April’s excuse of the month for Islamic terrorism.
A crackdown on dissent by authoritarian governments last year contributed to a rising tide of human rights abuses that has allowed terrorist groups to flourish, according to the State Department’s annual human rights report released Wednesday.
Although the report found human rights abuses on every continent, Secretary of State John F. Kerry singled out the Middle East.
“The most widespread and dramatic violations in 2015 were those in the Middle East, where the confluence of terrorism and the Syrian conflict caused enormous suffering,” he said.
“Given the horrors of these past five years, I cannot imagine a more powerful blow for human rights than putting a decisive end to this war, to the terror, to the repression and especially to the torture, to the indiscriminate bombing,” he said, “and therefore make possible a new beginning for the Syrian people.”[…]
Among the governments subjected to lengthy criticism were several that have appeared many times in the 40 years that the State Department has assessed the state of human rights around the world. They include North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Russia and China.
But allies such as Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also came in for criticism. Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said the Obama administration should incorporate human rights concerns about its allies into its foreign policy.
“Indeed, despite this well-conceived report, it remains true that the administration too often mutes its human rights criticisms with countries of strategic interest when it comes to actually policy implementation,” she said.