UN Human Rights Council Wants to Investigate Racism

The United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned discriminatory and violent acts by the police. The 47-member council also commissioned an investigation into “systematic racism”.

 

Human rights organizations say pressure has been put behind the scenes to extract references to the United States from the resolution.

The US has previously been mentioned in a draft resolution. It called for international investigations into police brutality against black Americans.

That demand has weakened in recent days. The call for an international investigation was dropped, and later the reference to the US also disappeared.

Washington’s allies, who are no longer members of the council, argued that racism is a global problem.

The amended resolution asks High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to prepare a report. That should be about systematic racism and the violation of the human rights of Africans and people of African descent by police forces.

The ambassador for Burkina Faso recognized that many concessions had been made to get support for the text.

Human rights organizations were disappointed. For example, the US ACLU said other countries had been pressured to water down a historic resolution.

“The US is turning its back on victims of police brutality and black people,” said Jamil Dakwar of that civil rights organization.