New York: Europe and the Arabs
“Systemic racism against people of African descent permeates police forces and the criminal justice system in the United States, and US authorities must urgently step up their efforts to address this.”
This is what was pointed out in a new report issued Thursday by the Expert Mechanism on Advancing Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement. According to what was stated in the daily news bulletin of the United Nations, and we received a copy of it on Friday morning
The report follows an official visit organized by the Mechanism to the United States - earlier this year - during which it heard testimony from 133 affected people, visited five detention centers and held meetings with civil society groups and a range of government and police authorities in Washington, DC, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City.
Expert Tracy Casey, a member of the mechanism, said:
“In all the cities we visited, we heard dozens of heartbreaking testimonies about victims not receiving justice or redress. This is nothing new and it is unacceptable.”
The UN expert referred to what she described as a “structural problem,” which she said required a systematic response.
She called on "all relevant actors - including police departments and police unions - to unite their efforts to combat the prevailing impunity."
The legacy of slavery is still present
The report concluded that racism in the United States — the legacy of slavery, the slave trade, and the hundred years of legal segregation that followed the abolition of slavery — still exists today in the form of racial profiling, police killings, and many other human rights violations.
The report showed that black people in America are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and 4.5 times more likely to be imprisoned.
Of the more than 1,000 police killings each year, only 1 percent result in police officers being charged, according to the report.
The report warned that these killings would continue if the rules for the use of force in the United States were not reformed in accordance with international standards.
The report noted - with great concern - cases of children of African descent being sentenced to life imprisonment, pregnant women being shackled in prison during childbirth, and people being held in solitary confinement for 10 years.
The report also described how some people of African descent were prevented from voting years after completing their sentences, and how some were subjected to forced labor in “plantation-style” prisons, which constitutes a contemporary form of slavery.