The State Department’s next human rights report will move away from calling out the persecution of marginalized groups such as women, ethnic and racial minorities, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ+ community and instead focus on the “natural rights” of the individual, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
“We believe that every individual has these rights, no matter their group identity,” the senior State Department official said in a briefing to reporters.
The official spoke on behalf of the State Department on the condition of anonymity. “It’s not because of their group identity. It’s because they have had a right taken away from them, whether it’s freedom of speech, freedom of religion. You name the right, we are here to protect them and to hold governments accountable.”
New guidance was sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad Thursday mandating that U.S. diplomats also note other instances that were described as infringements on human rights, according to a second senior State Department official.
Those violations include the chemical or surgical mutilation of children in operations that attempt to modify their sex; the enforcement of DEI policies like affirmative action; the facilitation of mass or illegal migration across a country’s territory into other countries; state subsidization of abortions; attempts to coerce individuals into engaging in euthanasia; and medical abuses including forced testing, forced organ harvesting and eugenic gene-editing practices on human embryos.
“In recent years, new destructive ideologies have given safe harbor to human rights violations,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Thursday. “The Trump administration will not allow these human rights violations, such as the mutilation of children, laws that infringe on free speech, and racially discriminatory employment practices, to go unchecked. We are saying enough is enough.”
The State Department also sees the shift as an opportunity to address human rights issues in parts of the world not covered in the past, including what the Trump administration sees as censorship of speech in Western Europe.
“When it comes to Western Europe, we’re not saying that we’re favoring one opposition party or one particular political group. We’re saying all groups, all parties, all people should be able to speak freely, and that includes on the internet, includes on social media,” the senior State Department official said, referencing the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which regulates illegal content, hate speech and disinformation posted online.
“We see robust regulatory regimes in Europe that are, I think, curtailing free speech across Europe, and we have serious concerns about that.”
Historically, U.S. administrations have grounded their human rights policy in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which strives to avoid Western or American definitions in favor of a more common understanding and international standard.
State Department officials do not believe the shift will prevent the U.S. from holding foreign governments accountable for violations.
“The whole point of free speech is that you have to listen to those you disagree with. If we all agreed on every issue, there would be no need for free speech. We’d all disagree,” the senior State Department official said.
“And so, of course, we highlight where opposition political parties or certain minority groups in certain countries have had their freedom of religion or freedom of speech restricted.”
