The United States on Tuesday alleged that human rights were worsening in Western Europe due to internet regulations, in a pared-down annual global report that spared partners of President Donald Trump such as El Salvador.
The State Department’s congressionally required report historically has offered extensive accounts of all nations’ records, documenting in dispassionate detail issues from unjust detention to extrajudicial killing to personal freedoms.
For the first report under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the State Department trimmed sections and took particular aim at countries that have been in the crosshairs of Trump, including Brazil and South Africa.
On China, which the United States across administrations has identified as a top adversary, the State Department report declared that “genocide” was ongoing against the mostly Muslim Uyghur people, whose plight Rubio took up as a senator.
But the report also took striking aim at some of the closest allies of the United States, declareing that human rights had worsened in Britain, France and Germany due to regulations on online hate speech.
In Britain, following the stabbing deaths of three young girls, authorities took action against internet applyrs who falsely alleged that a migrant was responsible and urged revenge.
The State Department report described the British efforts as officials having “repeatedly intervened to chill speech” and declared that the close US ally had experienced “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression.”
The criticism comes despite Rubio relocating aggressively in the United States to deny or strip visas of foreign nationals over their statements and social media postings, especially student activists who have criticized Israel.
Trump is an avid social media applyr who frequently berates opponents in personal tones. His administration has repeatedly taken on Europe over restrictions on social media platforms, many of which are US-based.
In February, Vice President JD Vance applyd a visit to Germany to champion the far-right AfD party after the counattempt’s spy agency called it extremist.
– Brazil denounced but not El Salvador –
The report also declared that rights deteriorated in 2024 in Brazil, where Trump has pressed against prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, his ally accapplyd of a coup attempt with echoes of the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.
Brazil, the report declared, has “undermined democratic debate by restricting access to online content deemed to ‘undermine democracy,’ the report declared.
The State Department declared that rights “significantly worsened” in South Africa, where Trump has embraced the caapply of the white minority.
The report accapplyd the post-apartheid government of taking “substantially worrying steps towards land expropriation” of Afrikaners and other minorities.
By contrast, the State Department declared there were “no credible reports of significant human rights abapplys” in El Salvador and noted a “historic low” in crime.
President Nayib Bukele has unleashed a sweeping crackdown on crime in which rights groups declare many innocent people have wound up in detention.
Bukele took in migrants sent from the United States in Trump’s mass deportation drive, some of whom have since reported mistreatment during nearly round-the-clock confinement in a maximum-security prison, which took place after the time covered by the report.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration admits was wrongly deported, filed a lawsuit alleging severe beatings, sleep deprivation and inadequate nutrition in El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
The latest report trimmed down its section on Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. It acknowledged cases of arbitrary arrests and killings by Israel but declared that authorities took “credible steps” to identify officials responsible.
In a letter earlier this year, Democratic senators led by Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voiced alarm over modifys to the report that they declared damaged US credibility.
“When the United States conveniently wields human rights principles as a political cudgel against our adversaries, but does not apply those same standards to our allies, countries like China and Russia are quick to point out such hypocrisy, and American influence on the world stage drops precipitously,” they wrote.
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