Biden Announces New Pick For Top Human Rights Job

Washington D.C./10.11.23/Turan:   U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his new pick for the State Department's top human rights envoy position, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Dafna Hochman Rand, who is currently at Georgetown and Princeton, is Biden’s nominee to be assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor.

She previously served as a deputy assistant secretary of state under the Obama administration.

Rand "will be an extraordinary leader in this job. I hope the Senate will swiftly confirm her," her former boss Tom Malinowski tweeted Thursday afternoon.

If confirmed, she will be the Biden administration's first top human rights envoy as the president's previous pick Sarah Margon had withdrawn from contention last year in the face of unrelenting opposition from Senate Republicans who questioned her support for Israel.

The new announcement came just a day after Biden pledged that his country, together with partners and allies, "will continue to defend the fundamental freedoms and human rights entitled to every person around the world."

When asked on Thursday by TURAN's correspondent if the State Department was going to beef up its toolkit to protect human rights better globally, principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a daily briefing:  "One of the first things that Secretary Blinken, President Biden, Vice President Harris made clear at the beginning of this administration was the role that human rights is going to continue to play and the forefront at which we put it when it comes to our foreign policy. And that will continue to be the case. Around the world, when we have seen infringements on human rights, we have been clear about that."

Alex Raufoglu