A non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Watch, has berated the U.S. State Department report on human rights practices for the year 2024 as “an exercise in whitewashing and deception”.
The organisation, in a statement dated August 12, 2025, accused President Donald Trump’s administration of distorting human rights abuses in third-world countries, accusing it of omitting key human rights violations.
“The State Department’s new human rights report is in many places an exercise of whitewashing and deception,” said the organisation’s Washington director, Sarah Yagar. “Entire categories of abuses have been erased, while serious rights violations by allied governments have been papered over.”
The statement accused President Donald Trump’s administration of omitting key sections and manipulating certain countries’ rights abuses. It stated that the administration put human rights defenders at risk, weakened protections for asylum seekers, and undercut the global fight against authoritarianism.
The organisation further condemned the report for not acknowledging “the reality of widespread human rights violations against whole groups of people in many locations,” saying “many of the sections and rights abuses that the report omits are extremely important to understanding the trends and developments of human rights globally.”
The statement said, “On Israel, the State Department disregards the Israeli authorities’ mass forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, their use of starvation as a weapon of war, and their deliberate deprivation of water, electricity, medical aid, and other goods necessary for civilians’ survival, actions that amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide.
“The State Department also fails to mention vast damage and destruction to Gaza’s essential infrastructure and the majority of homes, schools, universities, and hospitals.”
While noting that the report contained important information about growing attacks on human rights worldwide, including through reporting by the United Nations, civil society groups, and other human rights experts, the organisation stated that many policies of the Trump administration contradicted the report’s findings.
According to the organisation, the report was dishonest about abuses in some countries to which the US is deporting people, alleging misrepresentation of human rights records of abusive governments with which Mr Trump sought friendly relations.
In one example, the State Department notes serious abuses in South Sudan and Rwanda, although the Trump administration has deported third-country nationals to South Sudan, and recently agreed to send 250 people to Rwanda, the statement noted.
According to HRW, the report says the human rights situations in Haiti and Venezuela are significantly worse than the previous year.
“In these countries, as well as in Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, numerous human rights abuses are being credibly reported, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances, among other violations,” said the rights organisation.
“In other words, the Trump administration is conceding these places are dangerous,” said HRW, while also terminating temporary protected status for Afghans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Nepalese, and Haitians.
On August 12, the U.S. State Department released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2024, citing arbitrary and unlawful killings, disappearances, torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary arrest or detention, among other abuses.
While noting that the Nigerian government sometimes took steps to investigate alleged human rights abuses by officials, the report said prosecution and punishment for such abuses were rare.
