UN Human Rights Council seeks to investigate ‘systemic racism, police brutality’ in US

Israel is the only country that has a dedicated agenda item at UNHRC meetings.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), many of whose members have a less-than-stellar record on human rights, has seen fit to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to investigate racism and police violence in the U.S.

The a draft resolution by 54 African countries in response to the death of George Floyd calls on the UNHRC to turn its attention to America’s “systemic racism, police brutality, and violence against peaceful protests” with the aim of “bringing perpetrators to justice.”

The Washington Post reports that one of the proposals to be tabled is a call for an independent international commission of inquiry, “one of the highest-level probes the United Nations can launch.”

“Commissions of inquiry are high-profile investigations that demand considerable resources. In the past, they have been used in relation to conflicts such as the war in Syria,” WaPo reports.

The U.S. won’t get a vote at the meeting as it withdrew from the UNHRC in 2018, in large part due to its gross bias against Israel.

“Our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights,” Nikki Haley, then U.S. ambassador to the UN, said at the time.

Israel is the only country that has a dedicated agenda item at UNHRC meetings, where it is regularly castigated for supposed human rights abuses. Since its inception in 2006, the council has issued more than 80 resolutions against Israel, virtually the same number as it has levied against all other countries combined.

In February, the UNHRC issued a blacklist of more than 100 companies operating in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. The list is dominated by Israeli companies, including banks and construction firms. However, it also lists several international firms, including travel companies Airbnb, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, tech giant Motorola, and construction and infrastructure companies including France’s Egis Rail and a British company, JC Bamford Excavators.

The UNHRC has also been criticized for giving membership to countries notorious for its human rights abuses.

According to the U.S. State Department, human rights abuses perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of The Congo include such things as forced disappearances and abductions, torture, rape, and arbitrary arrests.

In Pakistan, women and girls are subject to domestic violence, rape, honor killings, and forced child marriages. A study carried out by Human Rights Watch found that in Pakistan there is a rape once every two hours and a gang rape every hour. Also, a study by Women’s Action Forum found that up to seventy-two percent of women in police custody are physically or sexually abused.