“In the United States, human rights are increasingly polarized. While a ruling minority exercises political, economic and social dominance, the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized and their basic rights and freedoms are ignored,” the document highlights. “Last year alone, at least 654 mass shootings occurred (in the US) and approximately 43,000 people died due to armed violence, for an average of 117 deaths per day,” the report states, noting that control policies of the government are ineffective.
According to the report, deaths from police brutality reached a record level, with at least 1,247 recorded, making the police accountability system practically non-existent.
Moreover, mass incarceration and forced labor have turned the United States into a “prison nation”, because although it houses only five percent of the world’s population, it holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
The report also mentions the fact that the US government has abused its power to control the privacy of citizens, suppressing freedom of expression. At the same time, a growing number of states have passed laws prohibiting public schools from using educational materials and books that address specific topics such as race, history and gender, and the number of teachers punished or fired for speaking out and expressing themselves on college campuses reached a 20-year-high.
At another point, the document indicates that the two parties (Democrat and Republican) continue to manipulate the elections and change their ways of handling redistricting and distorting public opinion in favor of their interests. A staggering 76 percent of Americans believe their nation is headed in the wrong direction, the report states later on, emphasizing that the public “is extremely disappointed with the federal government and politics at all levels.”
The report further recalls that the United States has refused to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights while growing economic and social inequality makes life extremely difficult for the poor and ethnic minorities, who also face systematic racial discrimination because “the chronic disease of racism persists”.
The report concludes that in the United States, human rights are essentially a privilege enjoyed by only a few, and the various human rights problems the country faces threaten and seriously hinder the healthy development of the global human rights cause.
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