LONDON
\nUnited Nations (UN) human rights experts urged the United States to tackle police brutality and law enforcement\u2019s discrimination against Black people head-on after they concluded their U.S. tour focusing on racial justice and policing, The Guardian has reported.
\nUN experts completed their first official visit to the U.S. as part of a system of global inquiries set up by the human rights council after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The experts called for a nationwide commitment to addressing discrimination suffered by Black Americans in their daily dealings with the law, moving beyond piecemeal reform and slogan-making, the British newspaper said on Friday.
\n\u201cIn the U.S., racial inequity dates back to the very creation of this country and there\u2019ll be no quick fixes,\u201d said Tracie Keesee, one of two independent UN experts who conducted the visit, at the press conference held on Friday in Washington DC.
\n\u201cTo this day, racial discrimination permeates through encounters with law enforcement — from first contact, arrest, detention, sentencing and disenfranchisement,\u201d Keesee noted.
\nHe added that what was needed was a \u201cwhole government approach… This needs to be more than a slogan and calls for reform.\u201d
\nJuan Mendez, a former UN special rapporteur on torture, said that he had been moved throughout the visit by the \u201charrowing pain of victims and their families, and the resounding calls for accountability.\u201d
\nDuring their 15-day mission, Keesee and Mendez visited six U.S. cities: Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York. Their mission was to investigate excessive use of force, militarised policing, racial profiling and other human rights violations by law enforcement and penal agencies against Black Americans. They also had emotional encounters with families of the victims of police killings and other law enforcement abuses.
\nMendez added that their mission would be calling on the U.S. justice department to make \u201cmore serious and proactive\u201d use of its powers through consent decrees to intervene in the inner workings of local police departments to address some of the most egregious abuses.
\nThe Guardian noted that the visit marks an intensification in the UN\u2019s focus on racial justice in America in the aftermath of the Floyd killing and the summer of protests it triggered across the U.S. and around the world.
\nThe UN experts will present their final report to the human rights council in Geneva in September or October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON United Nations (UN) human rights experts urged the United States to tackle police brutality and law enforcement\u2019s discrimination against Black people head-on after they concluded their U.S. tour focusing on racial justice and policing, The Guardian has reported. UN experts completed their first official visit to the U.S. as part of a system of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-330188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n