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News :: Miscellaneous |
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U.S. Must Address Domestic Racism At U.N. Conference |
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by Amnesty International USA
(No verified email address) |
01 Sep 2001
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AIUSA Delegation Members To Provide Daily Updates |
WASHINGTON - August 30 - As the World Conference against Racism opens, Amnesty International USA's delegation pledged to press the United States government to combat racism more aggressively at home and to urge participants to reduce racism and the resulting human rights violations it spawns globally.
"Racism has been at the core of horrific human rights violations that the world has witnessed since the United Nations' last major focus on race in the 1960s," said William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. "Yet there is still no consensus on how to address this rampant plague."
In its recent report, Racism and the Administration of Justice, Amnesty International called on governments to adopt national strategies and plans of action to combat all forms of racism and to include specific measures addressing the administration of justice. Key proposals included:
Ratifying without reservations international human rights treaties and cooperating with international monitoring bodies; Ensuring that national laws prohibit all forms of discrimination and provide effective protection against racism; and Identifying and eliminating all forms of institutionalized racism.
"We will challenge all governments to stop suggesting that racism is a problem only beyond their borders," said Gerald LeMelle, AIUSA Deputy Executive Director for Advocacy and a delegate to the conference. "Racism exists in virtually every nation in the world and therefore contributes to the denial of human rights to millions of people. To effectively work for a global solution to this problem, nations must first address the issue at home."
Prominent on the agenda of AIUSA's five-person delegation will be pressing the US government to recommit itself to the international obligations it has made to address racism domestically.
According to the AI report, the effects of racism in the United States are particularly acute in the criminal justice system. African Americans and other minorities suffer disproportionate rates of incarceration, accounting for 60 percent of the 1.7 million people currently in jail or prison in the US. African American men are imprisoned at more than eight times the rate of white men, and one-third of all young African American men are in jail or prison, on parole, or on probation. African American women are imprisoned at eight times, and Hispanic women at four times, the rate of white women. |
See also:
http://www.aiusa.org
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