The State Department<\/span> released its annual reports on human rights around the world on Tuesday, and revealed an administration set on whitewashing the records of some of the world\u2019s worst violators<\/a> of human rights.<\/p>\n The hollowed-out <\/a>reports on roughly 200 countries and territories omit references to LGBTQ+ discrimination and curtail information on government abuses, including gender-based violence and government corruption. They no longer include sections focused on systemic racial or ethnic discrimination and violence, child abuse, or child sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n The congressionally mandated human rights reports, which are used to guide U.S. decisions on diplomacy and aid, have been turned into wholly political documents that target countries with whom the Trump administration has clashed and soft-pedal abuses by the administration\u2019s allies.<\/p>\n Israel, and countries like El Salvador, South Sudan, and Eswatini, which have agreed to accept and in some cases imprison U.S. deportees as part of Trump\u2019s growing global gulag<\/a>, got a soft touch. South Africa, which has led the war crimes case<\/a> against Israel at The Hague<\/a>, received a more pointed report.<\/p>\n The page count of the report on Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, for example, dropped by more than 91 percent<\/a>, plummeting from 103 pages last year to just nine. While previous editions \u2014 including reports from President Donald Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 included significant material on abuses documented by the United Nations and human rights groups, such accounts were almost entirely omitted from the new report<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Israel report, while egregious, is no outlier.<\/p>\n The new report on El Salvador shrank from 44 pages last year to just 11. The report released in 2024 detailed overcrowded prisons and reports of \u201carbitrary killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; [and] arbitrary arrest or detention,\u201d among other abuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year\u2019s report<\/a> on El Salvador says there \u201cwere no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,\u201d while incongruously claiming \u201cthere were no significant changes in the human rights situation in El Salvador during the year.\u201d<\/p>\n Local<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0international<\/a>\u00a0human rights groups have documented mass arbitrary detention<\/a>, torture, sexual violence against women and girls in detention, and enforced disappearances in El Salvador. A recent Amnesty International report<\/a>, for example, chronicled human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, serious failings in the judicial system, prison overcrowding, inhumane detention conditions, and torture, among many other abuses.<\/p>\n State Department spokesperson and former Fox commentator Tammy Bruce offered a tortured defense<\/a> of Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s influence on watering down the reports on Tuesday, framing it as a laissez-faire attitude toward human rights. \u201cI would ask that people view this as an indication of our point of view in general, that there\u2019s no country that is singled out for condemnation or singled out for praise. It\u2019s the nature of the consistency of how \u2014 of our diplomats, how President Trump and Secretary Rubio view the nature of what\u2019s happening in those countries,\u201d said Bruce, claiming that the cuts increase \u201creadability\u201d while eliminating \u201cpolitically biased demands and assertions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe State Department under Secretary Rubio has shamelessly turned a once-credible tool of U.S. foreign policy mandated by Congress into yet another instrument to advance MAGA political grievances and culture war obsessions,\u201d said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n Meeks added, \u201cThis administration continues to do irreparable harm to America\u2019s credibility and global leadership as it retreats from defending human rights abroad and attacks the rule of law and civil liberties of Americans here at home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Officially called \u201cCountry Reports on Human Rights Practices,\u201d the annual documents are\u00a0required by law<\/a>\u00a0to be \u201ca full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights\u201d in nearly 200 countries and territories worldwide. They\u00a0are used<\/a>\u00a0\u201cby the U.S. Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches as a resource for shaping policy and guiding decisions, informing diplomatic engagements, and determining the allocation of foreign aid and security sector assistance,\u201d according to the State Department.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the release of the U.S. State Department\u2019s human rights report, it is clear that the Trump Administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries,\u201d said Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA\u2019s national director of government relations and advocacy. \u201cFailing to adequately report on human rights violations further damages the credibility of the U.S. on human rights issues. It\u2019s shameful that the Trump Administration and Secretary Rubio are putting politics above human lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Instructions issued earlier this year to the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which has been eviscerated <\/a>under an \u201cAmerica First\u201d reorganization by Rubio, took specific aim at\u00a0non-refoulement<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 derived from a French word for \u201creturn\u201d \u2014 which forbids sending people to places where they are at risk of harm. It is a bedrock principle of international human rights, refugee, and customary international law, and is embedded in U.S. domestic law.\u00a0<\/p>\n State Department employees were specifically instructed that the upcoming country reports should \u201cremove any reference\u201d to \u201crefoulement of persons to a country where they would face torture or persecution,\u201d according to the memo, which was obtained by The Intercept prior to the release of the new reports.<\/p>\n The absence of refoulement in the new human rights reports comes as the Trump administration is building a\u00a0global gulag<\/a>, pursuing deals <\/a>with around a third of the world\u2019s nations to expel immigrants to places where they do not hold citizenship. Once exiled, these so-called \u201cthird-country nationals\u201d are sometimes detained, imprisoned, or in danger of being sent back to their country of origin \u2014 which they may have fled to escape violence, torture, or political persecution.<\/p>\n Last month<\/a>, the administration expelled five men \u2014 from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen \u2014 to the Southern African kingdom of Eswatini, an absolute monarchy with a dismal human rights record. The move closely followed the U.S. deportation of eight men to violence-plagued South Sudan<\/a>, one of the most repressive nations in the world.\u00a0The administration also recently struck a deal to expel 250<\/a>\u00a0people to Rwanda, another perennial violator of human rights.<\/p>\n All saw a significant decrease in documentation of their human rights violations. The page count of the State Department\u2019s human rights report on South Sudan was slashed by 65 percent, plummeting from 57 pages last year to 20.\u00a0Eswatini saw a 57 percent drop, from 40 pages to 17, while the department catalog of Rwandan abuses shrank by 54 percent, from 52 to 24 pages.<\/p>\n State Department officials did not respond to repeated questions by The Intercept concerning the role the Trump administration\u2019s own third-country deportations played in the change in focus.<\/p>\n While laundering the human rights records of nations with like-minded leaders, the State Department took aim at nations with whom the Trump administration has clashed, criticizing the erosion of freedom of speech in Europe, for instance, including the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s report on South Africa, whose government the Trump administration has accused of racial discrimination toward white minority Afrikaners, claims that the country\u2019s human rights record \u201csignificantly worsened.\u201d\u00a0It called out South Africa for a \u201csubstantially worrying step towards land expropriation of Afrikaners and further abuses against racial minorities in the country.\u201d Trump has long claimed\u00a0that land seizures from white South Africans were commonplace, a falsehood pushed by right-wing groups <\/a>in South Africa.<\/p>\n Trump and Rubio have repeatedly criticized South Africa\u2019s racial equity laws this year, particularly a recent measure that allows the government to\u00a0take privately owned land<\/a>\u00a0without providing compensation when it is deemed to be in the public interest. South Africa\u2019s President Cyril Ramaphosa said earlier this year that his country had not, in fact, seized any land<\/a>.<\/p>\n In February, Trump\u00a0cut aid to South Africa<\/a>, accusing the government of discriminating against the country\u2019s white minority by enacting \u201cpolicies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education and business.\u201d Trump issued an executive order<\/a> that called for the U.S. to\u00a0resettle Afrikaners\u00a0as refugees<\/a>, casting them as \u201cvictims of unjust racial discrimination.\u201d Experts have said there is no evidence white farmers are being targeted because of their race.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/country-reports_el-salvador-06.jpg?fit=1360%2C992\")
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