Advocacy groups have sharply criticized the State Department over its reported plans to remove references to anti-LGBTQ discrimination from its annual human rights reports.
The Washington Post on Aug. 6 reported it obtained drafts of human rights reports for El Salvador, Russia, and Israel.
“They strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened,” reported the Post.
Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker, said guards at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT, sexually assaulted him after the U.S. “forcibly disappeared” him and hundreds of other Venezuelans to the Central American country in March. The Post published its article less than a month after Hernández returned to Venezuela.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes a Russian law “prohibited gender transition procedures and gender-affirming care … and authorities used laws prohibiting the promotion of ‘nontraditional sexual relations’ to justify the arbitrary arrest of LGBTQI+ persons.”
“There were reports state actors committed violence against LGBTQI+ individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, particularly in Chechnya,” reads the report. “There were reports government agents attacked, harassed, and threatened LGBTQI+ activists. There were instances of nonstate actor violence targeting LGBTQI+ persons and of police often failing to respond adequately to such incidents.”
The 2023 report notes Israeli law “prohibited discrimination by state and non-state actors based on sexual orientation in providing goods and services and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment.”
“The government generally enforced the law, although some discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons persisted,” it reads. “The law did not allow for same-sex marriage, and LGBTQI+ couples experienced discrimination in matters related to parenthood, including adoption, parental registration, and birth certificates.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has faced widespread criticism over its war in the Gaza Strip in response to Oct. 7. Two Israeli human rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel — late last month said their country is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
“Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it's convenient to them,” Council for Global Equality Managing Director Keifer Buckingham told the Post.
Human Rights First in a statement said it “condemns the far-reaching cuts and politically driven revisions the Trump administration has reportedly made to the State Department’s soon-to-be-released annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”
Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year. Foggy Bottom has yet to release the 2024 report.
Politico in March reported the Trump-Vance administration “is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, and more.”
The State Department on Thursday did not respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment about the Post article. The State Department also did not say when it will release the 2024 report.
Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.
