Iranians, Arabs and Africans are dearer to the US administration than their own population. Whenever the rights of foreign populations are violated by their own regimes, the USA is incredibly quick in condemning those actions and resorting to punitive measures such as economic sanctions, military invasion and advocating regime change.
But all these actions on the world stage cast a shadow on America’s own dismal human rights record. Every year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as other human rights organisations publish the USA’s poor ability to uphold and protect some of its own citizens’ rights.
From the legislature to the executive to the judiciary, from local to state to federal government – some of the most profound rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are wilfully being infringed upon. Instead of creating frameworks to improve the safeguarding of rights, some of the above institutions are, in fact, on a path to further violate the rights of millions of Americans.
The most common human rights areas that are being relentlessly violated include: women’s rights, the abhorrent treatment of immigrants, unlawful punishment of prisoners, treatment of criminal suspects, gun ownership proliferation and the common use of the death penalty. This is certainly a long list of human rights concerns for a country that has claimed to be the leader of the free world and the beacon of liberalism for the past few decades. Additionally, it also illustrates the USA’s double-standard of instructing its foes to uphold human rights and civil liberties while simultaneously turning a blind eye to their own catastrophic record on human rights.
Rather than introducing policies to establish equality and a sense of parity, for instance, Trump and his Republican colleagues have, as a matter of fact, made life even more difficult for women. Firstly, initiatives allowing women to check whether they were being paid less than their male colleagues have been terminated. Meaning that women can’t identity a situation – let alone act to change it – where they are being paid less than their male colleagues for equal work and equal effort. As if this isn’t bad enough, President Trump’s administration has additionally suspended legislation that ‘required universities to investigate sexual violence as gender discrimination’, according to Amnesty International. The situation is abundantly worse for women on low incomes as measures have been implemented that excuse organisations from including contraception in their employees’ health insurance package.
All three of the above regulations contradict and contravene the spirit and requirements of Article 7 of UDHR, which states that ‘all are equal before the law’. The aforementioned initiatives make it nearly impossible to implement Article 7 and thereby create real equality between the genders because it prevents women from being paid the same as men, it makes it harder for women to successfully lodge complaints against sexual predators while studying at university and Trump’s policies make it undoubtedly even harder for women to exercise full control over their own bodies.
While Trump’s policies severely infringe upon women’s rights and civil liberties, there are communities that are much more acutely affected by his adverse presidency.
Migrant’s human rights, for instance, have been under increasing threat. During President Obama’s administration, for example, there was ‘the proliferation of state laws targeting migrants’ which led to ‘discrimination and impeded access to education and essential health care services’, stated Amnesty International in its 2013 report of The State of The World’s Human Rights. This has become exponentially worse over the years to a point where today’s executive administration is engaging in family separation tactics to discourage further immigration.
“Disturbing” and in “inhumane” are the ways politicians and publications such as Senator Warren and the Time magazine have described the current administration’s treatment of immigrants. They are sleeping on “concrete” and are living in “cages” – these are type of facilities that immigrants are being kept in. These images suggest that they are being dehumanised on a daily basis, they are, undoubtedly, being treated as less than human, as animals and worthless beings.
All of this is happening behind walls, in secret where cameras are not permitted, in places where they cannot ask for help because they are ‘aliens’.
It doesn’t take a human rights lawyer or a social scientist to conclude that these abhorrent acts are in grave violation of fundamental human rights, it breaches multiple Articles of the UDHR. Article 5 of UNHR explicitly states that ‘no one shall be subjected to… degrading treatment’. Likewise, Article 9 states that ‘no one shall be subjected to arbitrary… detention’. And, the list goes and the point is crystal clear: the USA is guilty and culpable for the way they mistreat immigrants.
Furthermore, when criticising other countries for their human rights records, successive US governments deliberately forget that they have similar, archaic punishments as the ones they are criticising other countries for practicing, namely, the death penalty. As a matter of fact, 31 US states still use capital punishment – that’s 62 per cent of America! Even more dismayingly, 2902 people were on death row as of October 1, 2016, a figure you wouldn’t certainly hear American politicians talk about too often.
Using the death penalty is a profound violation of Article 5 of UDHR, which commands that ‘no one shall be subjected to… cruel, inhuman’ punishment. However, US governments simply don’t abide by these requirements.
Instead of lecturing other countries, the USA’s legislature, executive and judiciary should therefore first make sure that they fully comply with the UDHR’s requirements. Only then will they earn the title of the: World’s Police Officer.
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Muhammed Raza Hussain is an award-winning writer: he is the Extra-Mile winner of the News Quest Young Reporter Scheme 2014 and received a certificate for Talent for Writing by Young Writers. Twitter @MuhammedRaza786 | Instagram: M.Raza.H_ | Facebook: @MRazaHOfficial
