US behavior creates human rights credibility gap (US Human Rights Network)

[struggle4progress]

US behavior creates credibility gap for US State Department’s Human Rights Report, says US Human Rights Network

In an unprecedented move, the US Human Rights Network, a network of more than 160 US-based human rights organizations, today issued a memorandum to President George Bush decrying the current state of human rights in the US, as the US State Department released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for the US government to issue a report condemning human rights abuses in other countries at a time when it is violating these very same standards at home and abroad,” said Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN). <snip>

USHRN members are monitoring US human rights practice in a whole range of areas – from employment rights to torture, from discrimination to housing rights, from poverty and homelessness to abuses arising from the “war on terror” – and have found that not only is the US falling very far short of its obligations in all of these areas – it is actually practicing itself what it condemns in other countries. <snip>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0502/S00725.htm

[pretzel4gore]

1. tommy chong was recently released from jail in USA

for some damn thing or other....anyway, tommy said he was appalled at the numberr of non criminals in prison doing 20 years etc for things like pot possession, or associating etc....
no one ever mentions the millions of americans in jail, many of them in utterly soul destroying hells

[sweetheart]

4. I was driving on interstate 10 through the imperial valley...

in california... and there is an exit "State prison..." (california
near palm springs). Well, before that exit, are laid by the roadside
10,000 curses left by prisoners being taken to that prison, forever
deprived of "freedom". I couldn't help but notice the curses, as they
are so loud and intensely felt by the chaps who left them.

They curse the american society to be destroyed, that every person
behind the prison complex suffer intensly as reciprocity for injustice.
What is one to do... it is totally sick. Tommy Chong, we remember,
as he's not prisoner K29384 forgotten. For that prisoner who left
their very effective curse, may the curse come true. A society of
injustice deserves to die.

[daleo]

6. I think he was in jail for selling (or possessing) a "bong" pipe.

No drugs, just the pipe. That is ridiculous in and of itself.

[sweetheart]

2. tell us what we don't already know

I wonder when the corporate media will come out with the truth?... if
ever. The constitution is covered over with a layer of thick, sticky
cynical varnish... that the words are hardly visible beneath the
ooze.

[struggle4progress]

3. The only thing that will force change is dedicated people, working ...

... hard, day after day after day, to get the message out. We need to know who's out there, pushing.

[Rex]

5. What kind of name is Ajamu Baraka?

Someone alert AG Gonzales to get the dungeon ready! Time to teach Mr. Baraka about human rights and the BFEE. Hmmmm, leeches or thumbnails?

[Judi Lynn]

7. Will there be a response from the pResident, or will he ignore this?

I doubt there's anything he CAN say to deflect these truthful observations. Last paragraph of the article:

The US Human Rights Network plans to follow up today’s memorandum with a detailed Human Rights Agenda for the Bush Administration, in which it will outline the main areas of human rights concern in the US, the government’s international obligations with regard to these areas, and clear recommendations on how the administration can address the serious shortfall between the two.
(snip/)

This should be interesting.

Thanks to struggle4progress for this news.

[NVMojo]

9. ...as long as the people in our country let our administration do this

crap, violate the human rights of others in our own nation and in other nations, we will all be to blame. Stupid Republican and swing voters.

[area51]

8. hypocrisy = republinazi

Hypocrisy is one of the pillars of the republinazi party.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.