United States alleges European nations' human rights deterioration in abbreviated international report
The latest annual global human rights report, released by the United States State Department, has taken a critical stance towards Western European countries, including Britain, France, and Germany, for imposing serious restrictions on freedom of expression and online hate speech.
The report highlights numerous instances where governments enforced or threatened criminal or civil laws to limit speech, including online expression, as an assault on free expression.
In the UK, the report cites cases such as a man jailed for posting a meme linking migrants to knife crime and an individual convicted for silent prayer in a designated “safe zone,” highlighting active suppression of speech.
For Germany, the report states that police routinely raided homes, confiscated devices, interrogated suspects, and prosecuted people for speech-related activities online, including a nationwide police operation to combat misogyny on the internet. It describes the overall human rights situation as having worsened during the year.
In France, the report points to "serious restrictions on freedom of expression" through the enforcement or threat of criminal or civil laws limiting speech.
The report's rationale is that restrictive laws targeting disfavored voices—often on political or religious grounds—serve to suppress expression and exacerbate polarization and hatred rather than reduce it.
This perspective contrasts with European approaches like the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to combat hate speech and misinformation but is seen by the US as imposing "undue" restrictions on freedom of expression.
The broader US critique, reflecting a more absolutist free speech stance rooted in First Amendment principles, sees European regulations as overbroad and suppressive of core political speech, humor, satire, and parody—speech forms protected under U.S. law but restricted in Europe.
This criticism also fits into a larger context where the 2024 report, shaped under the Trump administration, has been seen as using human rights assessments to reflect its policy priorities, sometimes downplaying abuses in allied or favored countries while highlighting speech restrictions in Europe.
Elsewhere in the report, the State Department did not denounce El Salvador, despite denouncing Brazil, despite President Nayib Bukele's sweeping crackdown on crime that has been criticized by rights groups for resulting in the detention of many innocent people. By contrast, the State Department said there were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" in El Salvador.
In South Africa, the post-apartheid government has taken "substantially worrying steps towards land expropriation" of Afrikaners and other minorities. The State Department's report described the situation as a significant worsening of human rights in the country.
In China, the report said that "genocide" is ongoing against the mostly Muslim Uyghur people. The report also trimmed down its section on Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, acknowledging cases of arbitrary arrests and killings by Israel but saying that authorities took "credible steps" to identify officials responsible.
The report's omission of criticism of allies of President Donald Trump, including El Salvador, and the Trump administration's press against the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, his ally accused of a coup attempt in Brazil, have raised questions about the report's impartiality.
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