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Former Secretary of StateHillary Clintons record on human rights came under harsh criticism in Geneva, Switzerland, last week as political dissidents and pro-democracy activists gathered at a conference ahead of the United Nations Human Rights Councils annual session.

Clintonhas been praised for her role in negotiating U.S. asylum for Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, and she received the Lantos Foundation Human Rights award for her proclamations on womens rights and her pioneering work on Internet freedom.

However, activists at the Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy, hosted last week by United Nations watchdog group UN Watch, gave a very different assessment of the former secretary of state, telling theWashington Free Beaconthat she was silent and passive on some of the most pressing human rights issues during her tenure at the State Department.

Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of an American Christian pastor who has been imprisoned in Iran since the summer of 2012, said the State Department under Clinton all but ignored her husbands case, and did not take an active role until Secretary of State John Kerry took over last year.

For Hillary Clinton to have been completely silent, and not have done anything when my husband was taken, and knowing it was strictly on a human rights issue, really bothered me because I expected otherwise from my government, Abedini said.

She said she first contacted the State Department in August 2012, days after her husbandSaeed Abediniwas detained in Tehran. The Christian pastor, who was in Iran to help build an orphanage, was later sentenced to eight years in prison on religion-related charges.

It was just very cold, Abedini said about her initial call to the State Department. [One official] said Were not Hollywoodwe cant just fly in there and save people.

She said Clinton and State Department officials brushed off phone calls and letters from her attorneys and members of Congress for months.

We received nothing, no movement, no comments, nothing until March [2013], and Kerry was the first to say something, Abedini said.

From the first phone call I expected movement, she added. I didnt expect nothing. Somewhere along the line I felt like the message I was getting from them was, We dont want to ruffle feathers [with Iran], we want to focus on the nuclear [issue].

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Hillary Clinton blasted by human rights activists