U.S. diplomat Douglas Griffiths, in an address to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in Geneva, voiced U.S. concern Tuesday about abuses in more than a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, Cuba, and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
Griffiths accused Tehran of wrongdoing in the crackdown on opposition groups following disputed presidential elections in June. He cited reports of scores of protester deaths and hundreds of arrests.<\/p>\n
He also voiced alarm about the killings of rights activists and journalists in Russia’s North Caucasus, and called for a transparent probe into the unsolved murder of noted Chechen rights activist Natalya Estemirova.<\/p>\n
The diplomat also urged China to respect the safety and legal rights of all Chinese citizens.<\/p>\n
Those comments focused on recent rioting in Xinjiang province between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese that killed nearly 200 people.<\/p>\n
Griffiths also told the 47-nation council that Washington can not remain indifferent when constitutional and democratic systems are undermined in such places as Fiji and Honduras.<\/p>\n
He cited reports of widespread voting irregularities in Afghanistan’s recent presidential elections, and criticized Sri lanka for legislation he says equates disagreement over government policy with treason.<\/p>\n
Griffiths made no mention of Israel and the Palestinian Authority Tuesday. But the Associated Press says U.S. officials are expected to take the floor next week when the council debates a report it commissioned on the latest Gaza conflict. The U.S. State Department has already said it considers the report’s conclusions unfair to Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States says it remains “deeply concerned” about Iran’s crackdown on opposition groups, while criticizing Russia and China for failing to protect rights activists and minorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}