The harrowing accounts and chilling examples highlighted in the United Nations Human Rights Council annual reports as regards Human rights violations in the United States are a disturbing read for any conscious human being. And however much the US administration officials would like to be in denial, their one-dimensional human rights policy is still a dead giveaway, a narrative that tells of an abusive system that knows about these things and chooses to do nothing.
Just scratching the surface
Predominantly, UN reports put the Land of the Free in negative light for “infringement on citizens' civil rights, prevalence of money politics, rising income inequality, worsening racial discrimination, and growing threats against children, women and immigrants, as well as human rights violations caused by the unilateral America First policies.”
It’s a sad statement, as well, that the US, which withdrew last year from the United Nations Human Rights Council, methodically continues to grab the top trophy in rampant gun violence and abuse of power by public officers.
And that's just to scratch the surface of the explosive subject of federal gun laws. It reveals that the pattern of systematic abuse at the hands of the American government under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution has been, and still is, a textbook case of human rights violations designed and implemented at the highest levels of government.
Let's be utterly clear about what has happened to human rights in American hands: There are genuine reasons why each and every year tens of thousands of black Americans, Latinos, students and activists take to the streets across country, rallying and chanting and refusing to back down and go home. The US - where school shootings are an almost weekly news story and the preeminent fear of American teenagers - has succumbed to the exact patterns of abusive state action that these campaigners want to outlaw forever.
No less important, though hardly commented upon, is this fact, too: The ruling elites are blatant in their intentions of maintaining white supremacy and privilege. The political class in Washington makes a mockery of civil rights as well as domestic and international justice.
According to Fars News Agancy, their crocodile tears for slain youths by white police officers and “concern” in both racial discrimination and the abuse of power by public officers is a ruse. The authorities seek no social justice and equality to the millions of disadvantaged Americans and victims of police homicide. They seek no justice to those men of color and immigrants who get killed every day for imagined fears by bigoted police officers.
And in case you are wondering, it’s not just the UNHRC that says US human rights record is now officially in the dust. The US Senate Intelligence Committee’s periodic report (partly classified) is equally a disturbing read – although it fails to call on Washington to comply with international treaties:
-The Committee cites deep concern about heavy-handed and discriminatory policing practices, treatment of juveniles in criminal justice system, serious problems with immigration enforcement policies, sexual assault of inmates, and shackling of pregnant women in prisons.
-The Committee condemns America’s refusal to investigate reports of torture and cruel treatment of terrorism suspects.
-The Committee doesn’t call on the US to match its rhetoric with actions by supporting full accountability for torture, systematic abuse and false imprisonment.
-The Committee reveals that the US never investigates cases of unlawful detention, killing, torture, rape and ill treatment.
As is often the case, the Committee just grazes the surface of these systematic and nightmarish practices. Recent history suggests that there is little holding the US to following these. In the words of former president Richard Nixon, “Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.”
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