Posted on 03/08/2008 12:40:50 PM PST by kiriath_jearim
GENEVA — A United Nations committee today issued a strongly worded critique of the United States' record on racial discrimination and urged the government to make sweeping reforms to policies affecting racial and ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants in this country. The American Civil Liberties Union called on the U.S. government to take vigorous steps to implement the committee's recommendations and fulfill its human rights treaty obligations.
"The message from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is clear when it comes to the U.S.' record on human rights and racial equality — the government can't just talk the talk, it must also walk the walk," said Jamil Dakwar, Advocacy Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "To claim the high moral ground and assert leadership on the issue of human rights, the U.S government must address the systemic discrimination and injustice that exists in its own backyard."
The CERD committee, which oversees compliance with an international treaty to end racial discrimination that was ratified by the U.S. in 1994, reviewed testimony and research by the ACLU and other human rights groups before issuing its final report. Representatives of the ACLU were in Geneva last month to testify before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on the state of racial and ethnic discrimination in the U.S.
Among its recommendations, the committee called on the U.S. to:
Pass the federal End Racial Profiling Act or similar legislation and combat widespread ethnic and racial profiling practices by law enforcement, especially against Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; Protect non-citizens from being subjected to torture and abuse by means of transfer or rendition to foreign countries for torture; Adopt and strengthen the use of affirmative action programs to eliminate discrimination, and allow school districts to voluntarily promote school integration; Eliminate systemic inadequacies in criminal defense programs that have a disproportionate effect on indigent minorities and ensure competent counsel in all cases; Address the problem of the school-to-prison pipeline — the trend of funneling minority children into prison; Restrict felony disfranchisement policies and eliminate barriers to post-sentence voting rights restoration; Address the problem of violence against indigenous, minority and immigrant women, including migrant workers, and especially domestic workers; and Pass the Civil Rights Act of 2008 or similar legislation, and otherwise ensure the rights of minority and immigrant workers, including undocumented migrant workers, to effective protection and remedies when their employers have violated their human rights. Also in Geneva today, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge Bustamante, presented a report on the injustices faced by migrants and immigrants in the U.S., denouncing immigrant detention policies and facilities that fail to meet international standards and have few protections for the rights of migrant workers.
Bustamante's report also expresses concern about employment and health abuses suffered by migrant workers, specifically pointing to labor issues in post-Katrina New Orleans that he calls a "human right crisis."
"The U.S. should heed the recommendations of this international expert and do more to create fair, humane policies and conditions for immigrant communities in this country," said Chandra Bhatnagar, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "It's time for the government to match its soaring rhetoric on the importance of human rights globally with a renewed commitment to protecting the rights of vulnerable immigrants here at home."
The ACLU is calling on the government to adopt the recommendations made by Bustamante in his report, including:
Eliminating mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants and determining whether non-citizens pose a risk to society on a case-by-case basis; Allowing immigrants in detention the chance to have their custody reviewed before an immigration judge; Creating binding human rights standards governing the treatment of immigration detainees in all facilities, including the removal of non-citizen children from jail-like detention centers; Establishing standards for the mental and medical health needs of migrant women who have been the victims of mental, physical, or sexual abuse; Ending harassment and racial profiling of migrant workers by local and federal law enforcement agents; and Ensuring health, safety and labor protections for migrant workers and providing health benefits for migrant workers injured on the job. Last year, Bustamante conducted a three-week fact finding mission at the request of the U.S. government, visiting a detention center in Arizona and meeting with migrant communities and government officials in California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington D.C. During that time Bustamante was denied entrance to New Jersey's Monmouth County Correctional Institution and Texas's Hutto immigration detention center, a converted prison that currently houses about 150 immigrants, including children and asylum seekers. In 2007, the ACLU filed successful federal lawsuits that resulted in the release of 26children and greatly improved conditions at the Hutto facility. The U.S. has a history of blocking international experts from access to controversial detention facilities.
The ACLU's report on the state of racial discrimination in the U.S. and other relevant documents can be found online here:www.aclu.org/cerd
The ACLU's statement on the U.N. Special Rapporteur's report on the human rights of migrants is available here: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/34369res20080307.html
More information about the ACLU's advocacy to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants can be found online here: www.aclu.org/humanrightsofmigrants
If this is a stress test .... I flunked.
Had the experts denounced the Middle East, they would have been beheaded.
So yeah, I can see how they would say that the US is the problem.
Hey EU. You first.
The only reason these idiots pick on the USA is because we’re the only nation that will wring our hands over how they feel about us and we might give someone some money so they’ll like us for a few weeks.
Screw em.
>>A United Nations committee today issued a strongly worded critique of the United States’<<
****
Whew! I thought they were going to pass another 30 meaningless resolutions.
smoke out the ears, or hair catch fire?
These tools don’t have the slightest concern with human rights. It is all about attcking the USA.
If they actually cared about human rights, they would be on every IslamoNazi or socialist hit list on earth. Al Queda and Putin assassinate their critics in a heartbeat.
ACLU NEEDS TO BE LOCKED UP IN JAIL!
Both!
We are the only nation on earth and in all of history which has achieved the kind of racial and ethnic integration we have. No European country has done so and certainly none of these UN tinpot dictatorships. Get this trash out of my country.
If the left-wing moonbats at the UN hate the U.S. so much, let them MOVE their headquarters the hell out of New York!
I suggest Beirut as a new location. The UN buildings in Manhattan are a colossal waste of valuable commercial real estate.
This sh*t just makes me sick. How they can do this with a strait face after what anyone can see on the world news every night is beyond insulting to all of us here in the US. Cut the funding and kick their butts out of the US, let Europe deal with them from now on.
In Islamic countries the women wear Burqa’s, and that’s ok, it’s their ‘religion’. In the U.S. Christians believe it is wrong to exploit women sexually and according to the ACLU that is NOT ok.
Not to mention how these women in these countries are beaten and raped, I know that is a minor detail...
abCERD
don’t look now...you’re a ‘toon..:)
excerpt from LAT piece on SFGate.com
U.N. blasts U.S. for not protecting migrants’ human rights
Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/08/MNAEVG0VJ.DTL&type=politics
Saturday, March 8, 2008
The United States has failed to uphold its international obligations to protect the human rights of migrants, subjecting too many to prolonged detention in substandard facilities while depriving them of an adequate appeals process and labor protections, a United Nations investigator said Friday.
In the international body’s first scrutiny of U.S. treatment of its 37.5 million noncitizen migrants, U.N. investigator Jorge Bustamante took particular aim at what he criticized as the “overuse” of detention for immigrants. Noting that the annual detainee population has tripled in nine years to 230,000, he called on the United States to eliminate mandatory detention for certain migrants and instead expand the use of alternatives, such as electronic ankle bracelets.
Bustamante also urged that migrants be given the right to legal counsel, more impartial hearings and improved holding facilities, particularly for women and children.
“The United States lacks a clear, consistent, long-term strategy to improve respect for the human rights of migrants,” his report said, which was presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday. Bustamante serves as the body’s Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.
In a statement to the council, the U.S. delegation called the report disappointing.
The report “focuses only on a narrow slice of the migrant population in the United States and makes no effort to recognize notable, positive aspects of U.S. migration policy,” the statement said. “This results in an incomplete and biased picture of the human rights of migrants.”
Don’t move it to Beirut, the Lebanese hate Hamas. Try North Korea, Cuba or venezuela. The UN bldg there would be a great target practice for a super MOAB.
ABOUT ALL OUR FREAKIN MONEY THEY WASTE!
Heck if these clowns are looking for something to criticize they should start with the industrialization of barbarianism that has plagued our cities with everything from sloppy attire to rap “music”.
Does the US really need the ACLU or the UN? Both are detrimental to us and anti-American to boot. I say we throw out one and crush the other.
Mr. Mahmoud ABOUL-NASR - Egypt
Mr. Noureddine AMIR - Algeria
Mr. Alexei S. AVTONOMOV - Russian Federation
Mr. José Francisco CALI TZAY - Guatemala
Ms. Fatimata-Binta Victoria DAH - Burkina Faso
Mr. Ion DIACONU - Romania
Mr. Kokou Mawuena Ika Kana (Dieudonnè) EWOMSAN - Togo
Mr. Régis de GOUTTES (Chairperson) - France
Mr. HUANG Yong’an - China
Mr. Anwar KEMAL - Pakistan
Mr. Morten KJAERUM - Denmark
Mr. Dilip LAHIRI - India
Mr. José Augusto LINDGREN ALVES - Brazil
Mr. Pastor Elias MURILLO MARTINEZ - Colombia
Mr. Chris Maina PETER - Tanzania
Mr. Pierre-Richard PROSPER - United States of America
Mr. Linos-Alexander SICILIANOS - Greece
Mr. Patrick THORNBERRY - United Kingdom
So lets see who is in this!!
Biography of Jamil Dakwar
Jamil Dakwar is the Advocacy Director and head of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program. He has more than 10 years of human rights litigation and advocacy experience in the U.S. and abroad. He is leading the ACLU human rights advocacy before the U.N. Human Rights Council and treaty bodies which regularly examine U.S. compliance with ratified human rights treaties. He is one of a team of ACLU lawyers litigating Ali v. Rumsfeld, a suit challenging U.S. interrogation and detention practices in Afghanistan and Iraq. Dakwar is also the co-chair of the American Constitution Society’s Working Group on International Law and the Constitution, which focuses on the relationship between international law and the Constitution, and the implications of this relationship for human rights.
Prior to joining the ACLU, Dakwar worked at Human Rights Watch, where he conducted research and published reports on issues of torture and detention in Egypt, Morocco and Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories. Before coming to the United States, Dakwar was a senior attorney with Adalah, one of the most prominent human rights groups in Israel focusing on Arab Palestinian citizens. At Adalah, Dakwar filed and argued dozens of human rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court, and advocated before international bodies. Dakwar received several human rights and public interest fellowships including the Furman International Human Rights Fellowship, NYU Law School Public Service Law Fellowship and Washington College of Law - NIF Law Fellowship. Dakwar received his law degree from Tel-Aviv University and LL.M. from New York University Law School.
Adalah??? He worked for those guys?? The hate Isreal every way you can guys!! Oh he can talk then!
http://www.mideastjustice.org/
yeah, that was a very tough read..... but i didn’t break my laptop!
Alternate suggestions: Tehran; Islamabad; Dar fur; Tijuana; Managua; Kosovo; Pyongyang; or Moscow. Feel free to add your suggestion.
The US isn’t perfect, and deserves criticism on many issues. But the criticisms in this report are almost totally backwards and wrong. They can be summarized as faulting the US for not being sufficiently socialist, and not sufficiently implementing the agenda of the far left.
obama or hillary wins the WH, this and every other piece of crap that comes out of the un will be law of the land.
I’m beginning to think that the ACLU only chooses crack head applicants to moronify its ranks.
Here's a classic example of liberal doubletalk. "Affirmative action" IS "discrimination." By its very definition, it promotes one group of people over another based on nothing more than their ethnic history. Yet, in the Looking Glass world that is Liberalism, one can "eliminate" a vice by invoking that very vice!
This organization should be convicted of torturing Reason.
“Adopt and strengthen the use of affirmative action programs to eliminate discrimination”
Aren’t affirmative action programs a form of discrimination?
I didn’t even mention the US.
LOL ... at least not this time.
Move the UN to Haiti.
Currently, I am doing my best to make sure my loved ones do not get car jacked and murdered for no reason. When I get that sorted out I’ll make time to reading about how racist I am.
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