The strongly worded statement came in response to a report by Freedom House, a U.S. human rights organization, on the state of democracy in Russia.
The report said former Soviet republics with massive energy resources backslide on democracy and have developed totalitarian tendencies. The Nations in Transit report singled out Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan in a study measuring democracy in the European Union's eastern neighbors, saying they had seen economic growth thanks to high energy prices, but had failed to advance democracy, national governance, media freedom, and judicial independence.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry responded robustly Tuesday. "The United States itself has such unpleasant phenomena as secret CIA prisons, violation of human rights under the pretext of fighting terrorism, shortfalls in the electoral system, corruption, and many other things."
The think tank downgraded Russia's democracy ratings for the third consecutive time, from 5.61 in 2005 to 5.75 in 2006 on a scale with 1 as the best and 7 as worst. The NGO criticized President Vladimir Putin for moves to centralize power, introducing a 7% threshold for political parties running for parliament, and passing a new law on non-governmental organizations that is seen in the West as too restrictive.
The ministry, though, dismissed such reports as attempts to tarnish Russia's image.
"Individual transgressions can be found in any country at any time. They are generalized into trends and then countries are classified by the level of democratic development - the way it is perceived in Washington and in accordance with the U.S.'s understanding of democracy," it said.
The ministry said the new U.S. national security strategy made Russian-U.S. relations directly contingent on the way "Washington evaluates our behavior in the realm of democracy and human rights."
It said certain quarters would like to maintain pressure on Russia by using human rights issues, as was the case in the Soviet era.
