Source/Credit: All Headlines News
By Tejinder Singh April 8, 2011
The United States on Friday launched a “searchable” and “safe” website about global human rights coinciding with the U.S. top diplomat releasing the annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2010,” at the State Department.
Announcing the launch of the new website, humanrights.gov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “This site will offer one-stop shopping for information about global human rights from across the United States Government.”
The site which would not ask users to register, would be pulling “together reports, statements, and current updates from around the world,” said Clinton, adding, “We hope this will make it easier for citizens, scholars, NGOs, and international organizations to find the information they need to hold governments accountable.”
Presenting the “35th annual report to Congress on the state of human rights around the world” to the media, Secretary Clinton listed “three growing trends in 2010.”
The secretary cited “widespread crackdown on civil society activists,” as the first trend, giving the examples of Russia, China and Venezuela, where she said, “The Venezuelan Government imposed new restrictions on the independent media, the internet, political parties, and NGOs.”
“In Russia, we’ve seen crackdowns on civil society groups turn violent with numerous attacks and murders of journalists and activists,” she said, adding, “In China, we’ve seen negative trends that are appearing to worsen in the first part of 2011.”
Clinton blasted Chinese instances of bulldozing the human rights of its citizens noting, “Among them most recently was the prominent artist, Ai Weiwei, who was taken into custody just this past Sunday.”
Secretary Clinton urged, “China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their internationally recognized right to free expression and to respect the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all of the citizens of China.”
On the second trend in 2010, Secretary Clinton cited, “countries violating the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association by curtailing internet freedom.”
‘More than 40 governments now restrict the internet through various means,” said Clinton, highlighting, Burma and Cuba, where “government policies preempted online dissent by keeping most ordinary people from accessing the internet at all.”
Clinton said the “third disturbing trend of 2010 was the repression of vulnerable minorities, including racial and ethnic and religious minorities along with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.”
Without mincing words, the secretary lambasted Pakistan as a country where “blasphemy remains a crime punishable by death,” adding, “the blasphemy law has been enforced against Muslims who do not share the beliefs of other Muslims, and also against non-Muslims who worship differently.”
“In the first two months of 2011, two government officials in Pakistan who sought to reform the law, Governor Taseer and Minister Bhatti, were targeted by a fatwa and assassinated,” she said.
On the positive side, Secretary Clinton had words of encouragement for Colombian government which she said, had “began consulting with human rights defenders.”
Other nations showing positive directions are Guinea and Indonesia according to the U.S. Secretary of State.
Guinea got eulogies for holding “free and fair elections” with the inauguration of “its first democratically elected president,” while Indonesia was appreciated by Clinton for “a vibrant free media and a flourishing civil society at the same time as it faces up to challenges in preventing abuses by its security forces and acting against religious intolerance.”
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