Tag: Religious Freedom

Mike Pompeo Brought His Backward View of Human Rights to the UN. Europe Wasn’t Buying It.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Mike Pompeo Brought His Backward View of Human Rights to the UN. Europe Wasn’t Buying It.

Pompeo’s speech, which was part of an event hosted by the United States during the UN General Assembly, was marketed as a celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational document for decades of human rights policy. Instead, Pompeo promoted his own narrowly-defined idea of human rights, which was formalized last month in a report from a controversial State Department advisory body. Known as the Commission on Unalienable Rights, the group was stocked with critics of contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion, including Pompeo’s former boss. In its final report, which was released last month, the commission elevated some rights like religious freedom as “unalienable,” while dismissing abortion and same-sex marriages as “divisive social and political controversies.”

Related:

Pompeo urges other countries to join alternative U.S. view on human rights

“The U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights is a deeply misguided enterprise with the potential to undermine human rights protections that governments find disagreeable,” said Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch. “The commission promotes the false premise that too many people, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and women, are asserting their rights.”

Other advocates rebuked Pompeo for his emphasis on religion, to the exclusion of other rights.

What they don’t say is that Pompeo is going to use this against China with his lies about the Uyghurs!

Setting Pompeo loose on the concept of ‘human rights’ is a warning the US is about to violate a lot more of them

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Setting Pompeo loose on the concept of ‘human rights’ is a warning the US is about to violate a lot more of them

Ultimately, the goal of the report appears to be to strip away ‘unnecessary’ rights in order to bring the US’ oppressive policies – foreign and domestic – into line with its democracy-promotion rhetoric, which glistens with hypocrisy under the currently-accepted global definition of “human rights.” If the international community will swallow that, they’ll fall for anything.

Pompeo says US should limit which human rights it defends

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Pompeo says US should limit which human rights it defends

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued Thursday for a more limited U.S. view of global human rights advocacy based on the principals laid out by America’s Founding Fathers, a suggestion critics assumed meant stepping away from more modern concepts such as support for women and the LGBQT communities around the world.

Pompeo, speaking in Philadelphia, singled out property rights and religious freedom as “foremost” principals in a speech that elsewhere complained about the “proliferation” of protections in international agreements related to human rights.