US vows to uphold human rights at home

The United States vowed Wednesday to heed global concerns about its own human rights record in an annual report, which targeted abuses by other countries like China, North Korea and Zimbabwe.
"Not only will we seek to live up to our ideals on American soil, we will pursue greater respect for human rights as we engage other nations and people around the world," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in preface to the 2008 State Department report.
The annual survey of human rights around the world also spotlighted deteriorating human rights conditions in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.
It noted a "pushback" by governments in many parts of the world against their people's demands for greater personal and political freedom, and said the most serious abuses tended to occur in countries with unaccountable rulers or where the government had collapsed.
"Taken together, these three trends confirm the continuing need for vigorous United States diplomacy to act and speak out against human rights abuses, at the same time that our country carefully reviews its own performance," the report said.
"The promotion of human rights is an essential piece of our foreign policy," Clinton told reporters Wednesday.
"But we will not rely on a single approach to overcome tyranny and subjugation that weaken the human spirit, limit human possibility, and undermine human progress."
In a surprising opening passage, the report acknowledged international concerns about the US performance in rights issues, alluding to allegations of torture and abuse of detainees scooped up in the US "war on terror."
"As we publish these reports, the Department of State remains mindful of both domestic and international scrutiny of the United States' record," it said.
"As President Obama recently made clear, 'we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.'"
The report offered a chilling compendium of abuse around the world, often in countries that make regular appearances in the annual report.
It said the human rights situation in North Korea was "abysmal," with reports of abuses emerging from the closed and secretive country with increasing frequency.
"Reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and arbitrary detention, including of political prisoners, continued to paint a grim picture of life inside the reclusive country," the report said.
"Some forcibly repatriated refugees were said to have undergone severe punishment and possibly torture. Reports of public executions also continued to emerge," it said.
China's human right record "remained poor and worsened in some areas," the report said, noting that privacy rights and freedom of speech and the press remain under pressure in China.
"Authorities (in China) committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions of prisoners, and used forced labour," it charged.