State Department Conducts Daily Press Briefing, April 20
Let's start our first question with the
QUESTION: Thank you. I realize that this report doesn't cover
And I'm just wondering how effective you think that you can be in leading by example when you take - you accuse numerous - there - a lot of countries of, say, assaults on press freedom when here, in this country, we have a President who routinely excoriates the press, calling individual media outlets - and individual reporters sometimes - fake news. I'm wondering how you can criticize countries for discrimination against LGBT people when this administration's stated policy is to exclude transgender people from serving in the military. I'm wondering about discrimination of - criticism of other countries for discriminating against religious minorities when courts and a lot of critics see the travel ban as, in fact, a ban on one particular religion. And lastly, you criticize countries for the mistreatment and refoulement of refugees, which I suppose this administration is not in that great of a position to do because it doesn't accept hardly any refugees, or at least far fewer than it ever did before.
So how is this not - how do you not open yourself up to charges of hypocrisy, and how effective do you think you can be at leading by example? Thank you.
The other end of your stream was refoulement, which is a legal term. It's sending somebody back to a place where they are - where you know they're going to be persecuted or where they have a well-founded fear of persecution without going through due process to assess the risk to them. And of course, our law provides that people have rights of appeal through the immigration courts system and into the federal courts if they think they're going to be. So it doesn't go to the quantity of refugees; it goes to whether you're --
QUESTION: Right, I understand. But you're not in a position if you even wanted to refoule a refugee, you don't have many to do it to. But it's also mistreatment of refugees. It's not just that. So --
QUESTION: LGBT.
There are a lot of policy decisions in these areas that governments make that aren't internationally recognized human rights, so that's where we try to distinguish. And that's not - that's nothing new. That's been the case in the last couple of administrations as well.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: I'd like to know if you think that such statements in
QUESTION: And when the
QUESTION: Understood. But it's so conspicuous that it's removed.
And in this case, the previous administration intended it to mean look at the availability of contraception, at the - whether the government tried to impose or coerce people in making decisions about reproduction. In the statements that were made - this was derived from the Beijing Declaration that was done in the '90s.
At that time, it was very clear and our delegation made a very clear statement that this has nothing to do with abortion, it doesn't mean abortion, it doesn't mean abortion. Unfortunately, over the last few years, groups on both sides of that issue domestically have started to use the term, and both seem to think it does include abortion and then argue about it.
So our thought was let's just not use a term that has the opposite meaning from the one we intend. We went back to the term that's used in the
I might mention too, because I went back and looked at last year's report, the question being asked was, "Were there obstacles opposed to getting contraception information and means?" The answer in virtually every country was no, there were no obstacles other than, in almost every country, including our own, the availability in rural areas is less than it is in urban areas. But we were taking a lot of space to explain that.
So what we've done, we've kept that information in there. We've done it now by a hyperlink. We used to take that information from the WHO report and put it in. We said let's just use a hyperlink, and then there's actually more information available that way.
So that's the rationale behind that. It's not a diminishment of women's rights or a desire to get away from it; it was to stop using a term that has several different meanings that are not all the ones we intend.
QUESTION: Hi, thank you very much. When countries around the world are looking at the
I think this is showing what we assess to be the human rights situation in all of the countries you've just mentioned, including - now even more so - the responsibility of the government for the abuses that are occurring there. They're not - we're not just saying there are these societal problems in the country; we're saying the government either has done these bad deeds or not. And I'll give you some examples.
In
Now, does that mean that the President should never speak to these people? This is what - we're trying to keep the report as the factual baseline for what we're going to do in policy terms or sanctions as the secretary was mentioning. So we can learn a lot from this, and we can use it to formulate a policy. But usually part of your policy is engaging with the people whose behavior you're trying to change at some level. And I don't think those two things are in distinction. The fact is, these other governments and their populations do read the report, and I don't think they discount it because the President speaks with their leader or otherwise. And when the President speaks to their leader, often he's talking about these issues, so it's - it's complementary, it's not a - two things that are in conflict
QUESTION: Since we're citing examples, what does Saudi law say about spousal abuse?
QUESTION: Thanks, Heather. Ambassador, I want to follow up a little bit on
QUESTION: Are you - overall, in
So we're trying to encourage that kind of movement on the part of the Saudis. At the same time, you can look at that and say, "Well, you didn't do this with sufficient due process," and I think that's also well spelled-out here. So it's trying to get that right balance of, hey here's where we think you're deficient, but we're seeing some movement and we're trying to encourage the movement in the positive direction and see more. But I'm usually more encouraged when I see some movement going on than when things are just stuck in the same rut for years and years and years. So in that sense, at least there's an opportunity there. We'll see if it comes to anything.
QUESTION: So is hoteling now going to be standard language in --
QUESTION: Yes, thank you. We were talking about press freedoms, and you're probably aware that in
So I mean, in our policy everywhere, and certainly in
The Secretary - I'm not sure he met with any Nicaraguans - but at the Summit of the
QUESTION: Can I ask a question about
QUESTION: On North Korean human rights issues, as the North Korean nuclear issue is an important issue and the North Korean human rights is also serious issues, unless the regime of the North Korean
So I don't think you will see a diminishment in our concern about that issue even as we try to work the nuclear issue. It's not a trade-off. I think the President's laid out a vision there that
QUESTION: Do you have any --
QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. Sir, you - the report considers
QUESTION: Yeah, in the --
QUESTION: In the preface.
QUESTION: Yeah, exactly.
This report doesn't say countries that reach a certain level we're going to cut off aid or something like that. It's the factual predicate for making those decisions, but those are policy decisions where the President and his advisors will have to weigh a whole number of factors.
QUESTION: Can I ask - can I ask a question on the
QUESTION: Because, I mean, he pointed to --
QUESTION: Can I just go back to the reproductive rights for a second? So you said there are no obstacles for women to get contraception in any country except for if there's a remote issue, right?
So it's not - those were the cases, though, in the - under the previous formula where you would say there was a restriction on family planning, freedom of family planning. For most countries, it said, there isn't any restriction except for the ones imposed by economics and rural-urban type thing. So --
QUESTION: So just to be clear just on that, so taking out the language about those cases therefore means that the
But the other, yes. The - it is internationally recognized that somebody shouldn't coerce you to have an abortion or force you to be sterilized, so that's --
QUESTION: Can I ask a question on the Palestinian --
QUESTION: Yeah, one quick question on the Palestinian (inaudible).
Senate Health and Human Services Committee Passes Supplemental Budget Prioritizing Patient-First Reforms, Opioid Abuse Funding
Free Rebuilding and Repair Advice on St. Croix
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News