Sawt Falasteen - In U-turn, US rights report to track gender changes, DEI

First launched nearly 50 years ago, the State Department's annual report on human rights practices has long attempted to offer comprehensive accounts of abuses overseas, often angering other governments.

President Donald Trump's administration has shifted the US tone on human rights, seizing on the issue as a cudgel against adversaries and as a way to promote domestic priorities while downplaying concerns when other interests are at play.

In a cable sent to US embassies around the world, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for reporting on a series of key causes for Trump as part of a revamped and more concise annual report.

"In recent years, new destructive ideologies have given safe harbor to human rights violations," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

"The Trump administration will not allow these human rights violations, such as the mutilation of children, laws that infringe on free speech and racially discriminatory employment practices, to go unchecked," he said.

"We are saying enough is enough."

Specifically, the report will ask US embassies to report on countries that allow "chemical or surgical mutilation of children in operations that attempt to modify their sex."

Rubio also asked embassies to track "enforcement of policies like affirmative action of diversity, equity and inclusion that 'provide preferential treatment' to workers on the basis of race, sex or caste."

The issues reflect top priorities for Trump since he took office.

Trump has repeatedly railed against transgender rights. Rubio's State Department has insisted that passports now reflect Americans' sex as listed on their birth certificates, ending decades of allowing people to select their sex, and has ended the option of an "X" for gender initiated under his predecessor Antony Blinken.

Former president Joe Biden's administration had made LGBTQ rights a major thrust of its foreign policy, appointing the first State Department envoy to advocate for sexual minorities overseas -- a position immediately ended by Rubio.

Trump has not only ended equity programs aimed at providing opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups but has threatened companies that do practice such policies, saying they hurt America's white majority.

- 'Natural rights' -

In the first human rights report released by the second Trump administration -- unveiled in August but compiled largely before he returned to office -- LGBTQ rights were significantly downplayed, with references removed even for countries such as Uganda, which has imposed an anti-homosexuality law that carries the death penalty.

In the cable, Rubio also ordered embassies to track violations of "free speech."

The Trump administration has harshly criticized US allies in Europe for restricting online speech.

Vice President JD Vance castigated Germany for restrictions against the far-right AfD and the United States has criticized top ally Britain for penalties over online posts that targeted migrants.

The push comes despite Rubio revoking visas for foreigners over their speech, including statements against Israel's military offensive in Gaza and posts mocking conservative commentator Charlie Kirk after his murder.

Trump on Tuesday brushed aside concern over the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, strangled and dismembered in a Saudi consulate, as he rolled out the red carpet for the kingdom's crown prince, who promised major business.

A senior State Department official said that Rubio was seeking to refocus on "natural rights," a key concept for philosophical conservatives that was also pushed during the first Trump administration.

"The United States remains committed to the Declaration of Independence's recognition that all men are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights," the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

Rights "pre-exist governments" and "are given to us by God, our Creator, not by governments," he said.

"We are moving away from group identities, group labels," the official said.

"Prior administrations had maybe focused on certain issues that we think were politically driven," he said.

N.Awad--SF-PST