WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Tuesday that governments around the world, including in Russia and China, became more repressive last year, when the State Department released its annual report. on global human rights.
The department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2021 echoes President Biden’s warnings that authoritarianism is on the rise around the world. Its introduction cites “democracy continuing to decline on several continents, and rising authoritarianism threatening both human rights and democracy – most notably today, with its unprovoked attack.” of Russia into Ukraine.”
The report covers the past year and therefore does not include details of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. But it singled out the Russian government as the top human rights violator, citing reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, police abuse of suspects and other crimes, along with regular punishment of accused security officials.
Among the trends that Mr Blinken highlighted are increasingly brazen ways of governments “approaching across borders to intimidate and attack critics”. He described a plot to kidnap a New York journalist that prosecutors say was orchestrated by an intelligence network in Iran and the Belarus government’s decision to force a Ryanair passenger flight to land. so that security forces can arrest a journalist on the plane.
Some governments were also quick to lock down critics at home, Blinken said, listing Cuba, Egypt and Russia. The report shows that more than one million political prisoners are being held in 65 countries.
Blinken said the Chinese government “continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity” against the ethnic Uighur people in Xinjiang and has suppressed basic freedoms in Hong Kong.
One country that has seen a dramatic turn for the worse is Afghanistan, where the US-backed government collapsed after Mr. Biden withdrew American forces from the country in August. Mr. Blinken describes “a serious erosion of human rights,” including the arbitrary detention of women, protesters and journalists; revenge against the security forces of the former government; and restrictions on the freedom of work and education of women and girls.
One positive sign amid the gloom was the successful US-led effort last week to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“A country that is committing serious and systematic violations of human rights should not sit in an agency tasked with protecting those rights,” he said.
