Ignorance, discrimination and indifference --- A Closer Look at the American-style Human Rights under Covid-19

On July 17, the 44th Session of the UN Human Rights Council concluded in General, Switzerland with human rights issues of the US under the spotlight. Despite its poor record in a long time, the US sees itself as the “human right defender” and constantly uses the issue as a pretext to undermine the human rights of other countries. This double-standard human rights game played by the US can’t be too fake.

Ignoring people’s lives, discriminating against ethnic minorities and disregarding international cooperation… the coronavirus pandemic this year has unveiled the poor human rights situation in the US. The bad handling of Covid-19 by the US government has worsened some long-standing issues such as a much-divided society, the polarization between the rich and poor, racial discrimination and vulnerable social groups whose rights are under protected. While plunging the American people into deep crisis, these problems also exposed how hypocritical and deceptive the American-style human rights protection is.

Not all lives matter

“This (US response to Covid-19) is state-sanctioned killing”, a recent report from The Washington Post shockingly wrote.

According to the coronavirus updates by John Hopkins University, as of 22:35 PM July 17 EDT (10:35 AM July 18, Beijing Time), total confirmed cases in the US hit 3,641,539, causing a total of 139,176 deaths.

As the strongest economy and the country with the best technology and the most abundant medical resources, the United States was also among the first to receive an early warning of the virus. However, it quickly became the hardest hit, the epicenter of the pandemic, ranking on top of the global tally in confirmed cases and deaths. Surpassing heart diseases, Covid-19 has now become the No.1 killer in the US, causing a fatality much larger than Americans killed in the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War combined.

In the face of the pandemic, some US politicians ignore people’s rights to life and health. Rather they’ve put electoral politics and capital interest ahead of early epidemical warnings, wasting the best window to contain the spread of the virus. Despite the worsening epidemic situation, instead of strengthening control efforts, politicians have chosen to politicize the issue of epidemic control, shifting the blame elsewhere and constantly looking for scapegoats. Before the epidemic was effectively contained, they once again ignored expert warnings and relaxed control measures for economic gains, which unfortunately led to a resurgence of cases and deaths. The self-interested, short-sighted, self-willed attitude of the US government and its inefficient and irresponsible actions should bear the blame for this terrible pandemic that is wrecking havoc in the country.

In this “American tragedy”, the elderly are ruthlessly abandoned, nursing homes in the US have the highest infection and fatality rate.

According to statistics of The New York Times, as of July 7, 14,000 nursing homes in the US reported a total of 296,000 cases and 55,000 deaths, accounting for 10% of total infections and 42% of total deaths in the country.

Elite politicians never seemed to care. Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the right-wing news site The Daily Wire, claimed in an interview program that “if (a) grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that’s tragic and it’s terrible but also the life expectancy in the United States is 80”. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick even encouraged old people to sacrifice their lives to “save American economy”.

Among those sacrificed are not just the elderly; working Americans, African and Latino Americans as well as poor Americans are all losing their lives. The Independent of the UK comments that the US keeps talking human rights over and over but it’s no longer serious about honoring its own human rights obligations, and that it’s blatantly ignoring people’s lives. The Huffington Post website quoted Gregg Gonsalves, Yale epidemiologist and criticized the botched handing of the coronavirus pandemic by the US government as “getting awfully close to genocide by default”.

The discrimination called “I Can’t Breathe”

“I can’t breathe”, African American George Freud desperately begged before his death. On May 25th, Freud passed away after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. This immediately caused a global public outcry and large-scale protests followed suit across the US. A few days before his death, George Freud joined the millions that had lost their job as the restaurant he worked at closed for good.

The miserable sufferings of George Freud from contacting the virus, to losing his job and eventually his life is nothing but the result of long-lasting systematic discrimination in the US against black Americans, and also an unfortunate microcosm of the increasing sufferings of ethnic minorities in the US in the face of the pandemic.

“Nothing brings into shaper relief America’s color disparities than life and death in the great lockdown. The coronavirus outbreak is exacerbating them”, Britain’s Financial Times points out that African and Latino Americans are more likely than whites to take up labor jobs necessary to maintain the society; they have a higher poverty rate and higher probability of getting diabetes and high blood pressure; and they are more susceptible to the novel coronavirus.

Statistics released by US CDC on the 25th of June show that African Americans are 5 times more likely to contract and die from Covid-19 than white Americans, and the infection and fatality rate of Latino Americans are 4 times that of white Americans.

Minorities not only face greater risks of infection and death, but also are unlikely to withstand the economic impact of Covid-19. According to statistics released by the US Department of Labor in early July, the unemployment rate for white Americans in June was 10.1%, and the unemployment rate for African Americans was 15.4%. The gap between the two reached the highest since May 2015. The Fortune magazine points out that the racial gap in employment under Covid-19 reveals the historical discrimination and injustice against ethnic minorities in the US job market.

“Put the whole world at risk”

Marvin Canahui, a 38-year-old Guatemalan, spends his days in fear at the Catahoula Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana, U.S.

Canahui shares a dormitory, showers and bathrooms with about 200 other deportees. The Immigration Detention Center has already reported a big number of infected cases, nevertheless not any containment measures are taken. It’s troubling Canahui as he complains “they never gave us anything, not even a soap”.

Some politicians in the United States spare no effort to advance their own political agenda, using the epidemic to promote anti-immigration policies, and driving more and more illegal immigrants into detention centers without even improving the sanitary conditions of these shelters. The US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that in early June, the United States screened more than 20,000 illegal immigrants in some detention centers, and a total of more than 1,700 cases were confirmed.

Even shockingly, a report from the US Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) pointed out that despite the outbreak of Covid-19 in some immigration detention centers, the U.S. government still repatriated these immigrants without testing, a move no different than “exporting” the coronavirus to other countries. More than 60 institutions, including the Latin American Institute in Washington, have issued a joint statement condemning the US government for continuing to expel illegal immigrants during the pandemic, saying that this behavior has “put the whole world at risk.”

According to data released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, since March, the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dispatched 135 flights to 13 Latin American countries. Among them, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia and Haiti have reported confirmed cases among those repatriated back home.

In addition, the United States has intercepted anti-epidemic materials and seized vaccine patents from other countries, banned the export of medical materials, bought out related drugs, and imposed more sanctions on other countries. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic which is now the common enemy of all mankind, the United States has continued pushing unilateralism under the banner of “America First” while remaining indifferent to the urgent need of enhancing global solidarity in the fight against Covid-19.

At a critical moment when the international community is fighting the pandemic together, the United States announced that it will withdraw from the WHO in July next year. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the world-renowned medical journal “The Lancet”, called the move “an atrocity against people all over the world”. Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said the WHO is trying to unite the world, while the US government is undermining international cooperation. The actions of the US will lead to the death of many people in its own country and the whole world.

Justice stands in the hearts of the people. The coronavirus pandemic has ripped off the hypocritical mask of “American-style human rights” and made the whole world see through the human rights lies from a country claiming to be “the beacon of freedom”.