৩রা ডিসেম্বর, ২০২৪ খ্রিস্টাব্দ
সংস্করণ:
A historic loss for American human rights occurred in 2023. In the United States, a country that calls itself a “human rights defender,” “chronic diseases,” including money politics, racial discrimination, gun and police brutality, and wealth polarisation are common. Human rights law and justice have regressed dramatically, eroding the American people’s fundamental rights and liberties. Amid this situation, the US “2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” released on April 12 reminded the globe of the superpower’s ongoing drive to police the planet. Overall, the sad report lists human suffering in 198 nations and territories. Except for the U.S.
When we examine their own human rights cyclorama, it becomes evident that the United States was engaging in flagrant human rights breaches in 2023. The United States government has significantly eased gun control laws, resulting in a high death toll from gun violence. In 2022, the United States Supreme Court’s judgment in the Bruen case marked a significant setback in the realm of gun regulation in the United States. Nearly half of the US states have loosened gun laws. The United States leads the world in gun ownership, gun homicide, and mass shootings, with over 80,000 people killed or injured by gun violence in 2023, the third year in a row that the country has seen more than 600 mass shootings. Gun violence has been labelled an “American disease.”
Ethnic minorities face pervasive discrimination due to the growth of racism. In the US, there was a sharp rise in hate crimes motivated by racial hatred in 2020, 2022, and 2023. The racist slaughter at a Buffalo grocery, which killed ten African Americans, outraged the globe. 81 percent of Asian Americans believe violence against Asian populations is on the rise. African Americans are 2.78 times more likely to be killed by cops than whites. The pain inflicted by the U.S. government’s genocide and cultural assimilation of Indians and other aborigines throughout history continues to this day.
The number of Americans dying as a result of drug and substance misuse has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching more than 100,000 each year. Substance misuse has become one of America’s most severe public health concerns. Concerns about the living conditions of children and the loss of constitutional safeguards for abortion have been raised. The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade has severely harmed women’s human rights and gender equality by ending the right to abortion that is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for over 50 years.
Humanitarian catastrophes have resulted from US use of force and unilateral sanctions. Under the pretext of “anti-terrorism,” the US has conducted military operations in 85 nations since the turn of the twenty-first century, directly resulting in the deaths of at least one million civilians and the displacement of 38 million more.
The United States has imposed more unilateral sanctions than any other nation, and it continues to do so against more than 20 countries, preventing those targeted from providing essential food and medicine to their people. Immigration has become a politicised issue, with immigration farces produced on a wide scale, subjecting newcomers to severe bigotry and inhumane treatment. In 2023, approximately 2.4 million migrants were arrested at the nation’s border, and the death toll among immigrants at its southern border reached 856, the highest in a single year.
The United States, founded on racism, colonialism, and slavery as well as inequality in labour, property, and distribution, has recently become even more mired in social unrest, systemic failures, and governance deficiencies due to the combination of its polarised economic distribution pattern, racial conflict-dominated social pattern, and political pattern controlled by capital interest groups.
American politicians, who serve the interests of oligarchs, have steadily lost their subjective desire and objective capacity to react to ordinary people’s fundamental demands, protect ordinary citizens’ basic rights, and fail to fix their own structural human rights concerns. Instead, they wantonly exploit human rights as a weapon against other nations, causing conflict, division, and disruption in the international community, and therefore becoming a spoiler and impediment to global human rights growth.
Extreme violence characterises the United States, where citizens are seldom guaranteed safety and are endangered by both violent crime and aggressive police enforcement. Because of overcrowding, prisons have evolved into modern-day slave markets where forced work and sexual exploitation are widespread practices. The self-proclaimed liberties and civil rights in America are now just meaningless rhetoric.
The number of serious crimes, such as robbery and murder, is still rising. According to a September 11, 2023, USA Today article, murders and aggravated assaults in Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) member cities rose by 50% and 36%, respectively, in the first half of 2023 when compared to the same time in 2022. As of September 20,23, the Wall Street Journal reported on September 6, 2023, compared to the same time in 2022, the murder rate in New Orleans had increased by 141%, shootings by 100%, carjackings by 21%, and armed robberies by 25%.
In major U.S. cities, robberies jumped 19% and larcenies 20% in the first half of 2023, according to a Council on Criminal Justice study on July 28, 2023. Since June 2021, New York City’s total crime rate has climbed by 31%, grand larceny by 41%, robberies by 36%, burglaries by 34%, and felony assault victims by 1,000 each quarter, according to Fox News on July 7, 2023. On June 8, 2023, CNN reported that 72% of Americans were unsatisfied with the country’s crime-reduction initiatives, and 80% were more concerned about crime and violence than at any time in over a decade.
Prisoners’ lives and health are endangered. The US has the greatest imprisonment rate and the worst jail conditions. As of October 1, 2022, the Guardian reported that the US had approximately 500 inmates per 100,000, five times that of Britain, six times that of Canada, and nine times that of Germany.
Due to political contributions, American elections have become a contest between affluent people and powerful parties; two-party politics have become divisive and divided, and popular support for American democracy is eroding. democratic bribery, according to former US President Jimmy Carter, has tarnished the country’s democratic system. “It’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being at the essence of getting the nominations for President, or to elect the President,” Carter said.
The White House administration boasts, “We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line.” “Do not forget it.” However, the United States Human Rights Report of 2023 is analogous to “Rogues supplant justice” for us and everyone throughout the globe. America must well its machine!
Author: Kamal Uddin Mazumder, Security and Strategic Affairs Analyst, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
