America is not always the friend of freedom and justice
The death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian gulag has rightly outraged Americans. Kremlin excuses for his imprisonment, such as a court finding that he was an “extremist” who threatened the country’s national security, are unconvincing. Yet years of European and U.S. pressure to release him failed.
Navalny’s death underscores Russia’s repression. It also raises troubling questions about America’s ability to halt human rights abuses in such countries.
But hostile regimes are not alone in committing violations. American allies and the U.S. itself do so.
Our government does too little
In those cases, our ability to stop abuses is far greater. Yet frequently our government does little — and officials justify their inaction or repression by excuses like those that Russia uses.
Consider the case of Gonzalo Lira, a 55-year-old American who died in a Ukrainian prison in January. Lira, who lived in the country with his Ukrainian wife, had publicly dissented against Ukraine’s war with Russia. Jailed and released several times, he continued posting on social media, angering Ukrainian censors.
Last summer, fearing he would be killed, Lira tried to escape but was captured at the border and charged with “justifying” Russia’s invasion. As his health deteriorated in terrible prison conditions, his family repeatedly pleaded for the U.S. to intervene.
Ukraine is highly dependent on U.S. funds, not only for its military but also its government operations. Congress has allocated over $113 billion to support the country since the Russian invasion two years ago. The Biden administration therefore has huge influence. Yet, according to Lira’s father, the U.S. did nothing to help an American citizen in mortal peril. Instead, Washington continued to celebrate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Far from pressuring him to release Lira or end other rights abuses (or the country’s rampant corruption), Biden has urged Congress to earmark over $60 billion more in taxpayer money for the Ukraine war, claiming it is imperative for national security. Meanwhile, mainstream American media has lionized Zelensky, but largely ignored Lira’s death and Ukraine’s rights abuses.
Similarly, if with much greater loss of life, the U.S. has done little to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza. Israel says it is still responding to Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 attack.
But in January, the World Court issued a preliminary ruling finding it plausible that Israel has engaged in genocidal acts and that Israeli officials have incited genocide against Palestinians. According to the UN, the Israelis have already killed well over 30,000 civilians.
Israel receives almost $4 billion per year in U.S. military aid. Yet the Biden administration refuses to use this leverage. Instead, it contents itself with occasional requests for Israeli restraint and criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the words ring hollow as the administration vetoes UN ceasefire resolutions and urges Congress to hand Israel $14 billion more in military aid.
Persecuting Julian Assange
If the U.S. is complicit in the death of Lira in Ukraine and thousands of civilians in Gaza, we are directly responsible for the years-long persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, one of the world’s most important journalists. Since 2006, Wikileaks has published some of the most consequential news stories of the 21st century, documenting government and corporate abuses in many countries, including the U.S. and Russia.
Unsurprisingly, the powerful were not happy with Assange’s disclosures. The Obama administration investigated him as a national security threat based on Wikileaks’ 2010 release of diplomatic cables, documents, and videos indicating U. S. rights abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.
President Trump’s CIA Director Mike Pompeo called Wikileaks “a nonstate, hostile intelligence service.” But the government has not been able to name anyone killed or injured by Wikileaks’ releases.
In 2019, the Trump administration nonetheless indicted
him under the draconian EspionageAct for allegedly helping the leaker, Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, obtain secret files. Trump administration officials including Pompeo reportedly plotted Assange’s kidnapping and assassination.
The Biden Justice Department has pursued the case against Assange relentlessly, even as his health deteriorates in a harsh British prison. Last month the U.K. High Court heard his final appeal against extradition to the U.S.
Yet Assange acted no differently than journalists have long done in free countries. Wikileaks received documents from Manning and tried to protect the source’s identity. It published the information online, redacting names of potentially vulnerable individuals. Other publishers included The New York Times and The Guardian.
Media and rights groups worldwide, along with the Australian government, have demanded that the charges against Assange be dropped. If the U.S. convicts him, it will undermine the First Amendment here and press freedoms around the world.
The government’s goal
This appears to be the government’s goal — to scare whistleblowers and journalists from reporting on controversial, irresponsible, or potentially criminal American policies carried out under broad assertions of “national security.”
In short, for those upset by Navalny’s death and the difficulties of protecting human rights from governments including our own that camouflage abuses with vague security rhetoric, there is much to do. Start at home, demanding that the U.S. uphold basic rights here and in client states such as Ukraine and Israel.