Photo: Kera News / Javier Giribet-Vargas
According to the chair of the UN expert panel on people of African descent, Ricardo A. Sunga III, there is a high level of structural and institutional racism in the US. This statement was made after the American police has killed two black men.
“The Working Group [of Experts on People of African Descent] is outraged and strongly condemns the new police killings of two African-American men,” Ricardo Sunga said in a statement published on the United Nations’ official website.
The statement urged to launch a “prompt independent investigations to ensure the perpetrators are prosecuted and punished,” and underlined that the deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, killed by the officers earlier this week, “cannot be ignored.”
According to the UN working group, an excessive force used against African Americans by the police has become a “regular” occurrence in America. “The killings also demonstrate a high level of structural and institutional racism. The United States is far from recognizing the same rights for all its citizens. Existing measures to address racist crimes motivated by prejudice are insufficient and have failed to stop the killings,” the experts said.
The UN working group stated that the main reason of this problem is the lack of accountability for perpetrators of such killings. Usually, there are enough overwhelming evidence against them, including video footage of the crime, but perpetrators go unpunished.
“It is time, now, for the US Government to strongly assert that Black lives matter and prevent any further killings as a matter of national priority,” the chair of the UN expert panel on people of African descent said.
The sniper attacks on police officers during a protest in downtown Dallas over the killings of Castile and Sterling on July 7 were also condemned by the experts. These attacks resulted in killing of five officers and wounding of nine people, including two civilians. Later, the police killed one sniper and detained three other suspects involved in the shooting. One of them told the police that the killings of African Americans made him anger, and he wanted to kill more white officers in retaliation.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed condolences to the families and colleagues of the victims and condemned the attacks of officers in Dallas on Thursday.
“There is no justification for such violence. Those responsible compounded the suffering that many in the United States feel following the killing of two African-American men over two days. Those killings must be the subject of a thorough and impartial investigation,” the UN head’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said.
The events in Dallas once again show that we should pay more attention to the fight against discrimination, “including racial disparities in law enforcement,” Stephane Dujarric emphasized.
that report did not go far enough. The recommendation should cover area of offensive race related hate-speech and discrimination. These laws should be strengthened universally …you call me a “Nigger”, “Monkey”, Want a banana” or ask me to go back to Africa or any expression of racial animus …when you need to pay with your freedom – 16 month may be a good-enough time to reflect on one’s attitude and outlook on life.