State Dept. 100 Days Past Deadline for Human Rights Reports

(CNSNews) – The U.S. State Department has set an all-time record this year in the duration of its failure to comply with the legal deadline for submitting its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress.

Current law requires the department to submit the reports by Feb. 25. Today, June 5, is the 100th day past that deadline, and the State Department still has not presented the reports.

Prior to this year, 89 days was the longest the department went past the legal deadline before releasing the reports. The 89-day delay took place in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

As the post-deadline delay in the release of the human rights reports hit its 100th day today, the State Department was finding time to celebrate an event it billed as "Pride at State."

That event, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., has been jointly organized by the department itself and GLIFAA, which State says is "the officially recognized employee affinity group representing LGBTI employees at the Department of State, USAID and foreign affairs agencies."

When the department does release the overdue human rights reports, they will include details of human rights abuses in, among other nations, Iran, Cuba, Malaysia and Vietnam. The administration is currently in the final phases of negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, has recently re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba and is planning to include Malaysia and Vietnam in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The annual reports were first published in 1977, under a legal mandate included in the 1976 International Security and Arms Export Control Act.

According to the law as originally enacted, the reports were supposed to detail the human rights abuses in nations receiving security assistance from the United States so that members of Congress would be better informed about the nature of the governments that were receiving this type of aid.

More