HR advocates question US annual rights report

According to FP, the report has adopted a conciliatory tone regarding human rights violations in some parts of the globe, including Yemen, the Occupied Territories and the Dominican Republic.

“The report also dropped the phrase “Israel and the occupied territories,” replacing it with “Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza” in a break from years past, made more controversial by the recent violent flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” FP reported.

“The changes undermine the integrity of the report, which is used by the US government, lawmakers, and researchers around the world as a global benchmark for how each country treats human rights,” FP quoted human rights groups as saying.

“In the section on Saudi Arabia, the State Department pared down language on the effects of its US-backed bombing campaign in the Yemeni civil war and misquoted reporting from human rights watchdogs, Raed Jarrar, a Middle East expert with Amnesty International was quoted as saying.

Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Thousands of Yemenis have been killed in the attacks by the Saudi-US coalition and more than 2,000 have died due to a cholera epidemic.

“sugar-coats” Amnesty International and other nongovernmental organizations in writing “some coalition airstrikes caused disproportionate collateral damage,” Jarrar added.

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