The U.S. State Department has quietly removed its Human Rights Reporting Gateway (HRG), an online portal that allowed individuals and organizations to report alleged human rights violations committed by foreign military units equipped with American weapons. This portal functioned as a formal “tip line” to the U.S. government and was the only publicly accessible mechanism specifically designed to facilitate the direct reporting of potential abuses by foreign forces armed by the United States.
The HRG’s deletion has drawn sharp criticism from human rights advocates and even from a senior congressional aide who was instrumental in drafting the legislation that mandated its creation. Despite these concerns, the State Department maintains that it continues to comply with the legal requirements regarding human rights reporting. The controversy highlights broader tensions over the U.S. government’s approach to human rights oversight, especially in the context of its military aid to foreign countries.
### Background and Legal Context
The Human Rights Reporting Gateway was established in 2022 after sustained calls for the U.S. government to more rigorously implement provisions of the Leahy Law. Named after former Senator Patrick Leahy, this law requires the U.S. government to “facilitate receipt” of information about gross human rights violations committed by foreign military units that receive U.S. military aid, including weapons, training, and funding. The intent behind the Leahy Law is to prevent American taxpayer dollars from supporting military forces that engage in serious abuses such as torture, extrajudicial killings, and other violations of international human rights standards.
The HRG was designed to provide a transparent and accessible channel through which credible reports could be submitted, ensuring that the U.S. government could investigate and take appropriate action when warranted. The portal requested detailed information, including the names of military units involved, identities of alleged perpetrators, specific locations, and dates of incidents. This level of detail was essential to ensure the credibility and investigatory value of the reports.
### Types of Cases Reported
Since its inception, the HRG had been used to submit a number of significant cases. For example, human rights organizations reported alleged excessive use of force by Colombian security forces during mass anti-government protests in 2021. These protests resulted in at least 47 deaths and many injuries, according to Amnesty International, which documented the use of U.S.-supplied equipment such as high-capacity launchers for stun and smoke grenades by Colombian forces.
Another notable area of concern involved U.S.-armed units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operating in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Amnesty International had gathered evidence concerning the killing of 20 Palestinians during IDF raids in these territories in late 2023. Before the portal’s removal, Amnesty was preparing to submit a detailed report on these incidents through the HRG.
### Criticism and Concerns Over the Removal
Tim Rieser, a former senior aide to Senator Leahy and one of the architects of the 2011 amendment that strengthened information-gathering provisions within the Leahy Law, strongly condemned the removal of the HRG. He told the BBC that eliminating the portal signaled that the State Department was “clearly ignoring the law.” According to Rieser, the deletion of the gateway represents a broader trend of weakening the department’s human rights infrastructure, which could lead to the U.S. inadvertently supporting foreign security forces guilty of heinous crimes without any accountability.
Rieser warned that without mechanisms like the HRG, there would be diminished incentives for foreign governments to investigate or prosecute human rights abuses committed by their security forces. This could erode international human rights norms and damage U.S. credibility on the global stage.
Charles Blaha, former Director of the Office of Security and Human Rights at the State Department and now an adviser to the Washington-based think tank Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), echoed these concerns. Blaha noted that the removal of the gateway leaves people “in the field” with “no established channel” to report gross human rights violations by foreign security forces armed by the U.S. He described the government’s ability to deter abuses as “severely weakened” by the loss of this key reporting mechanism.
Blaha also highlighted that the Biden administration had not done enough to publicize the HRG, meaning the obligation to “facilitate receipt” of information was not being fully honored even before the Trump administration deleted the portal altogether during a recent State Department restructuring.
### State Department’s Response and Structural Changes
The State Department has insisted that