Freedom House: Russian Rights Report a Mockery

Leading political freedom watchdog Freedom House panned a recent report by the Russian foreign ministry criticizing the United States, Canada, and several European countries as a human rights report “spoof.” 

The report called “On the Human Rights Situation in a Number of the World’s States,” has “no accompanying introduction, preface, or methodology,” notes Freedom House staff editor, Tyler Roylance.

“The report is meant to be a stick in the eye of the Kremlin’s perceived enemies, rather than any genuine attempt to promote human rights around the world,” adds Roylance.

The 90-page report, only available in Russian, dedicates around 20 pages to the United States, while the U.K., France, and Germany have a few pages each.

Among the transgressions cited by Russia relating to the United States was the conviction of arms dealer Viktor Bout. Bout was found guilty in New York in November for conspiring to kill Americans and deliver anti-aircraft missiles to Colombian terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The document also has a strong focus on “supposed injustices against Russian citizens or ethnic Russians,” the rights group said. About 17 pages contained complaints about neighboring Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, 12 pages were given to Georgia, and 5 to Finland.

“Nearby authoritarian countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and the ‘stans’ of Central Asia are curiously absent,” Freedom House noted, despite the well-documented abuses in those countries by virtually every major international human rights organizations.

The report may have been designed to give an impression that rights abuses are everywhere, including in Europe and the United States, which are deemed desirable places to live, opines Roylance. It “encourages cynicism and apathy” among Russian citizens, which could be used as leverage by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the face of recent protests across the country against his longtime rule.

Putin rejected calls for an independent review of Russia’s electoral processes after the recent parliamentary vote. Opponents say the elections were rigged.

Since 1976, the U.S. Department of State has annually published a human rights report on the state of human rights in the world, usually giving poor ratings to China and Russia, which have been corroborated by other human rights groups. 

“The restrictions on political competition and interference in local and regional elections in ways that restricted citizens’ right to change their government continued,” stated a State Department report last April. 

The Russian report claims that in the United States, “independent candidates are barred from elections and electoral offices,” even though there are presently several elected Independent members of Congress.

Roylance says that Russian report uses outdated information to support its claims, saying that the United States executes juvenile offenders. The Supreme Court outlawed juvenile executions in 2005 and the last recorded instance was in 2003.

Ironically, the foreign ministry report uses Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders as sources of information. 

“The Russian government has repeatedly denounced such organizations and questioned their motives,” Freedom House said. “If they are now regarded as credible sources by the foreign ministry, what does that say about their regular criticism of Russian authorities?”

China last year also released a human rights report on the United States using a number of sources, including America-based media agencies and rights groups, which are banned from operating inside the country.

“Authoritarian regimes like China’s and Russia’s see all human rights discourse as yet another weapon in an amoral, tooth-and-nail competition, applying the lessons of their cutthroat internal politics to the realm of international relations,” Roylance concludes.