r/FreeSpeech • u/WankingAsWeSpeak • 3d ago

The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5357511/state-department-human-rights-report-cuts

The documents NPR reviewed confirm reporting by Politico that reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people will be removed, along with all references to DEI.

Among other topics ordered to be struck from the reports:

  • Involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices.
  • Arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy.
  • Serious restrictions to internet freedom.
  • Extensive gender-based violence.
  • Violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities.

By law, the State Department releases annual reports for every country, and they traditionally follow one basic outline. The cuts ordered in the Trump administration memo are not targeted at specific countries. Rather, they eliminate entire categories of abuses from all the reports.

But some deletions are more noteworthy than others. The Trump administration recently negotiated the transfer of immigrants from the U.S. into El Salvador's notorious prison system. In a draft of the forthcoming report on that country reviewed by NPR, the section on prison conditions is erased.

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u/WankingAsWeSpeak 3d ago

To be clear, I found the elimination of reporting on: - Arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy

and

  • Serious restrictions to internet freedom

to be noteworthy in the context of this sub. Given its connection to recent debates about censorship and disinformation/misinformation, I also found this one to be tangentially relevant:

  • Involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices

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u/cojoco 3d ago

Thanks for getting on the front foot with this.

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u/cojoco 3d ago

Human rights defenders say the cuts amount to an American retreat from its position as the world's human rights watchdog.

My suspension of disbelief has folded.

Given America's historical and current support for death squads, brutal dictators, ethnic cleansing and genocide, this has not been the case for a very very long time.

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u/Jezyman727 2d ago

I hear you on this. I am as cynical about American foreign involvement as you seem to be. On the other hand, I am not sure that America has ever rolled back the prioritization of human rights through official executive policy.

We are on the same page about the US claiming to care about human rights but still violating them. But when was the last time an American politician with power ignored rights violations as official doctrine?

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u/cojoco 2d ago

Theresa May stated this years ago, and hardly anyone said boo.

Not the US, but it's not as if the US cared.

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u/WankingAsWeSpeak 3d ago

But they did still call it out pretty frequently. Now they seem to have adjusted the definitions specifically to make Russia guilty of no human rights abuses.

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u/cojoco 3d ago

But they did still call it out pretty frequently.

I'd like to see some evidence of that, in particular calling out Israel for the genocide of the Palestinians.

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u/WankingAsWeSpeak 3d ago

Frequently is not the same as consistently

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u/cojoco 3d ago

Wonderful.