia-behinderte-untersuchung-zu-foltermethoden/9603206.html
11/3/14
‘No sign of improvement’ for human rights in Belarus, warns UN expert ...
ReplyDeleteAmid the continuing application of death sentences, the harassment of human rights defenders and independent journalists, and a new censorship law clamping down on internet freedom, the Government of Belarus shows no imminent sign of bettering its human rights record, a United Nations expert has declared.
“In 2014, the Belarus Government made welcome efforts to ease the tensions and human rights crisis which evolved in the region,” the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Republic of Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, admitted today in a press release.
“However,” he added, “despite the expectations of the international community, expressed both bilaterally and multilaterally, the internal human rights situation in Belarus shows no signs of improvement.”...............http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49682#.VJsD_cw7I
24/12/14