State Dept: Facebook Chat on Human Rights

Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, recently held a Facebook chat on the administration’s human rights agenda. Dozens of participants submitted questions to Assistant Secretary Posner on a range of democracy and human rights issues. In all, Posner answered questions concerning China, LGBT issues, the Holocaust, Darfur, and human trafficking.

He concluded the chat with his thoughts on Secretary Clinton‘s human rights speech at Georgetown on Monday. He reiterated the need for a unified approach in supporting human rights, democracy, and development. Therefore, he explained the administration will uphold universal standards for human rights, practice “principled pragmatism” to promote and protect human rights, partner from the “bottom up” with civil society, and maintain a broad focus on thematic issues.

We have previously posted a synopsis of Secretary Clinton’s speech here, as well as the Arabic version here.