The US condemned the increasing use of armed forces from authoritarian regimes from around the world to suppress democratic protests.

According to the annual US Department of State report on human rights practices, “many governments continue to tighten their grasp on free expression, association, and assembly, using increasingly repressive laws, politically motivated prosecutions and even new technologies to deny citizens their universal human rights, in the public square, and in virtual space.”

From Syria, where an August 21 chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus killed at least 1,429 Syrians according to the US, to Egypt, where security forces' violent dispersal of sit-in protests left 600-900 dead that same month, governments continued to repress fundamental rights.

The report sharply criticized government repression of peaceful protests from Bahrain to China, saying that such actions which were “evident in every region of the world” continue to go without punishment.

The annual report described the “new and existing legislative restrictions, in countries such as Russia, that continue to curb civil society and political opposition and target marginalized populations, including religious and ethnic minorities, and the LGBT community.

In countries such as China, a lack of judicial independence has fueled a state-directed crackdown on activists and suppression of political dissent and public advocacy.

In Ukraine, the prior government increased pressure on civil society, journalists, and protesters calling for government accountability and a future with Europe, but as we all just saw Ukrainians demonstrated once again the power of people to determine how they are governed.”

The “setbacks to freedom of assembly around the world, from Cuba to Egypt, where governments used excessive force to quell peaceful protests and dissent” have also been covered in the US Department of State 2013 report.

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