By Zhong Sheng
Although some U.S. politicians frequently point fingers at other countries’ human rights situation, people around the world have already seen their true colors clearly. Their misdeeds of sabotaging international human rightsundertakings and creating human rights disasters have been familiar to the international community.
During the 45th regular session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council that kicked off on September 14, members of the international community expressed deep concerns over a large number of problems exposed in the U.S. in its prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic, including human rights violations and systemic racial discrimination, and strongly condemned the U.S. for imposing unilateral sanctions to undermine human rights in other countries.
Good human rights safeguards could cushion the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, said Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the 45th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council.
“The pandemic has exposed global social injustices, exacerbating intersecting and deep-rooted inequalities within countries – and asymmetries among them,” she noted.
The U.S. should look closely at itself in the mirror and do some self-examination.
While presenting themselves as the defenders of human rights, some American politicians have acted in total disregard of people’s right to life and health.
Instead of focusing on curbing the spread of the virus, they have been busy politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic, stigmatizing and slandering other countries, and trying to find a scapegoat for their incompetence in handling the pandemic.
The U.S. has reported over 7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 200,000 fatalities so far.
The U.S. COVID-19 fight is a “state-sanctioned killing”, said an article published on The Washington Post.
Minorities in the U.S. are more likely to die at a younger age than white people from COVID-19, according to data from The Wall Street Journal.
Three percent of white people who die from the disease are under the age of 55, while 11 percent of black people and 18 percent of Latinos who die from COVID-19 are under that age.
U.S. racial inequality is just as deadly as COVID-19 if not more, as put bluntly by American news-based pay television channel Cable News Network (CNN).
At the crucial moment of the global fight against the pandemic, the U.S. announced that it would withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), curtail contact with officials from the organization and recall American experts assigned to the agency.
Such a move of the U.S. is “an act of violence against peoples worldwide – a crime against humanity”, said Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, a peer-reviewed general medical journal.
Some American politicians and scientists commented that unilateral policies of the U.S. administration equal killing amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Sticking to double standards on human rights, the U.S. has repeatedly caused astounding humanitarian disastersin the international community.
During the 45th regular session, the UN Human Rights Council has held an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the negative impacts of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights.
Representatives of many countries criticized the unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. on other countries, which have made it difficult for people in these countries to obtain basic goods and services such as food and medical care, severely infringing human rights and hindering economic and social development in these countries.
Recently, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on relevant officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC), attempting to hamper investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
It is generally believed by the international community that the practice of the U.S. shows “an egregious disregard for victims of the world’s worst crimes” and has seriously violated international law and rules.
“President Trump touted his ‘America First’ philosophy in his inaugural address as making the United States ‘unstoppable.’ But the reality is that under Mr. Trump, the United States is in retreat. His refusal to join a global vaccine effort organized in part by the World Health Organization is yet another example of America isolated and weak,” said an article on The Washington Post.
Justice naturally inhabits man’s heart. While defaming and attacking other countries’ human rights situation, some U.S. officials have actually drawn more attention from the international community to the notorious record of human rights in their own country and the country’s hypocrisy, double standards, as well as its obsession with hegemony.
