Bias in Reporting on Human Rights Records of Key Allies in War on Terrorism Unacceptable, LCHR Says in New Report

Human Rights Group Revives Critique of State Department Annual Report and Recommends Changes to Address Backsliding in Objectivity

NEW YORK - In a new report, Holding the Line: A Critique of the Department of State’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights evaluates the 2002 State Department Reports on some of the United States’ closest allies—and how the strain of the “War on Terrorism” may be affecting the Department’s annual review.

The report, released this week, includes profiles on Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, and Uzbekistan. It also makes recommendations for changes in instructions to U.S. embassy staff, who compile the initial drafts of the reports, in order to improve both objectivity and scope.

"The fairness and objectivity of much of the State Department's reports makes all the more glaring the serious omissions and distortions in sections on some key allies in the U.S.-led ‘war on terrorism,’" said Michael McClintock, author of the critique and Director of Program at the Lawyers Committee. "Omissions and misrepresentations in some key country reports raise the broader concern that the United States is lowering the standards to which it holds its partners abroad.”

Holding the Line finds a blind spot in the reporting on abusive practices carried out in the name of counter-terrorism — in particular, the way allies use emergency laws and special courts; detention without charge or trial; secret arrests and incommunicado detention; and unaccountable paramilitary forces. Examples cited of incomplete or misleading coverage include the evolving role of Colombia’s army-backed paramilitaries; the human rights implications of new anti-terrorism decrees in Colombia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Tanzania; “disappearance” in Russia’s war in Chechnya; and the highlighting of China’s and Pakistan’s progress toward democracy.

An instruction to embassies preparing the 2002 country reports may account for some of the problems in country coverage. “Actions by governments taken at the request of the United States or with the expressed support of the United States should not be included in the report,” explained a cable to embassy staff charged with preparing the reports last year. Holding the Line urges that this instruction be eliminated, and State Department officials have assured the Lawyers Committee that it has been removed from the materials sent recently to embassy staff now beginning the process of the 2003 review.

In addition to removing this instruction, the Lawyers Committee recommends that the reporting guidelines require an assessment of the human rights implications of states of emergency, emergency laws, and other measures taken in the name of counterterrorism, including those encouraged by the United States. "We agree with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s admonishment in the preface to the 2002 reports that ‘we gain little by ignoring human rights abuses or flinching from reporting them.' The country reports are a critically important tool for Congress and the public—but when it comes to consistent standards and objectivity, last year’s reports fail Secretary Powell's own test."

Holding the Line also assesses coverage of antisemitism and anti-immigrant violence in Western Europe and Russia, identifying serious omissions and recommending higher standards of reporting.

Read Holding the Line