{"id":15711,"date":"2012-07-07T11:53:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T19:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=15711"},"modified":"2012-07-07T11:53:28","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T19:53:28","slug":"state-dept-were-not-consistent-on-human-rights-violations-in-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/07\/state-dept-were-not-consistent-on-human-rights-violations-in-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"State Dept: We’re Not Consistent on Human Rights Violations in Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following news that Israel is refusing to cooperate<\/a> with UN investigations into illegal settlement building in the West Bank, this illustrative exchange between State Department\u00a0spokesperson Victoria Nuland and AP reporter Matt Lee (via Mondoweiss<\/a>)<\/p>\n

VICTORIA NULAND<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Listen, before we leave Syria, I just want to take the opportunity, if you didn\u2019t see it, to draw your attention to the Human Rights Watch report that was released today that identifies some 27 detention centers that Human Rights Watch says Syrian Government intelligence agencies have been using since the Assad crackdown on pro-democracy protestors. The report found that tens of thousands of Syrians are in detention by regime security and intelligence agencies and that the regime is carrying out inexplicable, horrific acts of torture, including \u2013 well, I\u2019m not going to repeat them here, but I\u2019ll leave it to you to read the report. And in many cases, the Human Rights Watch asserts that even children have been subject to torture by the Assad regime.<\/p>\n

MATT LEE:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you see that report as credible and solid, and you\u2019re putting \u2013 you\u2019re endorsing it? I mean, you\u2019re saying —<\/p>\n

MS. NULAND:<\/strong>\u00a0We have no reason to believe that it is not credible. It\u2019s based on eyewitness accounts, and they\u2019re reporting from a broad cross-section of human rights figures inside Syria.<\/p>\n

QUESTION:<\/strong>\u00a0So the next time Human Rights Watch comes out with a report that\u2019s critical of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, I\u2019ll assume that you\u2019re going to be saying the same thing, correct; that you think that the report is credible, it\u2019s based on eyewitness accounts?<\/p>\n

MS. NULAND:<\/strong>\u00a0As —<\/p>\n

QUESTION:<\/strong>\u00a0And you\u2019re not going to say that it\u2019s politically motivated and should be dismissed?<\/p>\n

MS. NULAND:\u00a0<\/strong>Matt, as you have made clear again and again in this room, we are not always consistent.<\/p>\n

QUESTION:<\/strong>\u00a0So, in other words, anything that Human Rights Watch says that is critical of someone you don\u2019t like, that\u2019s okay; but once they criticize someone that you do like, then it\u2019s not worth the paper it\u2019s printed on?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following news that Israel is refusing to cooperate with UN investigations into illegal settlement building in the West Bank, this illustrative exchange between State Department\u00a0spokesperson Victoria Nuland and AP reporter Matt Lee (via Mondoweiss) VICTORIA NULAND: Listen, before we leave Syria, I just want to take the opportunity, if you didn\u2019t see it, to draw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15712,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711\/revisions\/15712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15711"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}