Human Rights Post Vacant Despite Crises

Human rights activists on both sides of the aisle are urging the Senate to swiftly confirm President Donald Trump's choice for a key State Department post charged with promoting freedom and democracy and protecting persecuted minorities around the world.

Trump nominated Robert Destro, a Catholic University law professor and civil rights attorney, to fill the post of assistant secretary of state for the bureau of democracy, human rights, and labor in June.

The key State Department human-rights position has been vacant for the entire first year and a half of the Trump administration even as top officials have called for more international attention to several dire global human-rights crises, which the office spearheads.

Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and several other administration officials have pressed for action to help streamline U.S. aid to assist Christians, Yezidis, and other minority victims of ISIS genocide in Iraq and have urged the U.N. Security Council to respond forcefully to the slaughter of thousands of Rohingya Muslims by state forces in Myanmar.

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