State Dept. Fires About 60 Contractors Working on Democracy and Human Rights

The State Department has fired about 60 contractors who work for its democracy, human rights and labor bureau, a division whose programs have often been criticized by authoritarian leaders, according to two U.S. officials and two former officials.

The dismissals deal a severe blow to the bureau, because the contractors were mostly technical or area experts whom senior officials relied on to do the day-to-day work of enacting the programs overseas.

The bureau has received about $150 million to $200 million of annual budget funding from Congress in recent years. But the bureau also handles and passes on money that Congress appropriates for other groups, including the National Endowment for Democracy.

The bureau’s programs have often been focused on building up civil society and democratic practices in countries where the United States does not have missions and formal diplomatic ties, or where relations with an authoritarian government are especially tense. This includes Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.

Some of the bureau’s contractors have specific technical expertise. For example, at least one is an expert on virtual private networks, software that allows users to get around government internet blocks. China has the most effective internet censorship program in the world, called the Great Firewall.

The bureau has also worked on enacting policies aimed at pressuring China to relent on its forced labor of Uyghur Muslims, including the imposing of sanctions on U.S. companies that buy products that can be traced back to some form of forced labor.