"The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times," said Salil Shetty, head of Amnesty.
"Instead, leaders such as al-Sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin, Trump and Xi are callously undermining the rights of millions," referring to the leaders of Egypt, the Philippines, Venezuela, Russia, the US and China.
Along with Trump’s treatment of women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and his “politics that were discriminatory or otherwise contradicted international human rights principles,” Shetty singled out Trump’s travel bans aimed at Muslim-majority countries as a “transparently hateful move.”
Shetty added that the bans, some which have survived court challenges, “set the scene for a year in which leaders took the politics of hate to its most dangerous conclusion.”
The report also cites Trump’s views on immigration and immigrants as examples of these hateful new policies. Those include his plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, increased detention of asylum seekers and their families, increased immigration and customs enforcement, penalties against “sanctuary cities” and “prioritized deportation of migrants.”
The report also sheds light on human rights abuses such as the termination of the Central American Minors program last August, which had allowed those under 21 to flee violence in Central America if their parents already had achieved legal status in the U.S.
It notes that more than 17,000 unaccompanied children and 26,000 people who were caught illegally entering the U.S. at the Mexican border between January and August “were detained for months, many without proper access to medical care and legal counsel.”
So, it’s official: Trump is a dictatorial human rights violator.
Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.
In the USA we saw the reinstatement of the “global gag rule” depriving millions of women and girls of vital health care. The travel bans aimed at mostly Muslim countries, the dramatic cutback on refugee resettlement numbers leaving thousands more in limbo, and a new climate of permissiveness for xenophobia and hatred arising from President Trump’s failure to condemn it when he saw it. Peddling hatred and fear against whole groups of people based on who they are ultimately leads on in one direction. When leaders foster or turn a blind eye the end game is horrific and literally fatal.
In their annual report Amnesty International notes the multi-faceted attacks by the Trump Administration on Women’s Rights and Health.
Attacks on the rights of women and girls were broad and multi-faceted. President Trump’s administration overturned policies that required universities to investigate sexual violence as gender discrimination and suspended equal pay initiatives that had helped women to identify whether they were being paid less than male colleagues. Attacks on women’s reproductive health and rights were particularly virulent. There were repeated efforts by the government andCongress to withdraw funding from PlannedParenthood − a health organization providing vital reproductive and other health services, particularly to women on low incomes. The government issued rules exempting employers from providing health insurance coverage for contraception if it conflicted with their religious or moral beliefs, putting millions of women at risk of losing access to contraception. Gross inequalities remained for Indigenous women in accessing care following rape, including access to examinations, forensic evidence kits for use by medical staff, and other essential healthcare services. The government also introduced the so-called “global gag rule”,prohibiting any US financial assistance to any hospitals or organizations that provide information about, or access to, safe and legal abortion care.
On LGBT Rights.
Murders of LGBTI people increased during the year, against a background of continuing discrimination against LGBTI people in state and federal law. Further discriminatory measures by the government against LGBTI people increased. The USA continued to lack federal protections banning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, housing or healthcare. Transgender people continued to be particularly marginalized. President Trump’s administration overturned guidelines that protected transgender students in public schools who used facilities that corresponded with their gender identity. In August, President Trump ordered a reversal in the policy announced in 2016 to allow openly transgender individuals to enlist in the military, which had been due to take effect on1 January 2018. On 30 October, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the directive. In December, a judge ruled that transgender people would be allowed to enlist in the military from 1 January 2018, as legal cases proceeded.
And on uses of excessive force.
The authorities continued to fail to track the exact number of people killed by law enforcement officials across the USA. Data collected by The Washington Post newspaper put the total at 987 individuals killed during the year by law enforcement agents using firearms. According to the data, African Americans – who comprised 13% of the population – represented nearly 23% of the victims in 2017. Of those killed, 24% were known to have mental health problems. A proposal by the Department of Justice to create a system to track these deaths under the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act was not compulsory for law enforcement agencies and therefore risked leading to under-reporting. No information was released on whether the reporting process had been initiated during the year.
At least 40 people across 25 states died after police used projectile electro-shock weapons on them, bringing the total number of such deaths since 2001 to at least 802.Most of the victims were not armed and did not appear to pose a threat of death or serious injury when the electro-shock weapon was deployed.
According to the most recent summary on arrest related deaths — which was in 2015 under orders of Attorney General Loretta Lynch — the actual figures are twice the estimate generated by the Wapo.
Between June 1, 2015, and March 31, 2016, media reviews identified 1,348 potential arrest-related deaths. During this period, the number of deaths consistently ranged from 87 to 156 arrest-related deaths per month, with an average of 135 deaths per month. To confirm and collect more information about the 379 deaths identified through open sources from June to August 2015, BJS conducted a survey of law enforcement agencies and ME/C offices.
The survey findings identified 425 arrest-related deaths during this 3-month period—12% more than the number of deaths identified through the open source review. Extrapolated to a full calendar year, an estimated 1,900 arrest-related deaths occurred in 2015. Nearly two-third (64%) of the deaths that occurred from June to August 2015 were homicides, about a fifth (18%) were suicides, and another tenth (11%) were accidents.
There is little to no indication that AG Jeff Sessions will pursue updating these figures for more accuracy.
On his bigoted Muslim Ban Trump originally tried to justify it by claiming “Christians have been executed” in those countries.
U.S. President Donald Trump fought back on Sunday amid growing international criticism, outrage from civil rights activists and legal challenges over his abrupt order for a halt on arrivals of refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
In his most sweeping action since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump, a Republican, put a 120-day hold on Friday on allowing refugees into the country, an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria and a 90-day bar on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!” added Trump, who has presented the policy as a way to protect Americans from the threat of Islamist militants.
Which was an argument that did little to dispel the idea that his ban was based in religious bias, since the primary victims of ISIS have been other Muslims.
Then there’s Trump continued support for the use of torture and his efforts to keep Guantanamo Bay open indefinitely.
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump signed a new executive order Tuesday to keep open the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and opened the door to sending new prisoners there.
The decision is a major reversal of his predecessor President Barack Obama's policy.
During his Tuesday night State of the Union speech, Trump said he had just signed the order directing Secretary of Defense James Mattis to "re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay."
In his speech and order Trump raised the prospect of additional ISIS prisoners being sent to Guantánamo Bay.
Another recent inhumane example is Trump’s suggestion to follow in the bloody footfalls of murderous Philippine’s dictator Rodrigo Duterte with his call to have drug dealers executed.
In Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking offenses. And President Trump loves it. He’s been telling friends for months that the country’s policy to execute drug traffickers is the reason its drug consumption rates are so low.
"He says that a lot," said a source who's spoken to Trump at length about the subject. "He says, 'When I ask the prime minister of Singapore do they have a drug problem [the prime minister replies,] 'No. Death penalty'."
- But the president doesn't just joke about it. According to five sources who've spoken with Trump about the subject, he often leaps into a passionate speech about how drug dealers are as bad as serial killers and should all get the death penalty.
- Trump tells confidants a softer approach to drug reform — the kind where you show sympathy to the offenders and give them more lenient sentences — will never work.
- He tells friends and associates the government has got to teach children that they'll die if they take drugs and they've got to make drug dealers fear for their lives.
- Trump has said he would love to have a law to execute all drug dealers here in America, though he's privately admitted it would probably be impossible to get a law this harsh passed under the American system.
- Kellyanne Conway, who leads the White House's anti-drug efforts, argues Trump's position is more nuanced, saying the president is talking about high-volume dealers who are killing thousands of people. The point he's making, she says, is that some states execute criminals for killing one person but a dealer who brings a tiny quantity of fentanyl into a community can cause mass death in just one weekend, often with impunity.
The substance: Trump may back legislation requiring a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for traffickers who deal as little as two grams of fentanyl. Currently, you have to deal forty grams to trigger the mandatory five-year sentence. (The DEA estimates that as little as two milligrams is enough to kill people.)
And this is more than just idle talk as noted by the Washington Post.
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed the nation’s 2,300 federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges in all but exceptional cases. Rescinding a 2013 policy that sought to avoid mandatory minimums for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, Sessions wrote it was the “moral and just” thing to do.
Sessions couldn’t be more wrong. We served as a federal prosecutor and a federal judge respectively. In our experience, mandatory minimums have swelled the federal prison population and led to scandalous racial disparities. They have caused untold misery at great expense. And they have not made us safer.
Mandatory federal drug sentencing is unforgiving. A person with one prior drug felony who is charged with possession of 10 grams of LSD, 50 grams of methamphetamine, or 280 grams of crack cocaine with intent to distribute faces 20 years to life. With two priors — no matter how long ago they occurred — the penalty is life without parole. As one federal judge has written, these are sentences that “no one — not even the prosecutors themselves — thinks are appropriate.”
Lastly as noted by Secretary General Shetty and confirmed by the BBC, Hate Crimes in America are on the rise for the 2nd year in a row.
The number of hate crimes in 2016 was 6,121 - about a 5% jump from 2015. About half of those incidents were motivated by race, the agency says.
According to the FBI, hate crimes can range from property vandalism to violence and murder.
In incidents where the perpetrators were identified, the FBI found that about 58% of crimes were motivated by the victims' race, ethnicity or ancestry.
Meanwhile, 21% of crimes were motivated by religion and nearly 18% by a victim's sexual orientation.
About half the 1,273 incidents involving religion were against Jews while Muslims were targeted in 307 religion-based crimes.
And arguably, this rise can be directly related to Trump himself.
The SPLC has been monitoring social media and news reports, and an online form that they have created for Americans to self-report hateful incidents.
In their report, Ten Days After, they report finding hundreds of cases of attacks against minorities - including instances of violence and intimidation - some of which they directly link to the surprise Trump victory on 8 November.
"An awful lot of these crimes are directly linked to the Trump campaign in the sense that graffiti was left or words were shouted that directly invoked Trump," Senior SPLC fellow Mark Potok told the BBC.
So basically Trump’s done a great job of
spreading merry sunshine just about everywhere, but then again some Americans are never going to care about human rights, or women’s reproductive rights, or the right to access to health care or torture or judicial murder or mandatory minimums or arrest related deaths or hate crimes or any of this because —
they got a tax cut of $1.50 per week.
Apparently that’s the going rate for a human soul in some parts of America.