Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that the State Department’s annual human rights report “paints a grim picture” and suggested the administration hasn’t done enough to advance the cause.
The administration released the report last week after months of delays and building pressure from congressional Republicans.
Rubio, who is running for president, said the findings “paint a grim picture of assault on human dignity.”
“Time and again, I have encouraged this administration to elevate the promotion and protection of basic human rights and religious freedom as a cornerstone of American foreign policy,” he said in a statement. “Sadly, this has not been a priority for the Obama administration, and the world is worse off for it.”
Rubio highlighted the report’s findings on killings by terrorist groups including Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well limits on the “freedom of expression” in China, Egypt, Iran and Russia.
Rubio has been a leading critic in Congress of the administration’s foreign policy, making it one of the central planks of his run for the White House.
He, along with Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), David Perdue (Ga.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this year, asking why the report, which is required to be released by Feb. 25, had been delayed.
The senators wrote in the letter to Kerry that it would be “unreasonable to expect Congress to do its proper due diligence” on reviewing a final deal on Iran’s nuclear program without the human rights report.
Rubio on Thursday July 2nd credited “several enterprising reporters,” which he said “rightly seized on the seeming inconsistency between the findings documented in the report and the administration’s conciliatory posture toward the regimes in Iran and Cuba.”
Tom Malinowski, the State Department’s assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, faced multiple questions about Iran nuclear negotiations, as well as ongoing talks with the Cuban government, in light of the human rights report.
Asked if he sees “any problem or sees any disparity” between the report and the administration’s actions, he said that “one of our sayings here is that engagement is not the same thing as endorsement.”
He added on Iran that “regardless of the outcome of the Iran talks, we are going to continue to speak up and stand out and stand up for human rights in Iran.”