MODERATOR: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for joining us, and thanks
to our colleagues in New York.
My name is Benjamin Weber.
I’m the director of the Foreign Press Centers,
and I’m very pleased to welcome our senior
official for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, Ambassador Michael Kozak, who is going
to present this year’s Country Reports on
Human Rights.
I’ll allow him to take a few moments to
make some opening remarks, and then we’ll
go to questions and answers.
Ambassador Kozak.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Thank you very much.
I thought I might spend a few minutes going
through why we do the reports, what they represent,
what they’re used for, and then we can open
it up for questions and comments by all of
you.
The – this is the 42nd year that we’ve
done the Annual Human Rights Reports, and
they’re done as a requirement of U.S. law.
This goes back to the 1970s, when Congress
said to the Executive Branch, “When we’re
making decisions about foreign assistance
and security assistance and trade agreements
and all of that, we’d really like to know:
What is the human rights situation in the
countries that we’re dealing with?”
So they charged the President by law – or
the Secretary of State – with having to
produce this annual report to them that is
supposed to report on the situation of human
rights in each of the member-nations of the
United Nations and a few other territories
or areas that we deal with as well.
We try to do that – and it’s internationally
recognized human rights, and then there are
a few requirements that are added on from
the U.S. law specifically.
So the reason we do the reports is not to
be passing judgment on other countries, or
the old word of name and shame; it’s not
with that in mind.
It’s to fulfill a statutory responsibility
to our Congress to try to produce the most
accurate description of what we find is going
on in other countries so that they can use
that in making decisions.
And frankly, it gets used then also by our
judicial system.
For example, when our immigration officers
or our immigration judges are assessing asylum
claims or refugee claims, they’re matching
the person’s story against what they know
of country conditions, and they use these
reports as a factual baseline for that.
We use it in the Executive Branch as well
when we’re meeting with foreign officials.
It’s the basis on which we can brief the
President or the Secretary of State on the
human rights situation in that country.
So the whole effort is to make it as factual,
as clinical as possible, and not – we’re
not drawing conclusions.
We’re reporting what’s out there, and
often you’re getting contradictory information.
You’ll have a credible source – media
in another country, a respectable newspaper,
or a nongovernment organization or something
– saying, “This happened,” and then
you have somebody else saying, “No, it didn’t,”
or, “It didn’t happen that way.”
And we try to reflect both of those things.
We don’t try to resolve and say this is
the – this is the true facts here.
We’re putting together a description of
this issue is going on, here are the parameters
of it.
And then later on, if we’re making a decision
where we have to resolve that, we will.
But this is basically to gather up that information,
put it in one place.
We don’t rank-order countries.
We don’t have, like, the good countries
going down to the bad.
There’s no automatic consequence that flows
from these reports.
So unlike some of the other ones we do where
there are tier rankings and – or if you
meet a certain standard, that we have to cut
off foreign assistance or something.
This is just a factual report.
What we do with it is a later set of decisions,
but it often is an important factor in informing
those later decisions.
One thing we did this year that I would call
your attention to is, we’ve noted that it
was kind of difficult to compare one country
to another.
Not that we are trying to do that, but the
readers hopefully can do that.
And in the executive summary of the reports
before, it was a little bit of a grab bag
for each country, and in no particular order
they would list different human rights issues
that had come up in that country.
So we’ve tried to standardize it more this
year, and there’s – it’s usually the
third paragraph in the executive summary,
we’ll say “human rights issues included.”
And we’ve tried to include there in the
same order in every report the most egregious
forms of human rights abuse – torture, extrajudicial
killing, forced disappearances, criminalization
of libel – or of expression, criminalization
of LGBT consensual sexual activity, violence
against people.
But we’re trying to focus on what is the
government doing or not doing about those
issues more than just what’s going on in
the society.
That’s important too, but the focus here
is: Is the government taking steps to penalize
bad behavior, or is it encouraging it, or
ignoring it?
And so we’ve tried to make that so that
you can make an apples-to-apples comparison
by looking at the executive summary of any
two countries and say, okay, this one hit
these following violations or abuses of human
rights, and this other one only hit two or
three, or in some cases none at all – not
that there weren’t problems in the country,
but that there were no reports of really egregious
human rights abuses in the country.
And so that comes in in some places.
In any event, with that in mind, I think perhaps
I’ll go ahead and open it up for questions.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
I’ll quickly remind you of FPC procedure.
Please wait for the microphone.
When you do get it, please identify yourself
by name and outlet.
And because we do have a fairly short time
here, I’ll ask everyone, please, to limit
themselves to one question.
Let me start here, sir.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador Michael.
Thank you for the briefing, and you’ve had
a colorful career in this area now, particularly
in terms of democracy and human rights.
I’ll ask about Bangladesh.
According to today’s report, 160 people
killed in crossfire and 118 individuals in
extra – faced extrajudicial killing.
And the situation is like that in Bangladesh.
In terms of democracy, the report mentioned
that, that there is no space for the freedom
of association, particularly in main opposition,
and according to your report the main opposition
BNP boycotted the last parliament in 2014.
And not the BNP boycotted; this was boycotted
by the international community to sending
observer like U.S., EU, and we have seen the
statement from the State Department which
was these nonparticipatory election, it was
not in any way an election.
And currently, main opposition leader, she
is in the jail.
So how you are assessing to the restoring
democracy in Bangladesh and to stop this – the
extrajudicial killing and the – in terms
of democracy, restoring democracy, what is
your assessment, and how you will established
– as U.S. is the largest developmental partner
of Bangladesh.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, I think you read
the report well.
And of course, one thing I should qualify
this, is that this is a report on conditions
during the last calendar year, so events that
have occurred since that time are not captured
in the report.
They’ll be in next year’s report, and
I think you had some things late in the year
like the elections that were – are coming
up.
But we, I think, have called out for free
and fair elections with international monitoring
in the country.
That’s one way you try to restore or promote
democratic competition and openness.
We speak frequently with the Government of
Bangladesh about how to reduce or eliminate
extrajudicial killings or – it’s usually
a debate about whether that’s what it is
or whether it’s people killed in crossfire
in a legitimate military activity.
But it’s something of concern to us.
We speak to people about it.
Another thing that applies to Bangladesh and
every other country is, if we have information
that a particular unit of the security forces
is engaged in abuses, we can’t train them
or equip them under our law until the government
brings the perpetrators of the abuse to justice.
So those are just some of the tools that we
– that we try to use to encourage better
performance in those areas.
And we’ve also, I think, called for an impartial
and fair trial of Zia, and not just to let
somebody be imprisoned for being a political
opponent.
So anyway, that’s kind of some of the things
that we’re doing.
But as I go back to the report, it’s supposed
to be describing the conditions in the – the
factual conditions.
What we do about that in policy terms varies
from country to country, different tools we
can use – statements, not providing equipment,
going in and encouraging, sometimes training
people so that they improve their human rights
performance.
So there’s a whole range of activity out
there that we can and do use to try to address
these kinds of problems.
The report’s only about the problem, not
about the solution.
MODERATOR: Let me take one more here and then
we’ll go to New York.
Ma’am.
QUESTION: Good afternoon.
My name is Kylie Sertic and I work for Kyodo
News.
I have a question about Japan.
The report says that in Japan sexual harassment
in the workplace remains widespread, so what
does the U.S. urge or expect the Japanese
Government to do to improve the situation,
and how seriously does the U.S. take this?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: I think you also saw that
we said that Japan didn’t have any really
egregious violations upfront and that they
– there’s no extrajudicial killing and
all that kind of thing.
Sexual harassment, unfortunately, is a big
problem in a lot of countries, including our
own, and what we are trying to urge all governments
to do – and I suspect the Government of
Japan is working on this too – is to institute
awareness programs, trainings, and other things
to try to get people to understand what is
and is not appropriate behavior and how you
need to be respectful of other people.
In some cases you need to have a penalty.
Often in the, like, workplace it’s administrative
in the sense of firing the person who’s
been doing the harassment, as opposed to prosecuting
them, unless it reaches the level of crossing
a criminal boundary.
So I don’t think we have any doubt that
the Government of Japan’s intentions are
in the right direction on this issue, but
it’s a – it is a problem in Japan and
it’s a problem here and it’s a problem
in a lot of places, and one that we all need
to work on and try to bring to an end as quickly
as we can.
MODERATOR: We’ll go to our colleague in
New York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador.
Good afternoon.
This is Shehabuddin Kisslu.
I have quick two things, sir, to ask.
One is, as you – we have seen that U.S.
has very strong statement about the Burmese
authority to – regarding the Rohingya, and
you know this very bad situation there.
It is getting really safe haven of the criminals
there in that situation, especially the women
and children are really that are risk.
So – and Burma continuously actually ignoring
the international concern – in that case,
actually what is the U.S. stand or what you
are actually thinking to go after Burma to
make them comply with these international
– I should say the recommendation that has
been done by the Mr. Annan commissions, number
one?
Number two is quick thing.
Like, as the U.S. and Bangladesh has a very
good relation in partnership of security assuring
in this region, and as one of my colleague
already has asked a question, I – do you
– what do you see the governments – how
the governments working on those areas?
Are – they are cooperating with you or are
– is the government is very, I mean, sincere
to improve the condition or what is supposed
to be done?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, thank you for
the question.
I – this is a problem that is just beyond
belief.
I – my colleague, Ambassador Brownback,
has just been in Bangladesh and was out in
the camps where the people from Burma are
located, and I think he said this morning
that the horrible conditions and the suffering
that they have undergone in Burma was just
breathtaking.
He was very impressed in a negative way as
to what had happened to them – in fact,
so much so that he called the Vice President
and he sent messages back to the secretary
about we need to redouble our efforts on this.
So we accept this is a huge and serious problem.
We appreciate the work that the Government
of Bangladesh has been doing to try to bring
some relief to these people.
I think we just committed another $50 million
in relief to try to help in that respect,
but the long-term solution, or the real solution,
is to make it possible for people to go back
to their homes in a safe and secure way and
where their homes are rebuilt to the point
that they can live in them.
As you may know, the – a lot of the villages
people came from have been obliterated and
there’s no place for them to go back to
at this point.
We’ve tried to let the Government of Burma
know how seriously we see this.
We brought economic sanctions against the
senior general who commanded that region of
the country, and that is a start, anyway,
on letting them know that people should be
held accountable for what they did.
We are trying our best to get through to the
government the need to be serious and to be
welcoming of these people, to create a situation
where they can come back and be safe and not
be – not have the same cycle occur all over
again.
So there’s a lot of work to be done.
We know that the Government of Bangladesh
has been in direct touch with the Government
of Burma.
We think that’s good, because there needs
to be that coordination, but we’re very
much on the side of trying to do everything
we can to get the government to make it possible
for people to come back in a safe and secure
way, and in the meantime, to assist the Government
of Bangladesh in the important humanitarian
relief that it’s providing to the victims
of this crime.
And it’s a crime of ethnic cleansing, as
we have made clear.
This was not a chance thing.
It was very deliberate and unfortunate.
MODERATOR: Sir, in the black jacket.
QUESTION: Thank you.
My name is Sumer, from Voice of America Turkey
service.
There is a more than 60-pages Turkey section
in the report; we saw that.
And also, as you know, a pastor and two employees
of the U.S. embassy are in jail in Turkey,
and there are lots of criticizing points about
the violations of human rights and freedom
of expression in Turkey in your report.
And also, yesterday night, yesterday evening,
two U.S. senators made a call for sanctions
on Turkish officials due to these allegations.
Do you think the Trump administration will
consider impose sanctions on Turkey after
your report and also call made by the U.S.
senators?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I’m not going to
predict what policy responses that we may
have to this, but I would reemphasize the
seriousness of the situation, and I think
Acting Secretary Sullivan, in introducing
the reports this morning, talked about Turkey
in particular.
Not only do you have Pastor Brunson and our
local staff of the embassy in jail there,
but I – when I was looking at what we said
in the report, it was 50,000, and my expert
told me that now it’s 60,000 people have
been jailed under the state of emergency.
And so our very clear message to the government
has been: It’s time to end the state of
emergency, it’s time to have due process
for all these people with a fair and independent
judicial process, and try to get Turkey back
on the track that it for so long had been
on of being a very law-abiding, rule-of-law
country.
And so it’s something that’s very disturbing
to us.
We’ve been trying to message in every way
we can to the government that this – they
really need to step back, take a look at where
they’re headed, and try to get back on the
right track.
But what exact measures we’ll take in addition
to those we’ve taken already, I wouldn’t
want to speculate.
That’s going to be up to the President and
others.
MODERATOR: Take one here and then we’ll
go to New York, please.
QUESTION: Hi.
Thank you, Ambassador.
When --
MODERATOR: Sir, can you give your name and
your outlet, please?
QUESTION: Oh, Paul Huang from The Epoch Times.
I know you have increasing concern about religious
freedom in China, specifically the persecution
of Falun Gong, Tibetans and Uighurs in Xinjiang.
What concrete steps have you taken to hold
those officials that committed the persecutions
accountable?
And would you consider applying Global Magnitsky
Act to sanction those officials that have
committed the persecutions?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you.
Yes.
I mean, we are extremely concerned about the
level of repression, particularly in Xinjiang.
In terms of the increase over the last year,
it’s been a bad situation for Falun Gong
for a long time, it’s been bad for Uighurs,
it’s been bad for Tibetans, but there seems
to be amping of the level of repression against
those groups and against society in general
as well.
Our message to China all along has been: If
you want to realize the full potential of
the Chinese people and have an even stronger
economy and so on, opening up is the way to
do it, not clamping down.
As to whether we would use a particular tool
in that endeavor to convince the government,
again, I can’t speculate, but we – Global
Magnitsky is a rolling thing.
We look at different candidates from time
to time for that – to use that particular
tool, and it applies to anybody who does that
kind of behavior anywhere in the world.
Obviously, you can’t sanction everybody,
but you could sanction anybody.
So I wouldn’t go into speculating about
that now, but I think our message has been
very, very clear from the President on down
that China needs to move in a different direction
on those kinds of issues.
MODERATOR: We can go to our colleague in New
York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you.
Ariana King with the Nikkei Asian Review.
In your remarks earlier, you mentioned that
there didn’t have to be a tradeoff between
concerns about the nuclear issue and the human
rights issue in North Korea.
I’m wondering if you believe that means
that President Trump will push human rights
in his denuclearization talks with Kim Jong-un.
And a technical question, if you don’t mind,
about the abduction issue: In last year’s
report, there was language saying that the
North claimed that the investigation was over
and there was nothing to report, and this
year’s report, it seems to omit that sentence
and implies that the investigation is still
ongoing.
I was wondering if that – if there was a
policy reason for that or why that change
was made.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Last part first, and I am not familiar with
the – that particular phrase in the reports.
My guess is – one of the editorial rules
we have in the report is if something – if
an event occurred in one year, if there is
– the second year after that, you can kind
of say where it stands, but if it doesn’t
change, we drop it.
Otherwise, this thing would just become – it’s
already 2 million pages and it would be – (laughter)
– several times that many.
So it may just be that editorial reason that,
since the denial occurred at one point in
time and nothing new has happened on that,
that we stop talking about it.
But I can check if you’d like and see if
there’s anything more on that front.
I mean, we certainly don’t consider the
issue resolved, so that’s – hopefully
is reflected in the report.
On the issue of tradeoffs, I mean, I think
you have seen already the United States has
pursued a very strong advocacy on the issue
of human rights in North Korea.
And as I mentioned in the earlier briefing,
we’ve tried to be very supportive of groups
and international mechanisms that were set
up, the Commission of Inquiry and so on, to
try to expose and hopefully by shining a light
on, rectify some of those behaviors.
We’ve done that even as we have pursued
denuclearization.
And so what I was alluding to is, I don’t
think it’s incompatible to do both things
together.
Whether – I can’t predict whether the
President will say words about both things
in one set of talks or another, but I think
it’s very clear that we’re already on
a course where we’re concerned about both
things, we’re pursuing both things, and
we don’t see that you – that the price
of solving one is not to stop pursuing the
other.
MODERATOR: I think we have time for one more.
Sir.
QUESTION: I’m Allen Abel from Maclean’s
Magazine of Canada.
In a general sense, how does it impact your
work when you diligently try to collect factual,
empirical evidence, and then the President
boils 2 million words down to one word like
shithole?
How does it impact your work?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well I’m not going to
get into grammatical things, but it doesn’t
impact our work that much in terms of producing
a report like this and – and we – and
finding that others in other countries use
it.
Whatever differences they may have with the
United States, or with a particular official
in the United States, we’ve gone – I’ve
had this question for years where people will
say, “Oh, well, because of this, how can
you have any credibility?”
And what we find is, people that are struggling
for their human rights and for democratic
freedoms around the world, they’re looking
for support and friends where they can find
them.
And they still see and have, I think, consistently
seen the United States as being a friend on
that front, as they do your country.
Canada has been one of the great allies in
that effort.
So it’s – that – it’s not some – it’s
something that’s much bigger than one comment
or one word, and I think the President has
already spoken to the factualness of that
allegation.
MODERATOR: I think actually we will take one
more in New York, and then for any other questions
you may have here, please contact us and we’ll
make sure we get them to our colleagues at
the bureau.
So New York, please go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you so much.
Marija Sajkas, Novi Magazin, Serbia.
Could you please tell us something about the
region of western Balkans, and in particular
about Serbia and Kosovo?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I think the report
speaks for itself.
It’s obviously a complicated situation.
We’ve tried to report as clearly as we can
on what’s going on there as well as in other
parts of the world.
But it’s – it is a difficult one, and
if I can find my paper, I will try to give
you what I have of our latest guidance on
this, as opposed to what’s in the report.
I am not finding it.
So I think you’ll have to let it go at that.
I would suspect we can try to get our press
office to follow up too, because we have more
current guidance than what’s in the report
because there have been developments since.
MODERATOR: If you give your – if you give
your question to the program officers in New
York, they’ll pass it along and we’ll
make sure it gets answered.
And with that, I will thank you all very much
for joining us this afternoon, and thank Ambassador
Kozak for taking the time to come in and give
us a briefing.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you all very much,
and it’s been a pleasure to be here with
you.
# # #
MODERATOR: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for joining us, and thanks
to our colleagues in New York.
My name is Benjamin Weber.
I’m the director of the Foreign Press Centers,
and I’m very pleased to welcome our senior
official for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, Ambassador Michael Kozak, who is going
to present this year’s Country Reports on
Human Rights.
I’ll allow him to take a few moments to
make some opening remarks, and then we’ll
go to questions and answers.
Ambassador Kozak.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Thank you very much.
I thought I might spend a few minutes going
through why we do the reports, what they represent,
what they’re used for, and then we can open
it up for questions and comments by all of
you.
The – this is the 42nd year that we’ve
done the Annual Human Rights Reports, and
they’re done as a requirement of U.S. law.
This goes back to the 1970s, when Congress
said to the Executive Branch, “When we’re
making decisions about foreign assistance
and security assistance and trade agreements
and all of that, we’d really like to know:
What is the human rights situation in the
countries that we’re dealing with?”
So they charged the President by law – or
the Secretary of State – with having to
produce this annual report to them that is
supposed to report on the situation of human
rights in each of the member-nations of the
United Nations and a few other territories
or areas that we deal with as well.
We try to do that – and it’s internationally
recognized human rights, and then there are
a few requirements that are added on from
the U.S. law specifically.
So the reason we do the reports is not to
be passing judgment on other countries, or
the old word of name and shame; it’s not
with that in mind.
It’s to fulfill a statutory responsibility
to our Congress to try to produce the most
accurate description of what we find is going
on in other countries so that they can use
that in making decisions.
And frankly, it gets used then also by our
judicial system.
For example, when our immigration officers
or our immigration judges are assessing asylum
claims or refugee claims, they’re matching
the person’s story against what they know
of country conditions, and they use these
reports as a factual baseline for that.
We use it in the Executive Branch as well
when we’re meeting with foreign officials.
It’s the basis on which we can brief the
President or the Secretary of State on the
human rights situation in that country.
So the whole effort is to make it as factual,
as clinical as possible, and not – we’re
not drawing conclusions.
We’re reporting what’s out there, and
often you’re getting contradictory information.
You’ll have a credible source – media
in another country, a respectable newspaper,
or a nongovernment organization or something
– saying, “This happened,” and then
you have somebody else saying, “No, it didn’t,”
or, “It didn’t happen that way.”
And we try to reflect both of those things.
We don’t try to resolve and say this is
the – this is the true facts here.
We’re putting together a description of
this issue is going on, here are the parameters
of it.
And then later on, if we’re making a decision
where we have to resolve that, we will.
But this is basically to gather up that information,
put it in one place.
We don’t rank-order countries.
We don’t have, like, the good countries
going down to the bad.
There’s no automatic consequence that flows
from these reports.
So unlike some of the other ones we do where
there are tier rankings and – or if you
meet a certain standard, that we have to cut
off foreign assistance or something.
This is just a factual report.
What we do with it is a later set of decisions,
but it often is an important factor in informing
those later decisions.
One thing we did this year that I would call
your attention to is, we’ve noted that it
was kind of difficult to compare one country
to another.
Not that we are trying to do that, but the
readers hopefully can do that.
And in the executive summary of the reports
before, it was a little bit of a grab bag
for each country, and in no particular order
they would list different human rights issues
that had come up in that country.
So we’ve tried to standardize it more this
year, and there’s – it’s usually the
third paragraph in the executive summary,
we’ll say “human rights issues included.”
And we’ve tried to include there in the
same order in every report the most egregious
forms of human rights abuse – torture, extrajudicial
killing, forced disappearances, criminalization
of libel – or of expression, criminalization
of LGBT consensual sexual activity, violence
against people.
But we’re trying to focus on what is the
government doing or not doing about those
issues more than just what’s going on in
the society.
That’s important too, but the focus here
is: Is the government taking steps to penalize
bad behavior, or is it encouraging it, or
ignoring it?
And so we’ve tried to make that so that
you can make an apples-to-apples comparison
by looking at the executive summary of any
two countries and say, okay, this one hit
these following violations or abuses of human
rights, and this other one only hit two or
three, or in some cases none at all – not
that there weren’t problems in the country,
but that there were no reports of really egregious
human rights abuses in the country.
And so that comes in in some places.
In any event, with that in mind, I think perhaps
I’ll go ahead and open it up for questions.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
I’ll quickly remind you of FPC procedure.
Please wait for the microphone.
When you do get it, please identify yourself
by name and outlet.
And because we do have a fairly short time
here, I’ll ask everyone, please, to limit
themselves to one question.
Let me start here, sir.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador Michael.
Thank you for the briefing, and you’ve had
a colorful career in this area now, particularly
in terms of democracy and human rights.
I’ll ask about Bangladesh.
According to today’s report, 160 people
killed in crossfire and 118 individuals in
extra – faced extrajudicial killing.
And the situation is like that in Bangladesh.
In terms of democracy, the report mentioned
that, that there is no space for the freedom
of association, particularly in main opposition,
and according to your report the main opposition
BNP boycotted the last parliament in 2014.
And not the BNP boycotted; this was boycotted
by the international community to sending
observer like U.S., EU, and we have seen the
statement from the State Department which
was these nonparticipatory election, it was
not in any way an election.
And currently, main opposition leader, she
is in the jail.
So how you are assessing to the restoring
democracy in Bangladesh and to stop this – the
extrajudicial killing and the – in terms
of democracy, restoring democracy, what is
your assessment, and how you will established
– as U.S. is the largest developmental partner
of Bangladesh.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, I think you read
the report well.
And of course, one thing I should qualify
this, is that this is a report on conditions
during the last calendar year, so events that
have occurred since that time are not captured
in the report.
They’ll be in next year’s report, and
I think you had some things late in the year
like the elections that were – are coming
up.
But we, I think, have called out for free
and fair elections with international monitoring
in the country.
That’s one way you try to restore or promote
democratic competition and openness.
We speak frequently with the Government of
Bangladesh about how to reduce or eliminate
extrajudicial killings or – it’s usually
a debate about whether that’s what it is
or whether it’s people killed in crossfire
in a legitimate military activity.
But it’s something of concern to us.
We speak to people about it.
Another thing that applies to Bangladesh and
every other country is, if we have information
that a particular unit of the security forces
is engaged in abuses, we can’t train them
or equip them under our law until the government
brings the perpetrators of the abuse to justice.
So those are just some of the tools that we
– that we try to use to encourage better
performance in those areas.
And we’ve also, I think, called for an impartial
and fair trial of Zia, and not just to let
somebody be imprisoned for being a political
opponent.
So anyway, that’s kind of some of the things
that we’re doing.
But as I go back to the report, it’s supposed
to be describing the conditions in the – the
factual conditions.
What we do about that in policy terms varies
from country to country, different tools we
can use – statements, not providing equipment,
going in and encouraging, sometimes training
people so that they improve their human rights
performance.
So there’s a whole range of activity out
there that we can and do use to try to address
these kinds of problems.
The report’s only about the problem, not
about the solution.
MODERATOR: Let me take one more here and then
we’ll go to New York.
Ma’am.
QUESTION: Good afternoon.
My name is Kylie Sertic and I work for Kyodo
News.
I have a question about Japan.
The report says that in Japan sexual harassment
in the workplace remains widespread, so what
does the U.S. urge or expect the Japanese
Government to do to improve the situation,
and how seriously does the U.S. take this?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: I think you also saw that
we said that Japan didn’t have any really
egregious violations upfront and that they
– there’s no extrajudicial killing and
all that kind of thing.
Sexual harassment, unfortunately, is a big
problem in a lot of countries, including our
own, and what we are trying to urge all governments
to do – and I suspect the Government of
Japan is working on this too – is to institute
awareness programs, trainings, and other things
to try to get people to understand what is
and is not appropriate behavior and how you
need to be respectful of other people.
In some cases you need to have a penalty.
Often in the, like, workplace it’s administrative
in the sense of firing the person who’s
been doing the harassment, as opposed to prosecuting
them, unless it reaches the level of crossing
a criminal boundary.
So I don’t think we have any doubt that
the Government of Japan’s intentions are
in the right direction on this issue, but
it’s a – it is a problem in Japan and
it’s a problem here and it’s a problem
in a lot of places, and one that we all need
to work on and try to bring to an end as quickly
as we can.
MODERATOR: We’ll go to our colleague in
New York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador.
Good afternoon.
This is Shehabuddin Kisslu.
I have quick two things, sir, to ask.
One is, as you – we have seen that U.S.
has very strong statement about the Burmese
authority to – regarding the Rohingya, and
you know this very bad situation there.
It is getting really safe haven of the criminals
there in that situation, especially the women
and children are really that are risk.
So – and Burma continuously actually ignoring
the international concern – in that case,
actually what is the U.S. stand or what you
are actually thinking to go after Burma to
make them comply with these international
– I should say the recommendation that has
been done by the Mr. Annan commissions, number
one?
Number two is quick thing.
Like, as the U.S. and Bangladesh has a very
good relation in partnership of security assuring
in this region, and as one of my colleague
already has asked a question, I – do you
– what do you see the governments – how
the governments working on those areas?
Are – they are cooperating with you or are
– is the government is very, I mean, sincere
to improve the condition or what is supposed
to be done?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, thank you for
the question.
I – this is a problem that is just beyond
belief.
I – my colleague, Ambassador Brownback,
has just been in Bangladesh and was out in
the camps where the people from Burma are
located, and I think he said this morning
that the horrible conditions and the suffering
that they have undergone in Burma was just
breathtaking.
He was very impressed in a negative way as
to what had happened to them – in fact,
so much so that he called the Vice President
and he sent messages back to the secretary
about we need to redouble our efforts on this.
So we accept this is a huge and serious problem.
We appreciate the work that the Government
of Bangladesh has been doing to try to bring
some relief to these people.
I think we just committed another $50 million
in relief to try to help in that respect,
but the long-term solution, or the real solution,
is to make it possible for people to go back
to their homes in a safe and secure way and
where their homes are rebuilt to the point
that they can live in them.
As you may know, the – a lot of the villages
people came from have been obliterated and
there’s no place for them to go back to
at this point.
We’ve tried to let the Government of Burma
know how seriously we see this.
We brought economic sanctions against the
senior general who commanded that region of
the country, and that is a start, anyway,
on letting them know that people should be
held accountable for what they did.
We are trying our best to get through to the
government the need to be serious and to be
welcoming of these people, to create a situation
where they can come back and be safe and not
be – not have the same cycle occur all over
again.
So there’s a lot of work to be done.
We know that the Government of Bangladesh
has been in direct touch with the Government
of Burma.
We think that’s good, because there needs
to be that coordination, but we’re very
much on the side of trying to do everything
we can to get the government to make it possible
for people to come back in a safe and secure
way, and in the meantime, to assist the Government
of Bangladesh in the important humanitarian
relief that it’s providing to the victims
of this crime.
And it’s a crime of ethnic cleansing, as
we have made clear.
This was not a chance thing.
It was very deliberate and unfortunate.
MODERATOR: Sir, in the black jacket.
QUESTION: Thank you.
My name is Sumer, from Voice of America Turkey
service.
There is a more than 60-pages Turkey section
in the report; we saw that.
And also, as you know, a pastor and two employees
of the U.S. embassy are in jail in Turkey,
and there are lots of criticizing points about
the violations of human rights and freedom
of expression in Turkey in your report.
And also, yesterday night, yesterday evening,
two U.S. senators made a call for sanctions
on Turkish officials due to these allegations.
Do you think the Trump administration will
consider impose sanctions on Turkey after
your report and also call made by the U.S.
senators?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I’m not going to
predict what policy responses that we may
have to this, but I would reemphasize the
seriousness of the situation, and I think
Acting Secretary Sullivan, in introducing
the reports this morning, talked about Turkey
in particular.
Not only do you have Pastor Brunson and our
local staff of the embassy in jail there,
but I – when I was looking at what we said
in the report, it was 50,000, and my expert
told me that now it’s 60,000 people have
been jailed under the state of emergency.
And so our very clear message to the government
has been: It’s time to end the state of
emergency, it’s time to have due process
for all these people with a fair and independent
judicial process, and try to get Turkey back
on the track that it for so long had been
on of being a very law-abiding, rule-of-law
country.
And so it’s something that’s very disturbing
to us.
We’ve been trying to message in every way
we can to the government that this – they
really need to step back, take a look at where
they’re headed, and try to get back on the
right track.
But what exact measures we’ll take in addition
to those we’ve taken already, I wouldn’t
want to speculate.
That’s going to be up to the President and
others.
MODERATOR: Take one here and then we’ll
go to New York, please.
QUESTION: Hi.
Thank you, Ambassador.
When --
MODERATOR: Sir, can you give your name and
your outlet, please?
QUESTION: Oh, Paul Huang from The Epoch Times.
I know you have increasing concern about religious
freedom in China, specifically the persecution
of Falun Gong, Tibetans and Uighurs in Xinjiang.
What concrete steps have you taken to hold
those officials that committed the persecutions
accountable?
And would you consider applying Global Magnitsky
Act to sanction those officials that have
committed the persecutions?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you.
Yes.
I mean, we are extremely concerned about the
level of repression, particularly in Xinjiang.
In terms of the increase over the last year,
it’s been a bad situation for Falun Gong
for a long time, it’s been bad for Uighurs,
it’s been bad for Tibetans, but there seems
to be amping of the level of repression against
those groups and against society in general
as well.
Our message to China all along has been: If
you want to realize the full potential of
the Chinese people and have an even stronger
economy and so on, opening up is the way to
do it, not clamping down.
As to whether we would use a particular tool
in that endeavor to convince the government,
again, I can’t speculate, but we – Global
Magnitsky is a rolling thing.
We look at different candidates from time
to time for that – to use that particular
tool, and it applies to anybody who does that
kind of behavior anywhere in the world.
Obviously, you can’t sanction everybody,
but you could sanction anybody.
So I wouldn’t go into speculating about
that now, but I think our message has been
very, very clear from the President on down
that China needs to move in a different direction
on those kinds of issues.
MODERATOR: We can go to our colleague in New
York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you.
Ariana King with the Nikkei Asian Review.
In your remarks earlier, you mentioned that
there didn’t have to be a tradeoff between
concerns about the nuclear issue and the human
rights issue in North Korea.
I’m wondering if you believe that means
that President Trump will push human rights
in his denuclearization talks with Kim Jong-un.
And a technical question, if you don’t mind,
about the abduction issue: In last year’s
report, there was language saying that the
North claimed that the investigation was over
and there was nothing to report, and this
year’s report, it seems to omit that sentence
and implies that the investigation is still
ongoing.
I was wondering if that – if there was a
policy reason for that or why that change
was made.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Last part first, and I am not familiar with
the – that particular phrase in the reports.
My guess is – one of the editorial rules
we have in the report is if something – if
an event occurred in one year, if there is
– the second year after that, you can kind
of say where it stands, but if it doesn’t
change, we drop it.
Otherwise, this thing would just become – it’s
already 2 million pages and it would be – (laughter)
– several times that many.
So it may just be that editorial reason that,
since the denial occurred at one point in
time and nothing new has happened on that,
that we stop talking about it.
But I can check if you’d like and see if
there’s anything more on that front.
I mean, we certainly don’t consider the
issue resolved, so that’s – hopefully
is reflected in the report.
On the issue of tradeoffs, I mean, I think
you have seen already the United States has
pursued a very strong advocacy on the issue
of human rights in North Korea.
And as I mentioned in the earlier briefing,
we’ve tried to be very supportive of groups
and international mechanisms that were set
up, the Commission of Inquiry and so on, to
try to expose and hopefully by shining a light
on, rectify some of those behaviors.
We’ve done that even as we have pursued
denuclearization.
And so what I was alluding to is, I don’t
think it’s incompatible to do both things
together.
Whether – I can’t predict whether the
President will say words about both things
in one set of talks or another, but I think
it’s very clear that we’re already on
a course where we’re concerned about both
things, we’re pursuing both things, and
we don’t see that you – that the price
of solving one is not to stop pursuing the
other.
MODERATOR: I think we have time for one more.
Sir.
QUESTION: I’m Allen Abel from Maclean’s
Magazine of Canada.
In a general sense, how does it impact your
work when you diligently try to collect factual,
empirical evidence, and then the President
boils 2 million words down to one word like
shithole?
How does it impact your work?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well I’m not going to
get into grammatical things, but it doesn’t
impact our work that much in terms of producing
a report like this and – and we – and
finding that others in other countries use
it.
Whatever differences they may have with the
United States, or with a particular official
in the United States, we’ve gone – I’ve
had this question for years where people will
say, “Oh, well, because of this, how can
you have any credibility?”
And what we find is, people that are struggling
for their human rights and for democratic
freedoms around the world, they’re looking
for support and friends where they can find
them.
And they still see and have, I think, consistently
seen the United States as being a friend on
that front, as they do your country.
Canada has been one of the great allies in
that effort.
So it’s – that – it’s not some – it’s
something that’s much bigger than one comment
or one word, and I think the President has
already spoken to the factualness of that
allegation.
MODERATOR: I think actually we will take one
more in New York, and then for any other questions
you may have here, please contact us and we’ll
make sure we get them to our colleagues at
the bureau.
So New York, please go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you so much.
Marija Sajkas, Novi Magazin, Serbia.
Could you please tell us something about the
region of western Balkans, and in particular
about Serbia and Kosovo?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I think the report
speaks for itself.
It’s obviously a complicated situation.
We’ve tried to report as clearly as we can
on what’s going on there as well as in other
parts of the world.
But it’s – it is a difficult one, and
if I can find my paper, I will try to give
you what I have of our latest guidance on
this, as opposed to what’s in the report.
I am not finding it.
So I think you’ll have to let it go at that.
I would suspect we can try to get our press
office to follow up too, because we have more
current guidance than what’s in the report
because there have been developments since.
MODERATOR: If you give your – if you give
your question to the program officers in New
York, they’ll pass it along and we’ll
make sure it gets answered.
And with that, I will thank you all very much
for joining us this afternoon, and thank Ambassador
Kozak for taking the time to come in and give
us a briefing.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you all very much,
and it’s been a pleasure to be here with
you.
# # #
MODERATOR: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for joining us, and thanks
to our colleagues in New York.
My name is Benjamin Weber.
I’m the director of the Foreign Press Centers,
and I’m very pleased to welcome our senior
official for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, Ambassador Michael Kozak, who is going
to present this year’s Country Reports on
Human Rights.
I’ll allow him to take a few moments to
make some opening remarks, and then we’ll
go to questions and answers.
Ambassador Kozak.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Thank you very much.
I thought I might spend a few minutes going
through why we do the reports, what they represent,
what they’re used for, and then we can open
it up for questions and comments by all of
you.
The – this is the 42nd year that we’ve
done the Annual Human Rights Reports, and
they’re done as a requirement of U.S. law.
This goes back to the 1970s, when Congress
said to the Executive Branch, “When we’re
making decisions about foreign assistance
and security assistance and trade agreements
and all of that, we’d really like to know:
What is the human rights situation in the
countries that we’re dealing with?”
So they charged the President by law – or
the Secretary of State – with having to
produce this annual report to them that is
supposed to report on the situation of human
rights in each of the member-nations of the
United Nations and a few other territories
or areas that we deal with as well.
We try to do that – and it’s internationally
recognized human rights, and then there are
a few requirements that are added on from
the U.S. law specifically.
So the reason we do the reports is not to
be passing judgment on other countries, or
the old word of name and shame; it’s not
with that in mind.
It’s to fulfill a statutory responsibility
to our Congress to try to produce the most
accurate description of what we find is going
on in other countries so that they can use
that in making decisions.
And frankly, it gets used then also by our
judicial system.
For example, when our immigration officers
or our immigration judges are assessing asylum
claims or refugee claims, they’re matching
the person’s story against what they know
of country conditions, and they use these
reports as a factual baseline for that.
We use it in the Executive Branch as well
when we’re meeting with foreign officials.
It’s the basis on which we can brief the
President or the Secretary of State on the
human rights situation in that country.
So the whole effort is to make it as factual,
as clinical as possible, and not – we’re
not drawing conclusions.
We’re reporting what’s out there, and
often you’re getting contradictory information.
You’ll have a credible source – media
in another country, a respectable newspaper,
or a nongovernment organization or something
– saying, “This happened,” and then
you have somebody else saying, “No, it didn’t,”
or, “It didn’t happen that way.”
And we try to reflect both of those things.
We don’t try to resolve and say this is
the – this is the true facts here.
We’re putting together a description of
this issue is going on, here are the parameters
of it.
And then later on, if we’re making a decision
where we have to resolve that, we will.
But this is basically to gather up that information,
put it in one place.
We don’t rank-order countries.
We don’t have, like, the good countries
going down to the bad.
There’s no automatic consequence that flows
from these reports.
So unlike some of the other ones we do where
there are tier rankings and – or if you
meet a certain standard, that we have to cut
off foreign assistance or something.
This is just a factual report.
What we do with it is a later set of decisions,
but it often is an important factor in informing
those later decisions.
One thing we did this year that I would call
your attention to is, we’ve noted that it
was kind of difficult to compare one country
to another.
Not that we are trying to do that, but the
readers hopefully can do that.
And in the executive summary of the reports
before, it was a little bit of a grab bag
for each country, and in no particular order
they would list different human rights issues
that had come up in that country.
So we’ve tried to standardize it more this
year, and there’s – it’s usually the
third paragraph in the executive summary,
we’ll say “human rights issues included.”
And we’ve tried to include there in the
same order in every report the most egregious
forms of human rights abuse – torture, extrajudicial
killing, forced disappearances, criminalization
of libel – or of expression, criminalization
of LGBT consensual sexual activity, violence
against people.
But we’re trying to focus on what is the
government doing or not doing about those
issues more than just what’s going on in
the society.
That’s important too, but the focus here
is: Is the government taking steps to penalize
bad behavior, or is it encouraging it, or
ignoring it?
And so we’ve tried to make that so that
you can make an apples-to-apples comparison
by looking at the executive summary of any
two countries and say, okay, this one hit
these following violations or abuses of human
rights, and this other one only hit two or
three, or in some cases none at all – not
that there weren’t problems in the country,
but that there were no reports of really egregious
human rights abuses in the country.
And so that comes in in some places.
In any event, with that in mind, I think perhaps
I’ll go ahead and open it up for questions.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
I’ll quickly remind you of FPC procedure.
Please wait for the microphone.
When you do get it, please identify yourself
by name and outlet.
And because we do have a fairly short time
here, I’ll ask everyone, please, to limit
themselves to one question.
Let me start here, sir.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador Michael.
Thank you for the briefing, and you’ve had
a colorful career in this area now, particularly
in terms of democracy and human rights.
I’ll ask about Bangladesh.
According to today’s report, 160 people
killed in crossfire and 118 individuals in
extra – faced extrajudicial killing.
And the situation is like that in Bangladesh.
In terms of democracy, the report mentioned
that, that there is no space for the freedom
of association, particularly in main opposition,
and according to your report the main opposition
BNP boycotted the last parliament in 2014.
And not the BNP boycotted; this was boycotted
by the international community to sending
observer like U.S., EU, and we have seen the
statement from the State Department which
was these nonparticipatory election, it was
not in any way an election.
And currently, main opposition leader, she
is in the jail.
So how you are assessing to the restoring
democracy in Bangladesh and to stop this – the
extrajudicial killing and the – in terms
of democracy, restoring democracy, what is
your assessment, and how you will established
– as U.S. is the largest developmental partner
of Bangladesh.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, I think you read
the report well.
And of course, one thing I should qualify
this, is that this is a report on conditions
during the last calendar year, so events that
have occurred since that time are not captured
in the report.
They’ll be in next year’s report, and
I think you had some things late in the year
like the elections that were – are coming
up.
But we, I think, have called out for free
and fair elections with international monitoring
in the country.
That’s one way you try to restore or promote
democratic competition and openness.
We speak frequently with the Government of
Bangladesh about how to reduce or eliminate
extrajudicial killings or – it’s usually
a debate about whether that’s what it is
or whether it’s people killed in crossfire
in a legitimate military activity.
But it’s something of concern to us.
We speak to people about it.
Another thing that applies to Bangladesh and
every other country is, if we have information
that a particular unit of the security forces
is engaged in abuses, we can’t train them
or equip them under our law until the government
brings the perpetrators of the abuse to justice.
So those are just some of the tools that we
– that we try to use to encourage better
performance in those areas.
And we’ve also, I think, called for an impartial
and fair trial of Zia, and not just to let
somebody be imprisoned for being a political
opponent.
So anyway, that’s kind of some of the things
that we’re doing.
But as I go back to the report, it’s supposed
to be describing the conditions in the – the
factual conditions.
What we do about that in policy terms varies
from country to country, different tools we
can use – statements, not providing equipment,
going in and encouraging, sometimes training
people so that they improve their human rights
performance.
So there’s a whole range of activity out
there that we can and do use to try to address
these kinds of problems.
The report’s only about the problem, not
about the solution.
MODERATOR: Let me take one more here and then
we’ll go to New York.
Ma’am.
QUESTION: Good afternoon.
My name is Kylie Sertic and I work for Kyodo
News.
I have a question about Japan.
The report says that in Japan sexual harassment
in the workplace remains widespread, so what
does the U.S. urge or expect the Japanese
Government to do to improve the situation,
and how seriously does the U.S. take this?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: I think you also saw that
we said that Japan didn’t have any really
egregious violations upfront and that they
– there’s no extrajudicial killing and
all that kind of thing.
Sexual harassment, unfortunately, is a big
problem in a lot of countries, including our
own, and what we are trying to urge all governments
to do – and I suspect the Government of
Japan is working on this too – is to institute
awareness programs, trainings, and other things
to try to get people to understand what is
and is not appropriate behavior and how you
need to be respectful of other people.
In some cases you need to have a penalty.
Often in the, like, workplace it’s administrative
in the sense of firing the person who’s
been doing the harassment, as opposed to prosecuting
them, unless it reaches the level of crossing
a criminal boundary.
So I don’t think we have any doubt that
the Government of Japan’s intentions are
in the right direction on this issue, but
it’s a – it is a problem in Japan and
it’s a problem here and it’s a problem
in a lot of places, and one that we all need
to work on and try to bring to an end as quickly
as we can.
MODERATOR: We’ll go to our colleague in
New York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador.
Good afternoon.
This is Shehabuddin Kisslu.
I have quick two things, sir, to ask.
One is, as you – we have seen that U.S.
has very strong statement about the Burmese
authority to – regarding the Rohingya, and
you know this very bad situation there.
It is getting really safe haven of the criminals
there in that situation, especially the women
and children are really that are risk.
So – and Burma continuously actually ignoring
the international concern – in that case,
actually what is the U.S. stand or what you
are actually thinking to go after Burma to
make them comply with these international
– I should say the recommendation that has
been done by the Mr. Annan commissions, number
one?
Number two is quick thing.
Like, as the U.S. and Bangladesh has a very
good relation in partnership of security assuring
in this region, and as one of my colleague
already has asked a question, I – do you
– what do you see the governments – how
the governments working on those areas?
Are – they are cooperating with you or are
– is the government is very, I mean, sincere
to improve the condition or what is supposed
to be done?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Yes, well, thank you for
the question.
I – this is a problem that is just beyond
belief.
I – my colleague, Ambassador Brownback,
has just been in Bangladesh and was out in
the camps where the people from Burma are
located, and I think he said this morning
that the horrible conditions and the suffering
that they have undergone in Burma was just
breathtaking.
He was very impressed in a negative way as
to what had happened to them – in fact,
so much so that he called the Vice President
and he sent messages back to the secretary
about we need to redouble our efforts on this.
So we accept this is a huge and serious problem.
We appreciate the work that the Government
of Bangladesh has been doing to try to bring
some relief to these people.
I think we just committed another $50 million
in relief to try to help in that respect,
but the long-term solution, or the real solution,
is to make it possible for people to go back
to their homes in a safe and secure way and
where their homes are rebuilt to the point
that they can live in them.
As you may know, the – a lot of the villages
people came from have been obliterated and
there’s no place for them to go back to
at this point.
We’ve tried to let the Government of Burma
know how seriously we see this.
We brought economic sanctions against the
senior general who commanded that region of
the country, and that is a start, anyway,
on letting them know that people should be
held accountable for what they did.
We are trying our best to get through to the
government the need to be serious and to be
welcoming of these people, to create a situation
where they can come back and be safe and not
be – not have the same cycle occur all over
again.
So there’s a lot of work to be done.
We know that the Government of Bangladesh
has been in direct touch with the Government
of Burma.
We think that’s good, because there needs
to be that coordination, but we’re very
much on the side of trying to do everything
we can to get the government to make it possible
for people to come back in a safe and secure
way, and in the meantime, to assist the Government
of Bangladesh in the important humanitarian
relief that it’s providing to the victims
of this crime.
And it’s a crime of ethnic cleansing, as
we have made clear.
This was not a chance thing.
It was very deliberate and unfortunate.
MODERATOR: Sir, in the black jacket.
QUESTION: Thank you.
My name is Sumer, from Voice of America Turkey
service.
There is a more than 60-pages Turkey section
in the report; we saw that.
And also, as you know, a pastor and two employees
of the U.S. embassy are in jail in Turkey,
and there are lots of criticizing points about
the violations of human rights and freedom
of expression in Turkey in your report.
And also, yesterday night, yesterday evening,
two U.S. senators made a call for sanctions
on Turkish officials due to these allegations.
Do you think the Trump administration will
consider impose sanctions on Turkey after
your report and also call made by the U.S.
senators?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I’m not going to
predict what policy responses that we may
have to this, but I would reemphasize the
seriousness of the situation, and I think
Acting Secretary Sullivan, in introducing
the reports this morning, talked about Turkey
in particular.
Not only do you have Pastor Brunson and our
local staff of the embassy in jail there,
but I – when I was looking at what we said
in the report, it was 50,000, and my expert
told me that now it’s 60,000 people have
been jailed under the state of emergency.
And so our very clear message to the government
has been: It’s time to end the state of
emergency, it’s time to have due process
for all these people with a fair and independent
judicial process, and try to get Turkey back
on the track that it for so long had been
on of being a very law-abiding, rule-of-law
country.
And so it’s something that’s very disturbing
to us.
We’ve been trying to message in every way
we can to the government that this – they
really need to step back, take a look at where
they’re headed, and try to get back on the
right track.
But what exact measures we’ll take in addition
to those we’ve taken already, I wouldn’t
want to speculate.
That’s going to be up to the President and
others.
MODERATOR: Take one here and then we’ll
go to New York, please.
QUESTION: Hi.
Thank you, Ambassador.
When --
MODERATOR: Sir, can you give your name and
your outlet, please?
QUESTION: Oh, Paul Huang from The Epoch Times.
I know you have increasing concern about religious
freedom in China, specifically the persecution
of Falun Gong, Tibetans and Uighurs in Xinjiang.
What concrete steps have you taken to hold
those officials that committed the persecutions
accountable?
And would you consider applying Global Magnitsky
Act to sanction those officials that have
committed the persecutions?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you.
Yes.
I mean, we are extremely concerned about the
level of repression, particularly in Xinjiang.
In terms of the increase over the last year,
it’s been a bad situation for Falun Gong
for a long time, it’s been bad for Uighurs,
it’s been bad for Tibetans, but there seems
to be amping of the level of repression against
those groups and against society in general
as well.
Our message to China all along has been: If
you want to realize the full potential of
the Chinese people and have an even stronger
economy and so on, opening up is the way to
do it, not clamping down.
As to whether we would use a particular tool
in that endeavor to convince the government,
again, I can’t speculate, but we – Global
Magnitsky is a rolling thing.
We look at different candidates from time
to time for that – to use that particular
tool, and it applies to anybody who does that
kind of behavior anywhere in the world.
Obviously, you can’t sanction everybody,
but you could sanction anybody.
So I wouldn’t go into speculating about
that now, but I think our message has been
very, very clear from the President on down
that China needs to move in a different direction
on those kinds of issues.
MODERATOR: We can go to our colleague in New
York, please.
QUESTION: Thank you.
Ariana King with the Nikkei Asian Review.
In your remarks earlier, you mentioned that
there didn’t have to be a tradeoff between
concerns about the nuclear issue and the human
rights issue in North Korea.
I’m wondering if you believe that means
that President Trump will push human rights
in his denuclearization talks with Kim Jong-un.
And a technical question, if you don’t mind,
about the abduction issue: In last year’s
report, there was language saying that the
North claimed that the investigation was over
and there was nothing to report, and this
year’s report, it seems to omit that sentence
and implies that the investigation is still
ongoing.
I was wondering if that – if there was a
policy reason for that or why that change
was made.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Okay.
Last part first, and I am not familiar with
the – that particular phrase in the reports.
My guess is – one of the editorial rules
we have in the report is if something – if
an event occurred in one year, if there is
– the second year after that, you can kind
of say where it stands, but if it doesn’t
change, we drop it.
Otherwise, this thing would just become – it’s
already 2 million pages and it would be – (laughter)
– several times that many.
So it may just be that editorial reason that,
since the denial occurred at one point in
time and nothing new has happened on that,
that we stop talking about it.
But I can check if you’d like and see if
there’s anything more on that front.
I mean, we certainly don’t consider the
issue resolved, so that’s – hopefully
is reflected in the report.
On the issue of tradeoffs, I mean, I think
you have seen already the United States has
pursued a very strong advocacy on the issue
of human rights in North Korea.
And as I mentioned in the earlier briefing,
we’ve tried to be very supportive of groups
and international mechanisms that were set
up, the Commission of Inquiry and so on, to
try to expose and hopefully by shining a light
on, rectify some of those behaviors.
We’ve done that even as we have pursued
denuclearization.
And so what I was alluding to is, I don’t
think it’s incompatible to do both things
together.
Whether – I can’t predict whether the
President will say words about both things
in one set of talks or another, but I think
it’s very clear that we’re already on
a course where we’re concerned about both
things, we’re pursuing both things, and
we don’t see that you – that the price
of solving one is not to stop pursuing the
other.
MODERATOR: I think we have time for one more.
Sir.
QUESTION: I’m Allen Abel from Maclean’s
Magazine of Canada.
In a general sense, how does it impact your
work when you diligently try to collect factual,
empirical evidence, and then the President
boils 2 million words down to one word like
shithole?
How does it impact your work?
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well I’m not going to
get into grammatical things, but it doesn’t
impact our work that much in terms of producing
a report like this and – and we – and
finding that others in other countries use
it.
Whatever differences they may have with the
United States, or with a particular official
in the United States, we’ve gone – I’ve
had this question for years where people will
say, “Oh, well, because of this, how can
you have any credibility?”
And what we find is, people that are struggling
for their human rights and for democratic
freedoms around the world, they’re looking
for support and friends where they can find
them.
And they still see and have, I think, consistently
seen the United States as being a friend on
that front, as they do your country.
Canada has been one of the great allies in
that effort.
So it’s – that – it’s not some – it’s
something that’s much bigger than one comment
or one word, and I think the President has
already spoken to the factualness of that
allegation.
MODERATOR: I think actually we will take one
more in New York, and then for any other questions
you may have here, please contact us and we’ll
make sure we get them to our colleagues at
the bureau.
So New York, please go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you so much.
Marija Sajkas, Novi Magazin, Serbia.
Could you please tell us something about the
region of western Balkans, and in particular
about Serbia and Kosovo?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Well, I think the report
speaks for itself.
It’s obviously a complicated situation.
We’ve tried to report as clearly as we can
on what’s going on there as well as in other
parts of the world.
But it’s – it is a difficult one, and
if I can find my paper, I will try to give
you what I have of our latest guidance on
this, as opposed to what’s in the report.
I am not finding it.
So I think you’ll have to let it go at that.
I would suspect we can try to get our press
office to follow up too, because we have more
current guidance than what’s in the report
because there have been developments since.
MODERATOR: If you give your – if you give
your question to the program officers in New
York, they’ll pass it along and we’ll
make sure it gets answered.
And with that, I will thank you all very much
for joining us this afternoon, and thank Ambassador
Kozak for taking the time to come in and give
us a briefing.
AMBASSADOR KOZAK: Thank you all very much,
and it’s been a pleasure to be here with
you.
