Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a “formal, standing invitation” for United Nations officials to investigate “systemic racism” in American policing.
As Blinken details in a statement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report about global police brutality against people of African descent. In response, Blinken welcomed foreign scrutiny of “systemic racism” in the United States:
As the President has repeatedly made clear, great nations such as ours do not hide from our shortcomings; they acknowledge them openly and strive to improve with transparency. In so doing, we not only work to set the standard for national responses to these challenges, we also strengthen our democracy, and give new hope and motivation to human rights defenders across the globe.
It is in this context that the United States intends to issue a formal, standing invitation to all UN experts who report and advise on thematic human rights issues. As a first step, we have reached out to offer an official visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues. I also welcome the UN Human Rights Council’s adoption today in Geneva of a resolution to address systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent in the context of law enforcement. I look forward to engaging with the new mechanism to advance racial justice and equity.
Michelle Bachelet — who served as President of Chile for eight years on behalf of the nation’s Socialist Party — currently works as High Commissioner for Human Rights. According to The New York Times, Bachelet said on Monday that there is “an urgent need to confront the legacies of enslavement, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and successive racially discriminatory policies and systems, and to seek reparatory justice.”- READ MORE
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