from the no-longer-even-in-the-free-world-wildcard-race dept
Not content to rewrite American history to better serve white people, the Trump administration is now rewriting world history on the fly by recasting terminal human rights violators as “not all that bad, actually” and adding stuff to other human rights reports just because some MAGA people had some bad experiences in a few select foreign countries.
The State Department released its long-awaited reports on international human rights Tuesday, and they drastically reduce the types of government repression and abuse that the United States under President Trump deems worthy of criticism.
The agency said the “streamlined” human rights reports adhere more closely to what’s required to be in them by law. But critics say the reduced content lets authoritarians off the hook.
The critics are right. If you have any doubts about the criticism, go ahead and read a few of the reports generated by Marco Rubio/Donald Trump’s State Department and compare them to literally any of those published before Trump’s second term began.
For instance, here’s the Executive Summary from last year’s report on El Salvador, home of the president’s current favorite dictator and obliging host of hundreds of deportees who have been falsely labeled as members of international gangs.
Under the state of exception, reports of gang violence decreased significantly, allowing citizens to exercise their right to life, liberty, and security of person, and to engage in daily activities and commerce without the constant threat of violence and extortion. Arbitrary arrests and mass pretrial hearings, however, undermined due process and exacerbated historically difficult conditions in overcrowded prisons.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; extensive gender-based violence, including domestic and sexual violence, and femicide; substantial barriers to sexual and reproductive health services access; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; and crimes involving violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons.
The “state of exception” is President Bukele’s blend of martial law and police state that has supposedly resulted in a massive decrease in gang violence, but that’s only if you ignore credible reports about government officials giving gang members money in exchange for votes and Bukele directly negotiating with gangs to lower violence in exchange for better prison conditions. That last part is something the State Department itself accused Bukele of doing before it was undermined completely by this administration.
Here’s all the current administration has to say about Bukele’s police state in its Executive Summary:
There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in El Salvador during the year. Reports of gang violence remained at a historic low under the state of exception as mass arrests suppressed gang activity.
There were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses.
While it’s possible to read the first sentence as being low-key acknowledgement that things remain as terrible as they’ve been for years in El Salvador, I doubt that’s what the person composing this actually meant. The last sentence is patently false.
If that’s not evidence of some bullshit, take a look at what’s been added to the State Department’s report on alleged human rights violations in (wait for it…) Canada:
Rather than participate in government-mandated bargaining, some American digital platforms announced that they would no longer make news content available to Canadian users, leading to substantial censorship of news content including local news content. The opposition party described the Online News Act as a government censorship law, because of its effects on the character and quality of the country’s news reporting.
A trial of two organizers of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” concluded during the year. A verdict was still pending at year’s end. In response to the 2022 convoy (which protested draconian lockdown measures that substantially damaged the communities and economic livelihoods of many Canadians), the government took the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies Act, leading to large-scale social media censorship and debanking. In January, the Federal Court ruled that the government’s imposition of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal government appealed the decision.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) continued its legal efforts to block an independent news outlet’s Access to Information request for CBC’s communications with American social media platform Twitter (now X) dating to 2018. The news outlet previously published investigative reporting alleging that the CBC exerted pressure on Twitter/X to censor it and other disfavored news outlets over political speech.
Huh. Know what’s missing? An equally long section detailing abusive conditions and systemic racism in the nation’s prisons.
But if you really want to see how this administration is rewriting its world view to serve its own ends, you need to click through and see the depressingly long list of human rights violations and international crimes the Trump administration no longer desires to treat as violations or criminal acts.
This is only part of it and it’s already more than enough:
Everything highlighted and struck-through is something the State Department will not be investigating or reporting on as long as the GOP is still in power.
Starting from the top, here’s only a partial list of what the Trump administration will be deliberately turning a blind eye to for at least the next three years:
- Prison conditions
- Due process rights
- Property seizures and/or restitution
- Libel and slander laws
- “National security (used as a pretext for punishing critics)”
- Freedom of peaceful assembly
- Abuse of refugees and asylum seekers
- Access to basic services for asylum seekers
- Abuses or irregularities in recent elections
- Participation of women or members of marginalized people in elections
- “Section 4: Corruption in government”
- Retribution against human rights defenders
- Rape and domestic violence
- Gender-based violence
- Child abuse or neglect
- Sexual exploitation of children
- Institutionalization of people with disabilities
- Everything under the heading: “Lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons”
That’s not even the entire list, but it’s indicative enough of what this administration thinks should be treated as acceptable behavior by the government, government officials, and anyone in the general population deserving enough of having their crimes against others (and humanity in general) ignored by the people in power.
This sort of thing would be considered breathtakingly horrendous anywhere in the world. That it’s happening in the nation that many considered to be the “Leader of the Free World” is absolutely sickening.
Filed Under: erasing history, human rights, marco rubio, rights violations, state department, trump administration
