MOSCOW, May 28 (Itar-Tass) —— Moscow hopes that the United States will take a more objective and balanced approach to human rights, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov said on Monday, May 28, commenting on the U.S. Department of State’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
“We are closely studying the U.S. Department of State’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in 2011. A preliminary analysis of the document shows that it has the same flaws that were characteristic of the previous such reports,” Dolgov said.
“We hope for more objective and balanced approaches of the American side in the field of human rights. We confirm that we remain open to the development of constructive and equal dialogue and cooperation with the U.S. in this field,” he said.
“We think that the biggest flaw in the report is the blatant misuse of the humanitarian and human rights topic for the sake of U.S. political interests, which has become customary, selective cliched assessments and active use of double standards. And it is not always clear on what sources some debatable conclusions are based,” Dolgov said.
“The human rights situation in ‘developed democracies’ is presented in a one-sided and artificially smoothed manner as always, even though many authoritative human rights organisations say that they are ridden with serious problems concerning compliance with fundamental democratic standards, including the freedom of conscience, faith, mass media, assembly, movement and others,” he said.
Dolgov stressed that “particularly baffling is the fact that Department of State experts continue to ignore numerous recommendations of international human rights organisations to the leadership of Latvia and Estonia to eliminate the problem of ‘non-citizens’, shameful for modern Europe. The situation is presented in such a way that hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking residents of those countries, who have fallen victim to the discriminatory policy of the authorities, are to blame for having been deprived citizenship. Such approach of the authors is nothing but cynical falsification.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that “the the human rights situation in the Middle East and North Africa in the context of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has also been presented one-sidedly. In the case of Libya, the emphasis was placed essentially on the justification of the violations of international humanitarian law and human rights that were committed by NATO during the armed operation in that country”.
“The section on Russia is not objective either. Unfortunately, American partners do not want to see the large-scale work being done by the Russian leadership in the context of improving the political and judicial systems, overhauling law enforcement bodies and penitentiaries, and fighting corruption. As for human rights problems, no country is immune against them,” Dolgov said.
“In this respect, it is noteworthy that the report once again lacks analysis of the human rights situation in the United States itself, where the human rights record is far from perfect. If the authors claim that their report has global coverage, they must be consistent,” he said.