Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among global rights groups that have sharply criticised the US State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, that was earlier rejected by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

Both groups have slammed the reports as politically motivated, engaging in selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries while mischaracterising the records of abusive governments with which the United States has or was currently seeking friendly relations.

Earlier, DIRCO rejected the US Country report on South Africa as inaccurate and deeply flawed.

The State Department alleged that the human rights situation in South Africa significantly worsened during the year.

The Executive Summary of the State Dept’s report says South Africa’s human rights issues included credible report of arbitrary and unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest and detention and the repression of racial minorities, further accusing the government of not taking credible steps to investigate, prosecute and punish officials who committed human rights abuses including inflammatory racial rhetoric against Afrikaners and other racial minorities or violence against racial minorities.

Additionally, the report cites arbitrary arrests by police of irregular migrants and asylum seekers; it pointed to reports of police use of torture and physical abuse; and mentioned the Land Expropriation Act as a means to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.

It alleged a rise in antisemitic incidents emboldened by the government, it mentioned instances of journalists subjected to violence, harassment or intimidation by authorities or political party representatives, and cited an instance when the SA National Editors’ Forum expressed concern regarding online harassment of journalists and cyberbullying.

The report’s release was delayed to bring it in line with America First values, as State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce explained, “Each administration, like with President Trump, reflects a value system and an agenda and a vision that convinced the American people to vote for them. And in this case, President Trump always – as ever, I should say – was clear and obvious about the nature of what he wanted to achieve, and the American people agreed with him.

“This report, as a result, was also late, and many of you noted that. It was late because we weren’t – just like with other administrations, we weren’t going to release something compiled and written by the previous administration. It needed to change, based on the point of view and the vision of the Trump Administration,” Bruce added.

US-SA Report | DIRCO slams US Human Rights Report on SA as ‘inaccurate and flawed’

SANEF

SANEF’s Executive Director, Reggie Malusi has since responded to the organisation’s citation in the report.

“SANEF has noted the report released by the US government on media freedom and the online bullying and intimidation of journalists in South Africa. As an organisation, we want to reiterate that the statements we previously released on this issue have never ever referred to the South African government on this.”

“We find it quite misleading that, as an organization, we would be quoted in such a report without even any prior consultation with ourselves, and we find it disappointing. But the online [cyberbullying], the intimidation, the harassment of journalists while it continues, there’s no way that we have ever stated it was done by the South African government.”

Watchdogs

In a statement, Amnesty International says the report puts politics above human rights and that the Trump Administration engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries while eliminating entire sections on LGBTQ+ discrimination.

Human Rights Watch similarly says the omission of key sections and manipulation of certain countries’ rights abuses degrade and politicize the report, undermining its credibility.

Views echoed by the DIRCO Spokesperson Chrispin Phiri, adding “The report’s reliance on a-contextual information, discredited accounts and distorted facts is highly concerning. For example, it cites a case where farm workers were killed and fed to pigs as an extrajudicial killing. We register our profound disappointment with this report. We reject it; it is inaccurate and deeply flawed. It fails to reflect the reality of our constitutional democracy.”

The United Nations asked in February to weigh in on US concerns about the targeting of minority groups, in particular Afrikaners, in South Africa.

This was the Secretary General’s Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, at the time, “I would just refer you to the work that our own human rights bodies have been doing, which does not find this particular information. And, you know, obviously, there are human rights concerns about South Africa that the Human Rights Office has expressed … part of what we’ve been talking about.”

In a lengthy DIRCO statement pushing back against the report, it pointed out what it viewed as irony that a report from a country that exited the UN Human Rights Council would seek to “produce one-sided fact-free reports without due process or engagement”, pointing to what it called significant and documented concerns about human rights within the United States, including the treatment of refugees and breaches in due process by its own agencies such as federal immigration enforcement known as ICE.

What is also true is that this now becomes an additional stress test for an already complicated relationship between Pretoria and Washington as critical trade negotiations continue where a 30% tariff is already in place, geo-political differences that has seen punitive legislation targeting South Africa works its way through the Republican-led House of Representatives and what this all means for the US as reliable partner within the G20 framework which South Africa currently leads, a role it is expected to had over to the United States in November.