Human Rights violations in the USA

The United States of America is no longer the ‘land of the free’. Many of the universal basic human rights are either being curtailed by legislation or have been outlawed entirely.

 Freedom of Assembly:

 Sixteen states introduced 23 bills restricting the right to protest, with five bills enacted in four states. Many of the bills would criminalize specific forms of protest, such as protests near fossil fuel pipelines, or increase penalties for existing crimes, such as “riot” or blocking roadways. In Mississippi, organizers were required to obtain written permission from state law enforcement before holding a protest near the Mississippi statehouse or other government buildings, enabling state officials to approve or disallow protests, including those against the actions of state officials. North Carolina heightened penalties for existing “riot” offenses and for protests near pipelines.

 Sexual Violence against Ethnic Native Women:

 American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women face highly disproportionate rates of sexual violence. According to the most recent government data approximately 56% of AI/AN women had experienced sexual violence – more than twice the national average – and 84% had experienced some type of violence. A 2018 survey found that Alaska Native women were 2.8 times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-Indigenous women. Among the AI/AN women who had experienced sexual violence, the data shows that 96% had experienced sexual violence by at least one non-Indigenous perpetrator. US law continued to restrict the prosecutorial jurisdiction of Tribes, which prevented their ability to prosecute non-Indigenous perpetrators of violence against Indigenous women. AI/AN survivors also continued to face barriers in accessing post-rape care, including access to a forensic examination, which is necessary if a criminal case is to be brought against the perpetrator.

 Restriction of the Right to Abortion:

 Following the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that ended federal protections around the right to abortion, 15 states implemented total bans on abortion or bans with extremely limited exceptions, impacting millions of people of reproductive age. Many other states implemented six-week, 12-week, or 15-20-week bans. Laws changed quickly and faced complicated challenges, creating a culture of uncertainty for many seeking abortion care. Multiple states sought to criminalize, or have criminalized, medication abortion, traveling out of state to receive abortion care, or assisting someone in a state with an abortion ban for traveling to receive abortion care.

 In November, voters in Ohio passed a state constitutional amendment to protect access to abortion. The USA continues to impose multiple restrictions on funding for abortion, even in states where abortion was legal, which disproportionately impacts Black and women of other no9n-white races. The federal Hyde Amendment continues to block Medicaid funding (a government-funded program that provides health coverage for limited categories of people on low incomes) for abortion services, placing an unnecessary financial burden on pregnant people seeking abortion, particularly women of non-white racial groups and low-income people.

 Hate Crime and Discrimination:

 Discrimination and violence against LGBTI people and people of African ethnicity are widespread. LGBTI people are nine times more likely than non-LGBTI people to be victims of violent hate crimes. The descendants of enslaved Africans, African Americans and Indigenous Peoples continued to live with inter-generational trauma, as well as the detrimental economic and material impacts of the legacy of slavery and colonialism. Following the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October, and the subsequent Israeli bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents against people who were perceived to be Jewish, Muslim, Israeli or Arab has increased exponentially.

 Excessive Use of Force Policy by the Police:

According to media sources, police shot and killed 1,153 people in 2023. Black (skin) people were disproportionately impacted by the use of lethal force, comprising nearly 18.5% of deaths from police use of firearms, despite representing approximately 13% of the population. Black people were subject to overall police use of force at a rate 3.2 times greater than white people in 2022, according to the report. That disparity is more severe than lethal force trends; Black people were killed by police at 2.6 times the rate of white people in 2022.

Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them. Non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes. Thirty-one agencies disclosed that, on average, 83% of people subjected to force across those jurisdictions were unarmed, the agencies reported.

Fewer than 40% of use-of-force incidents originated with reports of violence or involved a violent crime charge. This mirrors patterns for lethal force, with data suggesting the majority of people killed by police are not accused of violent or serious crimes.

Arbitrary detention without access to a Court Trial:

Thirty Muslim men remained arbitrarily and indefinitely detained in the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, in violation of international law. Four individuals were transferred to third countries in 2023. Sixteen of the remaining detainees have been cleared for transfer, some for over a decade, without progress. Congress continued to block the transfer of any Guantánamo detainee to the USA. There continued to be no accountability, redress or adequate medical treatment for the many detainees who have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and/or enforced disappearance.

Despite the US Supreme Court ruling in 2008 that Guantánamo detainees have a right to habeas corpus, detainees continued to be denied hearings. The US government’s “global war on terror” framework, which continued to defy international law, hampered the ability of federal courts to order the release of detainees.

 Unlawful Killings by the US Government:

The USA continued to use lethal force in countries around the world and withheld information regarding the legal and policy standards and criteria applied by US forces to the use of lethal force. Every administration persisted in its denial of well-documented cases of civilian deaths and harm, and failed to provide truth, justice and reparation for civilian killings in the past. Over the past decade, NGOs, UN experts and the media have documented potentially unlawful US drone strikes that have caused significant civilian harm, in some cases violating the right to life and amounting to extrajudicial executions, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen; and parts of Africa.

The continued supply of munitions to conflict zones violates US laws and policies regarding the transfer and sale of arms, including its Conventional Arms Transfer Policy and Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which together are meant to prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to civilian harm and to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law; policies that are willfully and blatantly ignored by the U.S. Government.

The UN reports on Human Rights Violations by the USA:

Earlier this month, the United Nations Human Rights Committee delivered a searing report highlighting the U.S. government’s failure to meet its human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This international treaty, ratified by the U.S. in 1992, is one of only three key human rights treaties that the U.S. has ratified. The U.N. committee’s concluding observations echo many of the concerns and recommendations raised by civil society groups last month during the U.S. review, where they sounded the alarm on violations of various human rights issues including Indigenous rights, voting rights, freedom of expression and assembly, gender equality and reproductive rights, criminal legal reform, immigrants’ rights, and more.

Essentially; in the United States of America it’s human rights situation in continues to deteriorate and human rights have been increasingly polarized. While a ruling elite holds political, economic, and social dominance, the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized, with their basic rights and freedoms being continuously disregarded.

This is the reality of human rights in America today. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proportionate Response to terrorism, or overkill

On 11^th September 2001, 19 Muslim terrorists divided into four teams carried out a targeted attack against the United States of America that killed 2,977 people immediately and thousands suffered health disorders due to the toxic dust spread from the debris of the attack sites. In retaliation, USA invaded Afghanistan to hunt down the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who they had identified as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The Afghanistan invasion by the USA and its allies led to other conflicts worldwide and the total fatalities of this 22 years War-on-Terror is estimated by the Costs of War Project to be over 4.5 million. [Let that number sink into our minds – 4.5 million dead over a period of 22 years].

Not satisfied with the invasion of Afghanistan, the USA, under then President George W. Bush began actively motivating their leadership and their allies for a military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. In the lead-up to the invasion, the United States and the United Kingdom falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, covertly supporting al-Qaeda and that he presented a threat to his neighbours and to the world community. Throughout the years of 2001 to 2003, the Bush Administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, and the Iraq War officially began on 20 March 2003, when the US, joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, launched a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Shortly following the bombing campaign, US-led forces launched a ground invasion of Iraq.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency, and the British M.I6 publicly discredited the evidence related to the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (which never existed) as well as Iraq’s alleged links to al-Qaeda. At this point George W. Bush and his co-conspirator Tony Blair (the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) shifted to secondary rationales for the war, such as Saddam Hussein’s human rights record, and as per GW Bush, their holy crusade to promote democracy in Iraq. There is no doubt that the vast reserves of highly pure crude oil did set the stage for the Western armies’ invasion of Iraq, greatly increasing the incentives to take over Iraq by any means possible. In this political greed for controlling the oil reserves in Iraq, the USA lost 4,507 soldiers, the UK lost 179, and other countries that comprised the ‘coalition of the unwilling’ lost 139, bringing the invading forces total to 4.825 lives sacrificed.  On the other side, the Iraqi forces lost 17,690 soldiers, and over 100,000 civilians were killed.

As the world knows, the USA and its allies had to vacate Iraq by 2011; losing men, materials and any semblance of honour, having handed the country of Iraq to a local government supported by Iran. In 2014, with the rise of the Islamic State in that region, the USA sent in 5,000 troops to “assist” the Iraqi government, however the Iraqi parliament voted to have the US military presence removed in 2020.

In an almost identical fashion, the USA vacated Afghanistan in a hurry on 30 August 2021, a withdrawal that was seen across the world in the media. In the early hours of 31 August, the Taliban (whom the US had declared as terrorists in 2001 and had tried hard to defeat for 22 years) marched unopposed into Kabul and declared that Afghanistan was finally free of the invaders.

Coming to the present war of Israel against HAMAS, Hezbollah, the Yemen Houthis and Iran itself.

The war began on 07 October 2023, when Hamas–led terrorists groups launched an attack that breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking Israeli civilian communities and military bases. During this attack 1,139 Israeli and foreign nationals were killed and 251 were taken hostage and kidnapped into Gaza. In retaliation Israel invaded Gaza on 27 October 2023 and to date, their bombing campaign has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Exchange of strikes between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been occurring along the Israel–Lebanon border and in Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 8 October 2023. It is currently the largest escalation of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict to have occurred since the 2006 Lebanon War. Significant escalation in this conflict occurred in Sept 2024 with the Hezbollah being targeted by Israeli air-strikes and targeted assassinations of Hezbollah commanders. More than 1,000 people have been killed in the last two weeks of September in Lebanon and more continue to die as Israel keeps up its assault.

So, the moot question is: How many lives being destroyed can be defined as a “proportionate response” to terrorism? The USA’s war-on-terror impacted over six million civilians, the current Israel–Hamas war will claim many thousands more. It is very clear to any geo-political observer that Israel will not stop till it runs out of money or military munitions, or both. Unlike the USA, UK or EU countries, Israel is fighting for its very existence as a country and a negotiated peace with terrorists is not on their agenda. The Israeli Prime Minister has been very clear in his recent address to the United Nations. Only the complete surrender of Hamas (and possibly Hezbollah) will bring this conflict to an end, and there might – just might – be a fractured peace.