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President Biden Must Oppose the Taliban’s Current and Future Crackdown on Human Rights

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President Biden Must Oppose the Taliban’s Current and Future Crackdown on Human Rights
President Joe Biden pauses while giving remarks on the worsening crisis in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House in Washington on Aug. 16, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Nina Shea
Updated:
Commentary

In last Monday’s speech on Afghanistan, President Biden made the claim, “I have been clear that human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery.” He is right that basic human rights are central to America’s foreign policy, as a matter of law and core national values. This is in stark contrast to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), which has taken a recent interest in supporting the Taliban. Biden must lead in standing up for the rights of all Afghans, especially those in imminent peril.

Nina Shea
Nina Shea
Author
Nina Shea is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute where she directs the Center for Religious Freedom. For twelve years, she served as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. An international human-rights lawyer for over thirty years, Ms. Shea undertakes scholarship and recommends policies for the advancement of individual religious freedom and other human rights in U.S. foreign policy. She advocates extensively in defense of those persecuted for their religious beliefs and identities and on behalf of diplomatic measures to end religious repression and violence abroad, whether from state actors or extremist groups.
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