Republicans & Democrats that point to rights violation and abuse elsewhere turn a blind eye on their own dubious record
Neha Dahiya & Rohan Giri
New Delhi
US has turned out to be the biggest hub for racism, discrimination by colour, lack of freedom to express and is the biggest violator of basic human rights.
While successive democratic and republican administrations at White House have made it their prime business to talk about purported rights violation elsewhere, they chose to turn blind eye to grave crimes in its own territory.
Though several global organizations have been located in US, the country has failed miserably to stop wrong doings, ensure pluralism find uphold basic rights of its citizens. US has also been charged with massive rights violations in other countries
While these crimes go either unreported or US administration has allowed racist violence to happen, the political leadership is now in a binge given that facts have come to light.
Centre for Democracy, Pluralism and Human Rights (CDPHR), an Indian organisation working on human rights and democracy released a report on Wednesday highlighting massive violation of these basic rights in US.
The well documented report running into over 140 pages has come into public domain at a time when American organizations have levelled charges against foreign governments on not enabling safeguard of religious freedom and human rights.
Case in point is the routine reports released by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that talk about human rights violations in other countries.
These US organizations by design or connivance with the political leadership in Washington DC seem to have ignored wrongdoings back home that they seek to eradicate elsewhere. People in US seem to have been kept in dark on such violations with a purpose said CDPHR in its latest report by Prerna Malhotra (Faculty at University of Delhi) and Arvind Kumar (Civil Rights Activist and writer based in US).
Restrictions on free expression & media, violence, threats of violence, and unjustified arrests are some of the grave crimes that go unreported in US, said the report.
The report charges US with building structural racism as part of its Constitution itself. Three-fifth clauses in US constitution violate the principle of equality. Fugitive Slave clause does not permit people to escape slavery.
Third clause of fourth article in US Constitution authorises the enslavers to seize enslaved people. No person held to service or labour in one state under the laws was allowed to escape to other states.
Unless discharged from such slavery, such labourers would be delivered back to the aggressors, as per US Constitutional provisions.
Discrimination against those practicing non-Abrahamic faiths such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jain was on the rise in US. The holy symbols of Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists were desecrated or denigrated by politicians.
For instance in January 2021, New York Senator Todd Kaminsky introduced a bill in New York Senate that proposed making it mandatory for schools in his state to teach ‘Swastika’, an auspicious and revered sign of Hindu Dharma, as an example of Hate.
The Bill titled Senate Bill S2727 conflates the Dharmic Swastika with the Nazi sign of Hakenkreuz or Hooked Cross and mandates that the Swastika should be taught as an emblem of Nazi Germany. Therefore it should be taught as a Hate symbol from grade 6 through 12 in schools.
The report points to normalization of gender discrimination and sexual violence in the USA. A study conducted on 1965 students in grade 7 – 12 revealed that 48 per cent students had faced some form of sexual harassment.
Girls get sexually exploited by men in Power. Statistics show that nearly one in every five American women has been victims of rape or attempted rape.
Big political names have figured in sexual exploitation, including the Presidents of the country. According to a study, one out of every five women has been raped at some point in their lives and nearly half of rape victims in the United States are raped by an acquaintance.
In the workplace, women were discriminated in the United States that boasts of providing equal opportunities. The report revealed that 42 per cent of working women had experienced gender discrimination in the workplace, and 25 per cent paid fewer wages vis a vis their male counterparts for the same work.
Children were also not spared in America. As per a report, in 2014, there were an estimated 42 million survivors of child abuse. It is rampant among government officials and politicians, but such cases are either covered up or the perpetrators are let off with light sentences.
Racism against Black is always at a peak in the USA. Blacks were always used as pawns and puppets by the White supremacists, even the organisations of black were also controlled by whites. In America, poverty is higher among Blacks. They were routinely targeted with the intention to cull their population. Black women have the highest abortion rate in the country.
Native Americans were also caged to poverty by the US Government. They were not allowed to manage their own lands since 1831, yet tribes were unable to make good their losses. Native Americans have their income 68 per cent below the national average, 20 per cent households earn less than $ 5000 annually as against 6 per cent national average, rape rate of wome n is 2.5 times higher and child abuse rate double.
USA that talks big on humanitarian crises in the world may have to take responsibility for such crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.
Over 241,000 people including 71,000 civilians were killed in the Afghan War initiated by the US in 2011on false pretext that it was in response to terror attacks against USA carried out on September 11, 2001.
Taliban regime in Afghanistan itself was a creation of the US government. The takeover by the Taliban has precipitated another humanitarian crisis with 3.5 million Afghans internally displaced and another 2.2 million refugees with millions subjected to starvation.
The report of CDPHR analysed and systematically presented all dimensions of reported human rights violations in USA.
The complete report can be downloaded at https://www.cdphr.org/USA%20Report.pdf
( Neha is specialist content writer and Rohan is operations manager at Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies)
CIHS - Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies 