Russia criticises US over human rights violations

Russia has accused the US of having adopted a wrong approach for human rights protection by intervening in other countries' internal affairs. Russian foreign ministry's special envoy for Human Rights Konstantin Dolgov accused the US of violating the basic international principle of state sovereignty, Xinhua reported Monday.

"This is one of the reasons why (Moscow) has taken a decision to shutdown USAID activity in Russia," Dolgov said in an interview posted on ministry's website.

In September, Russia accused the US official aid agency of trying to influence Russia's domestic political affairs and ended its activities from October. Dolgov said, the US authorities repeatedly violated the rights of journalists, put pressures on the mass media policy. It could hardly be called "an example of democracy."

Meanwhile, Dolgov pointed out the violations of Russian citizens rights in the US, including those pertaining to adopted children. "There are some 100,000 crimes against children in Russia and over 3 million in the US every year," he said.