ADHRB has delivered an oral intervention at the resumption of the United Nation Human Rights Council 43 The Urgent debate to pass a resolutions on racial discrimination and police brutality in the United States.
The footages of Mr. George Floyd being chocked to death by Minneapolis police should be a historic moment where this council can take decisive action against the systematic institutional racism in the United States of America. The issue of discrimination and police brutality is not a local issue or a state issue but it’s a deep rooted policy in the federal system of the United States. This Council need to send a clear signal through its different mechanisms that discrimination, police brutality, and attack against peaceful protest by the United States government will not be tolerated.
Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Procedures should issue a strong statement against the institutional racism in the United States. The upcoming Universal Periodic Review of the United States should be used as an opportunity to raise the ongoing racially motivated human rights violations in the country. United States should not be immune from this Council’s actions especially the current administration in the White House has no value or considerations for human rights which is clearly shown for its support to the Saudi-UAE led coalition aggression in Yemen which caused catastrophic humanitarian disaster in the recent history.
When members of the press arrested for doing their job, when peaceful protest is prevented and attacked, when young black and brown men and women are racially profiled, when black and brown men and women are killed by police brutality, when and when and the list goes on; this Council cannot stand silent even if the country on the other side is the United States.
