Human rights violations in the United States

¶ … violations of human rights in the U.S.A., the details of several Organizations all over the world that are fighting for human rights and civil liberties of the individual and finally information related to the 'Human Rights Record of the United States of 2001' by China.

The issue of 'Human Rights' plays an important role in the lives of individuals when they are living among a variety of different people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures and races and colors. Though the term cannot be accurately defined it can be explained as a set of human behavioral patterns that are bound together in a legal document. It enunciates the manner in which one person must treat the other person, and also how one person is expected to behave towards the other, and explains the responsibility that one person must assume towards another because that other also exists on the same Earth as this person, and this must be based on the foundations of respect and equality for all. The issue of human rights must govern all the actions and the decision-making processes of the individual, so that each person would have and know and acknowledge his own place in the world, wherein he feels free to offer his own opinion, without the fear of being ridiculed or ignored by the other; he must be sure that his words would be given the due respect that they deserve. (Human Rights: Taking it Global)

The basic duty of a human being and that of an American, is to ensure that the other person, whether it is a neighbor or a friend or an employee or just a passerby on the street does not suffer from violation of his human rights, and this will be the basis of the paper.

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Human rights violation can occur in any way, in any situation, in any country. Some of the most common cases of human rights violations can be found in the prisons of any country. Let me quote the example of the case of an inmate in an Arizona prison. This person, named 'X', a fifty-year-old prisoner, was in fact a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, with about 23 bullet holes in his back and bone fragments embedded in his back. When X's catheters were cut down, no disinfectant was given to him to clean his catheters with. This resulted in severe infection and soon the patient developed massive seizures as well as horrendous pain. He was never transferred to a Hospital for treatment, till the stage arrived when the patient became so seriously ill that he could not bear human touch on his skin, because of the massive amounts of pain and traumas that he had been suffering from. This person's human rights were definitely violated to a huge extent, and no one can explain the reason 'why' this was done. (Medical Treatment Delayed without Cause for Arizona Inmate)

In another similar case of denied and delayed medical treatment to a prison inmate, the person 'Y' attempted to commit suicide by jumping out of his hospital room where he was under medical treatment. This person then suffered massive injuries to both his legs, which literally broke into pieces because of the impact of the fall. The Sheriff's Office, that is responsible for providing treatment as and when necessary for the inmates of prison, has been accused of not providing adequate treatment and care for this person 'Y' who was, amazingly, taken back to prison despite doctors advising treatment for his broken bones. The bones have since that time been setting by themselves, without the benefit of medical intervention, and this has resulted in the aggravation of certain earlier injuries that the patient had suffered, and now this person is confined to bed because of the atrophying of his lower back muscles and also due to the considerable pain that he feels on account of the wrong positioning of the bones of his legs. Why have this person's human rights been violated to this extent? (Medical Treatment Delayed without Cause for Arizona Inmate)

The Graylon Bell Case is one that has violated human rights in the extreme, for a prisoner named Graylon Bell in an Indiana Youth Center located in Plainfield, where he was actually set up for rape by officials of the prison. A cover up followed the set up and this was followed by another cover up, and Graylon Bell is still fighting for his human rights from the prison. When he had arrived at the prison, he had alerted the authorities to the fact that he was in danger of a sexual assault by Grady Vaxter, a fellow prisoner. The authorities took things so lightly that Graylon was moved into the same prison cell as Vaxter, and the inevitable result was the sexual assault and rape of Graylon by Vaxter, while authorities looked the other way. When Graylon reported the rape, he received appropriate treatment, after which he demanded an investigation into the entire episode.

However, the authorities took matters into their own hands and left Graylon tied up and shackled, in his underwear, in his cell where the window was kept open. Since it rained that night, the prisoner was exposed to the elements and chilled to the bone, while authorities stated that if he did not retract his statement against his rapist, he would be left there for a much longer time. Investigations were conducted and the prison authorities stated that all of Graylon's injuries were self-inflicted. However, the cover up came to light, but it was of no avail, because, once again, the hapless prisoner was denied his basic human rights in the form of medical treatment when he was suffering from asthma. (the World Wide Web, Virtual Library)

Why was this done? Why were the human rights of this person violated to this extent? The tragic story of Catherine Mutheki, a 20-year-old Kenyan girl who had come to the state of Alabama to study in the U.S.A. demonstrates a clear violation of her human rights, though the victim is no longer even alive to defend herself. Catherine was found hanging by her sweater, close to her dormitory, on a railroad spur about, from the low lying branches of a tree. Her death was written off as a suicide, and there was no investigation conducted as to the reason behind why such a bright and lively person as Catherine was would want to end her life. There is a general opinion that her death, in fact, had been caused as retaliation to the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, just before Catherine's entrance into the U.S. In what way did Catherine have anything to do with the bombings that had occurred thousands of kilometers away from where she was studying and living her own independent life? This was a blatant violation of the human rights of an individual that in fact led to the death of the person concerned, for no fault of hers. (GPA Kenyan student Lynched in Alabama)

Wen Ho lee was a Taiwanese born U.S. citizen and was working as a Nuclear Physicist in the Los Alamos National Laboratory when he was arrested and charged with mishandling classified information and leaking these secrets to China. Though he was not charged as a spy, he was charged with the mishandling of secret classified scientific information. The accusation faced by U.S. authorities is that Wen was the only person they were concentrating on, while others of American origin who were also working in the same capacity of Wen were being ignored and left off scot -free. The fact is that even after investigations proved that he did not nay espionage links with China, he was still put under surveillance for twenty-four hours a day, and this was a blatant violation of his human rights, and this was done to Wen despite the fact that the CIA Director John Deutch had in fact kept some of the same material in his personal computer at home, and though the material was confiscated, there was no action taken against him. Racial profiling has therefore been proven to exist in the U.S.A. (the Wen Ho Lee Case)

The Human Rights Watch was founded in the year 1978 in order to protect the human rights of people all over the world. It covers about a hundred different countries. (Human Rights Watch Publications.) the Anti-slavery Society was founded in the year 1839 and named 'British and foreign anti-slavery Society'. It is responsible for publishing details about the slavery that was happening in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world at that time. (Anti-slavery International) in the United States, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has conducted a survey entitled 'Redefining Rights in America- the Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2004', on the extent to which the Bush Administration had succeeded in keeping up and maintaining the Civil Rights of the people of the United States of America, and it therein states that the Bush Administration has in fact failed miserably in addressing this crucial issue, and has relegated it to the background by according it the lowest priority.

It shows that Bush did not ensure the carrying out of exactly accurate procedures detailed in the 'Help America Vote Act of 2002', and this had the inevitable result of the lack of appropriate funds for the purpose of election reform until it was a mite too late. The Act that ensures the equality of education for all the children of the United States of America was also not implemented appropriately. The 'No Child Left Behind' act was supposed to make sure that all children would enjoy equal opportunities in the field of education irrespective of their social background and status and race and color. This was however not carried out in the fullest sense of the term during the Bush Administration, and this meant that children were in fact left behind, and their civil rights were thus being violated. Another facet of the negative aspects of the Bush administration on the issue of civil liberties is the fact that, instead of promoting and encouraging positive actions in the fields of federal contracting as well as education, the Bush administration has been providing 'race neutral alternatives', and this does not, at least most of the time, promote diversity.

The Bush administration, after the terrorist attacks carried out on the United States of America on September 11, 2002 by Islamic militants that left more than three thousand innocent people killed and many more wounded, embarked on a policy that imposed racial profiling, instead of preventing it. This meant that visitors to the U.S.A., especially those from Arab and Middle Eastern counties were subjected to increased humiliations in the name of increased security restrictions, and this meant that these people were subjected to increased interviewing, and in some extreme cases, removals. (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights) it is in this manner, by accurate and timely reporting by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the issue of civil rights and liberties of an individual in the United States of America are maintained to at least a certain passable extent.

In the report entitled 'Is America Ready to Vote?' brought out in April 2004, the Commission stated that it felt that the basic human right of an individual in a democracy was to promote the primary right to 'vote' and elect their own representative through which other rights would be automatically safeguarded. The Commission also stated that to take away this right of the individual meant, in fact, that the person was reduced to slavery, and slavery would not be permissible in the world of freedom and democracy. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution was meant to eliminate all sorts of voting barriers that were based on the biases of color, creed, race, and any conditions of servitude imposed on the individual. However, most states of the U.S.A. found ways to circumvent this legislation, in a manner that would allow blacks to be disenfranchised, and the Congress as well as the Courts remained mute spectators to these developments.

However, time has changed this, and now African-Americans are considered to be a part of the soil of the United States, and they can cast their votes without fear of repercussions. They are also allowed, unlike as in the past, to occupy positions of high literary standing, at par with the 'whites'. The important 'Voting Rights Act' was passed in the year 1965, and this was one of the most important acts ever to defend the civil rights and liberties of an individual in the United States of America. The Act has been broadened over the years to accommodate various changes, and it facilitates the appointment of officials to ensure that the terms and conditions within are carried out to the letter. The VRA not only ensures that more voters cast their votes after registering, but also sees to it that people of African-American descent are also elected to office, a hitherto unheard of occurrence. There are however still a few details over which there have been disputes through the years, and when these are tackled sufficiently well, the civil liberties of the citizen of America would be guaranteed and protected as far as voting rights are concerned. (Is America ready to Vote?)

What do other countries have to say about the protection of the individual's rights and liberties in the United States of America? This is what China has to say. In its report entitled 'Human Rights Record of the United States of 2001' published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China', it states that despite the position taken by the U.S.A. that it is a world leader in the issue of Human Rights and its several violations, judging by the report published in the year 2001 entitled 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practices', it has actually accomplished nothing more than to severely distort the human rights conditions in several different countries all over the world by stating that they are neglecting the issue of granting of human rights to its citizens, when in fact, it is USA that is actually doing so. The report states that it is in the U.S.A. that there is an innate lack of the safeguarding of life, of freedom of the individual, and also a lack of personal safety.

Not a day passes when there has not been committed a crime in violation of human safety; in the year 1998, there were an estimated 12,476 million crimes committed, out of which 1,531 million were violent crimes, 17,000 were murders, and it is a fact that for every 100,000 people in the United States, there were 4,616 criminal cases, out of which 566 were crimes of a violent nature. The United Sates also enjoys the dubious distinction of having the largest number of privately owned guns; one the one hand there is an escalation of crime, and leads the citizen to arm himself with a weapon, and on the other hand, it is because of the presence of the weapon that there is such a large number of highly violent cases of crimes. In fact, shooting is said to be the second largest cause of deaths in the U.S.A., after traffic accidents. It is a sad fact that, since the year 1972, 80 persons, including twelve innocent children, are on an average shot dead everyday in the U.S.A., and this can only be due to the presence of firearms everywhere. (Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001)

The report also states that the media in the U.S.A. has also contributed in no small measure to the escalation in crime rates; children become used to and also immune to violence and crime and they witness such crimes on a daily basis in their everyday lives, and they come to believe that a gun can solve all their problems with ease. This has led to an increase in violent and bloody shootouts related to children in schools where children as young as 13 and 14 take out the guns in their possession and aim and shoot at children smaller than themselves and figures of authority in the school. Another issue where the U.S.A. has deprived citizens of human rights is in the Law Departments where there are serious violations of human rights and civil liberties. Police brutality is a part and parcel of life for the person who has been arrested on any charge whatsoever.

Unfair adjudication is another issue that the individual would have to face, especially when he happens to belong to a minority community. The family of the Frenchman Philippe Leman had filed a case against the police atrocities committed on Philippe in the state of Nevada, where he was beaten to death. The Court adjudged that the victim had died because of a broken throat bone that suffocated him to death, but the nine policemen who were in fact responsible for beating him and breaking his throat bone were pardoned and acquitted of any responsibilities that they may have in the death of the poor French man. The police force of the United States utilizes the methods of 'torture' and 'forced confessions', and these confessions are taken into account in a court of law. The hapless prisoners on death row are often forced into making confessions, as demonstrated in the example of Alon Patterson, who made a claim that his confession had been forcibly made because of the torture that the Chicago police inflicted on him in the prison cell. (Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001)

Prisons in America are generally extremely overcrowded and all the inmates are generally mistreated. Human rights are denied to them, and when the prisoners object and try to rebel, several cruel methods are used by the police to quell the fights. In December 2001, there was a riot in a prison in California, and the riot was controlled by using tear gas and wooden bullets, which eventually left seven prisoners seriously wounded. The 'Human Rights Record of the United States of 2001' report opines that America, as a Super Power, has in fact been misusing this status and denomination, and this has led to the ever widening divide between the rich and the poor in the United States, where the poor of the country are treated as if they belong to another 'third world' within this country; almost as if they are not a part and parcel of the United Sates of America. The gap has been steadily increasing between high income and low-income groups of people and in terms of possessions owned by both the groups, the gap has never been wider than it is at the present time.