US EditionState Department's Overhauled Human Rights Report Faces Diplomatic Rebukes and Lawsuit
The report narrows focus on free speech, omits abuses against women and LGBTQ people, and softens criticism of US allies, reflecting a politicized approach aligned with "America First" values.
- On August 12, 2025, the State Department released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices covering 2024, with the Trump administration turning it into a tool that minimizes abuses, critics say.
- Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a backpedal on equality and diversity issues and refocused the Human Rights Report , omitting categories on women, LGBT people, disabilities and peaceful assembly.
- Calling the revisions an “exercise of whitewashing and deception”, Human Rights Watch’s Sarah Yager said omissions politicize and degrade the 2025 report’s credibility.
- Earlier this year, Democratic senators led by Jeanne Shaheen voiced alarm in Congress, warning that report changes damaged US credibility and exposed hypocrisy, undermining influence.
- Human rights organizations warn that politicization undermines the report’s authority and endangers human rights defenders and asylum seekers globally.
223 Articles
223 Articles
What a cheek! The US is in no position to lecture us about free speech
An annual global human rights report from the US state department has declared that freedom of speech is under threat in the UK. The British are too polite to tell the Trump administration what we really think about that – but I’m not, writes Sean O’Grady
Human rights report under Trump blunts language on Israel and El Salvador - Hawaii Tribune-Herald
The State Department on Tuesday released an annual collection of reports on human rights records in nearly 200 nations, but left out language on persistent abuses in many nations that was present in prior reports.
The report on Israel is the litmus test of the new course: nine pages in 2025 against 103 in 2024. So far considered by international observers to be among the most complete sources on the subject, the Report on human rights violations in the world drawn up every year by the US State Department has seen the volume of pages and the information contained therein plummet. “The reports - reads the presentation published on August 12 - have been simp…
State Department butchers human rights abuse report for the new Trump era
A long-awaited report on global human rights from the Trump administration features hand-wringing about purported anti-white racism, downplays abuses against women and completely omits references to anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
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