Watchdog

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on June 26 that an annual human rights report released by the United States was politically motivated and ignored rights violations by Ukraine.

"As previously [the report] is a creation abounding with politicized evaluations and coarse ideological cliches," Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Interfax.

"The methodology of the report is detached from reality and based on an arbitrary 'ranking' of a state's level of democracy," he said.

The United States released its annual human rights report on June 25, saying that the political system in Russia was becoming "increasingly authoritarian" and that Moscow had passed new measures to suppress dissent.

Based on reporting by Interfax and Reuters

China has criticized the United States for a "terrible human rights record," denouncing it for police brutality and global surveillance a day after Washington blasted Beijing's own performance.

A report by China's State Council said America was "haunted by spreading guns, frequent occurrence of violent crimes, the excessive use of force by police."

It said that U.S. intelligence had used "indiscriminate" torture against terrorist suspects, while "violating human rights in other countries" with drone strikes and mass surveillance programs.

The report largely cited U.S. domestic media websites, including The New York Times, which is blocked by Beijing as part of its Internet censorship regime.

The document is released each year by China the day after the U.S. State Department issues its annual global human rights report.

Unlike China, the United States is a multiparty democracy but the report declared: "Money is a deciding factor in the U.S. politics, and the U.S. citizens' political rights were not properly protected."

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly imprisoned those who openly challenge its right to rule or have protested publicly.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters