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Russian parliament slams US human rights report for interfering in internal politics
14/4/2007 11:08

The State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament, issued a statement accusing the United States of interfering in Russian domestic politics through its human rights report, Russian news agencies reported yesterday.

"The State Duma is concerned by unprecedented attempts by the United States to interfere in internal political processes in Russia" through a report "supporting human rights and democracy worldwide" issued on April 6 by the U.S. Department of State, the statement said.

"Under the disguise of assisting free and fair elections to the State Duma in December 2007 and the Russian presidential elections in March 2008, U.S. taxpayers' money is being spent on training, polls, seminars, and other events which spread propaganda and biased evaluations misinterpreting Russian law, such as the one on nonprofit organizations," it said.

The Duma draft said "U.S. officials are taking part in the events, some of which are organized by clearly extremist forces. This is how the White House is trying to pursue its economic and political interests by interfering in other countries' internal affairs."

The financing of nonprofit organizations by foreign countries for political purposes is unacceptable, however, "this activity is practiced by the U.S. government," it said.

In the statement, the Russian parliament said that the U.S. interference in the internal affairs of other countries "is increasingly disapproved of, not only outside the United States, but also by US society itself."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the US State Department report on human rights and democracy is politicized in nature.

"The section of the document dealing with Russia applies a whole arsenal of simple logical methods -- exaggeration, selection of facts to support conclusions formulated in advance, the substitution of notions, arbitrary interpretation of facts and some others to convince the U.S. and international public that Russia urgently needs democratization," the statement said.



Xinhua