Russia Slams US Human Rights Abuses

As Congress Mulls Anti-Russia Sanctions, Foreign Ministry Fires Back

As Congress continues to debate the imposition of new sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses, the Russian Foreign Ministry has fired back today that the US is holding themselves to a different standard, committing many of the same violations they lash other nations for.

The statement in particular noted that the Obama Administration has still failed to close the extra-judicial detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the detention of prisoners without charges and without any access to the legal system.

The statement went on to criticize the US government for extraordinary rendition, which it termed “sanctioned kidnappings,” as well as the torture of detainees. The report was delivered to the lower house of Russia’s parliament.

The trading of charges of human rights violations has a history dating back to the Cold War, and Russian officials seem to hitting some pretty sensitive topics for the shaky American record on human rights in the past decade. Russian activists criticized the government’s use of US human rights violations as a political tool, noting that it was unseemly and the exact same thing they were accusing the US of doing in the first place.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.