Human Rights Watch, a prominent American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, has recently published an article on the threat that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration poses to human rights.

The organization said in a 687-page report: “Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk.”

Human Rights Watch’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth warns that “[u]nless Trump repudiates these proposals, his administration risks committing massive rights violations in the US and shirking a longstanding, bipartisan belief, however imperfectly applied, in a rights-based foreign policy agenda.”

As an American citizen, I want my president and country as a whole to be a guardian of global human rights. The United States is obligated to shine a bright light on freedom and to hold perpetrators accountable for their human rights violations. The US ceases to be “American” if citizens and leaders do not protect and promote rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.