Mexico, Venezuela reject US human rights report

MEXICO CITY/CARACAS — Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday dismissed the human rights report issued by the United States Department of State as a "lie" and "pure politicking".

According to the agency's "2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Mexico", the Latin American country is rife with extrajudicial homicides, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, among other irregularities.

"It is not true, they are lying, it is pure politicking. With all due respect, it is their nature," Lopez Obrador said at a daily news conference, when questioned about the report released on Monday.

The US does not want to abandon its Monroe Doctrine and continues to cast itself as "the government of the world", the president said during a stop in southern Oaxaca state.

"They only see the speck in the other person's eye, not the log in their own. But it's nothing to get angry about, that's how they are," Lopez Obrador added.

Venezuela also rejected the "2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices", saying the US uses human rights as a political tool.

In a statement on Monday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said that "despite maintaining a permanent aggression against the Venezuelan people, (the US government) seeks to rate the actions of other governments".

It stated that on the 20th anniversary of the US invasion in Iraq, "human rights are simply a tool used for political convenience" by Washington.

The ministry indicated that while the US publishes a report to "attack sovereign countries", within its own borders "it fails to mitigate the brutality of institutionalized police racism", as well as poverty.

In addition, while discrediting other nations, "the US has not signed or ratified important (human rights) agreements", including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court or the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

"It continues to apply illegal and unilateral coercive measures against at least 30 percent of the world's population," the statement added.

Xinhua