On The Human Rights Situation In The United States Of America – Report оf The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of The Russian Federation

Originally published on www.mid.ru (In English: Link1, in Russian: Link2)

Introduction

Despite the deep contradictions in American society, the United States continues to assert itself a global leader in the field of human rights protection. At the same time, Washington is in no hurry to expand its international legal obligations in the field of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The conduct of all kinds of military operations in the territory of European and Middle Eastern states, creation of secret prisons around the world, implementation of extremely stringent migration policies in recent years and many other violations of human rights and freedoms that were committed by the United States illustrate not only the dual nature of this country’s position regarding human rights standards but also its approaches to international law as such.

The unchecked power in the world, capture of new markets and lack of restraining factors after the collapse of the Soviet Union created a sense of permissiveness among the American elite. The practice of using not only military but also economic instruments as well as information resources as means of force is expanding.

The American authorities actively use the tactics of “fighting by proxy” against Russia and Russians. First of all, this is expressed in the direction of large‑scale military assistance to the Kiev regime and putting pressure on the US NATO allies so that they take similar measures. Besides, an overt pressure is being exerted on sovereign states, including through the use of human rights mechanisms, in an attempt to create a corresponding negative background around the Russian Federation and its allies and partners in the international arena.

One of the most serious problems in countering challenges faced by modern international community in the area of human rights is the practice of “double standards” used by Washington when assessing certain situations and phenomena.

A similar approach is still actively and hypocritically used by the United States to escalate confrontation as well as to interfere in the internal affairs and violate the sovereignty of independent states.

In the eyes of the world community, such approaches give the American understanding of democracy an increasingly emasculated and manipulative character and contribute to discrediting democratic principles and values in general.

Mentoring tone, partiality, full oblivion of the concept of sovereignty and one of the main and fundamental principles of international law enshrined in the UN Charter – non-interference in the internal affairs of states, lead to deep disappointment in those very “Western values” that “fascinated” other civilizations and societies during a century, bringing considerable political dividends to the West and the United States itself.

Moreover, the human rights situation in the United States itself is far from international standards in the field of protection of fundamental freedoms, which is becoming more and more obvious day after day.

Section 1. General description of the situation in the United States

Washington declares its commitment to upholding the principle of universality of fundamental human rights and freedom, as secured in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of 1993. However, in fact, the situation with the respect for human rights and freedoms in the United States is nowhere near the international standards.

A system-wide racism and police misconduct flourish in the United States. National minorities find themselves victims of discrimination and social inequality. The homeless issue remains outstanding. Immigrants and prisoners, including those under age, face continuous oppression of their liberties. Journalists do not feel safe and become victims of attacks. The plans of the American Administration to close the Guantanamo special isolator remain unfulfilled. Citizens’ dissatisfaction with violations of voting rights only deepens the divide within American society. Alternative views are more often subject to censorship in mass and social media.

Numerous violations of human rights and freedoms remain in focus of the criticism coming from relevant international structures and non-governmental institutions.

In their annual 2022 and 2023 reports on the situation with human rights and freedoms around the globe, the human rights advocates from the Human Rights Watch NGO noted that the United States continued to face the problems of racism, social and economic rights abuse, harassment in penitentiary institutions and in the area of migration law and police violence.

At the same time, according to the assessments by the Freedom House NGO, as of March 2024, the Unites States ranked 18 in the world as regards the enforcement of political and civil liberties (83 out of 100 score points).

The report of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) published in November 2023, which contains concluding remarks and recommendations at the outcome of the review of the US periodic report on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, focuses, inter alia, on the lack of significant progress in implementing the Covenant by the United States. In particular, the document notes the lack of positive moves in addressing significant deficiencies in the criminal legal system (racial disparities in sentencing, the death penalty, use of police violence and solitary confinement). There is a reference to serious violations of voting rights (voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement laws), of the rights to non-interference in private life, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assemblies and associations. Concern is expressed, inter alia, over the violation of the rights of immigrants, indigenous peoples (lack of protection to indigenous lands and sacred places and restricted interpretation of the principle of free, prior and informed consent).

The Committee’s report also underscores the critical need to prioritize and strengthen human rights at home and establish a National Human Rights Institution to ensure that the most basic rights are protected.

According to Jamil Dakwar, Director of the Human Rights Programme of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Committee’s findings prove that the United States is far from the truth when it touts itself as a beacon of democracy and human rights.

As it goes from the regular report of the China Society for Human Rights Studies on violations in the United States in 2022, published on 28 March 2023, recently, the human rights legislation in the United States has seen an extreme retrogression, further undermining the basic rights and freedoms of the American people.

The authors of the document state that regardless a landmark setback for the US human rights, Americans continue to label themselves “human rights defenders” throughout the world. However, the United States remains the country with an extremely high level of domestic violence. The threat to the lives of citizens comes from both criminals and law enforcement agencies. The American prisons are overcrowded and the prisoners contained in them turned into real slaves.

It is also emphasized in the report that in 2022, the United States saw a major degradation of the democratic system; a setback occurred in the protection of the civil rights and in the state of things in the area of racial equality and the rights of socially vulnerable groups of population, women and children were violated. Particular attention should be given to the facts of violation by the United States of the rights of citizens abroad and to the American practice of selective justice.

The annual report of the NGO Amnesty International for 2021-2022 on the situation with the human rights published on 29 March 2022, the Administration of Joe Biden declared intention to restore the reputation of the United States in the area of human rights but the results in policy and in practice turned to be ambiguous. While the United States resumed its cooperation with international human rights institutions of the United Nations and its multilateral efforts in combating climate change, the Administration failed to implement the policy of immigration aimed at the respect for human rights and of sheltering on the border between the United States and Mexico; it failed to realize the human rights agenda at the national level. The internal political situation continued to impede the governmental actions on addressing the issues of climate change, discriminatory attacks on voting rights, unlawful restrictions on rights at the state level, including the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and reproductive rights.

The report of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Belarus for 2023 on the most resonant cases of human rights violations in certain countries of the world with reference to the above mentioned report of the NGO Amnesty International states that in the United States, women from among the indigenous populations are still subject to a disproportionally high level of sexual violence and fail to get access to basic aid after being raped. The American authorities continued to severely limit access to shelters on the American-Mexican border, border control employees carried out unnecessary and illegal deportation of almost 1.5 million refugees and migrants on the border between the United States and Mexico; people were expulsed on a mass scale without getting access to sheltering procedures.

Thirty Muslim men continue to be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained by the US military in the notorious detention facility at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in violation of international law; the authorities have not made significant progress in closing this facility, despite the Biden administration’s stated intention to do so. The government failed to take considerable measures to oversee the police activities and its accountability, as it was promised by the Administration of the current President of the country in response to the nation-wide protests against the police violence. Lawmakers in 36 states and at the federal level have introduced more than 80 bills restricting freedom of assembly, with nine states enacting 10 such bills into law. The proposed legislative restrictions on the freedom of assembly included increasing penalties for acts of civil disobedience, blocking roads and desecrating monuments. Black people are disproportionately affected by police use of deadly force; the federal government’s program to track the annual number of such deaths has not been completed.

No one has been held accountable for the systematic human rights abuses committed in the secret detention system run by the CIA, including enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment. In 2021, the US Congress did not take any enactments on access to guns; the government’s inability to protect people from constant gun violence continues to violate their rights, including the right to life, personal security and freedom from discrimination. In 2020, at least 44 thousand people died from gun violence; during the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, the authorities of certain states exacerbated the gun violence by calling the stores selling them “essential”. The US government repeatedly used lethal weapons in the countries across the globe, including with the help of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in violation of international human rights obligations and international humanitarian law; NGOs, UN experts and mass media provided a documented confirmation that such strikes inside and outside the active armed conflict areas led to wounds and arbitrarily deprived many civilians of the right to life to constitute in certain cases war crimes. The US government weakened the protection of civilians during lethal operations, thus increasing risks of people’s death from such illegitimate actions. The government continued to hide information on legal and political standards and criteria applied by the American military when using lethal weapons regardless the UN human rights experts’ calls for clarification regarding these issues. The authorities did not make reparations for killing civilians.

The report on the United States for 2022 by the China Society on Human Rights Studies states that American politicians, serving the interests of elites, have gradually lost their ability and will to respond to basic demands of ordinary people and defend the basic rights of the American citizens, and failed to solve structural problems of human rights. Instead, they wantonly use human rights as a weapon to attack other countries, creating confrontation, division and chaos in the international community, and have thus become a spoiler and obstructer of global human rights development.

The United States continue to blatantly violate human rights inside as well as outside the country, including through illegal unilateral measures of compulsion (sanctions), the most flagrant example of which is the decade-long blockade of Cuba (including regardless numerous UN General Assembly’s resolutions).

The report on the United States for 2022 by the China Society on Human Rights Studies states that the United States imposed more unilateral sanctions than any other country in the world, and it still has sanctions in place against more than 20 countries, resulting in the inability of those targeted to provide basic food and medicine for their people.

It should not go unmentioned that there are blatant violations of international humanitarian law committed by the American authorities in the territory of the “third” states. Under the “traditional” shield of the need to combat terrorism, the United States continued to use military forces abroad indiscriminately. As a result, the number of victims among civilians increased.

According to the report on the United States for 2022 by the China Society on Human Rights Studies, since the 21st century, the United States undertook what it labelled “counterterrorism” activities in 85 countries, directly killing at least 929,000 people and (forcedly) displacing 38 million people. In reality, already quite eloquent, these figures may be significantly higher.

Washington actively uses human rights rhetoric to justify its interference into internal affairs of sovereign states and introduction of illegal sanctions against them. An ordinary practice is the publication of tendentious reports of the US Department of States on the human rights situation in Russia, Republic of Belarus and other countries disliked by Americans, which are used to substantiate pressure on them.

We are forced to state that Washington has been avoiding for many years a normal and civilized cooperation with Russia at the level of law enforcement authorities based on the US-Russia Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters as of 1999.

Guided by the principle of extraterritoriality of American justice, the United States “prey” on citizens of sovereign states around the world by blatantly violating corresponding international legal bilateral agreements, including taking no notice of the norms of national legislation of these states. Upon the requests from the US law enforcement, an unacceptable practice of arrest of the Russian citizens in the third countries runs on. Over 70 such cases have been registered since 2008.

The most resonant examples are arrests of Viktor Bout (Thailand, 2008), Konstantin Yaroshenko (Liberia, 2010), Roman Seleznev (the Maldives, 2014) who were not only arrested but kidnapped and forcedly deported to the United States as well as Alexander Vinnik (Greece, 2017).

Based on the unlawful application of the principle of extraterritoriality of the American justice, Russians were arrested in Germany (Denis Kaznacheev – in 2020), Georgia (Оleg Tishchenko – in 2018), the Dominican Republic (Аleksei Panin – in 2013), Israel (Аleksei Burkov – in 2015), Spain (Dmitriy Belorossov – in 2013; Vadim Polyakov – in 2014; Pyotr Levashov and Stanislav Lisov – in 2017), Italy (Alexander Korshunov – in 2019), Costa‑Rica (Мaxim Chukharev – in 2013), Latvia (Yuri Martyshev – in 2017), Lithuania (Dmitry Ustinov – in 2013), the Netherlands (Dmitriy Smilianets and Vladimir Drinkman – in 2012; Denis Dubnikov– in 2021), Finland (Maxim Senakh – in 2015 and Mira Terada – in 2018), the Czech Republic (Yevgeniy Nikulin – in 2016), Switzerland (Vladislav Zdorovenin – in 2011 and Vladislav Klyushin – in 2021), Republic of Korea (Vladimir Dunaev – in 2021) and a number of other states.

In 2020, Andrey Pakhtusov was extradited to the United States from Spain. In 2021, Mr. Klyushin was extradited to the United States from Switzerland (sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2023). In 2022, Greece extradited Mr. Vinnik and Thailand – Mr. Ukrainsky. In these conditions, Russian diplomats are doing everything in their power to help their compatriots.

On 17 October 2022, at the request of the American Ministry of Justice two Russian nationals – Yuri Orekhov and Artyom Uss were detained in Germany and Italy, correspondingly, to be further extradited to the United States on charges of evading sanctions, oil smuggling and organizing a money laundering scheme. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, what happened demonstrates the continuation of “a large-scale campaign launched by Washington to capture Russians against whom there are “claims”, for their subsequent guaranteed condemnation by the American punitive justice system to long terms of imprisonment”.

In 2023, Vadim Konoschenok (transferred to the Americans from Estonia), Sergei Makinin (from the Dominican Republic), Maxim Marchenko (from the Republic of Fiji), Ruslan Nurullin (from the Kingdom of Marocco) and Artur Petrov (the US Ministry of Justice seeks his extradition from the Republic of Cyprus) fell victims of the “hunt” of local special services for Russians abroad.

The Americans are hunting not only Russians, but also citizens of other countries, who are often held without trial or investigation in the notorious “secret prisons” of the CIA (their existence was recognized by George W. Bush Jr. back in 2006), where they are subjected to torture and humiliation.

According to the experts from the NGO Amnesty International, after leaving the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 (and even after returning to the Council in 2021), the United States essentially continued its retreat from the international human rights system. Ignoring numerous requests from UN experts and denying them official trips to the United States have become a common line of behaviour. At the same time, Washington does not particularly hide the fact that it participates in UN human rights mechanisms only to the extent that it contributes to the advancement of its foreign policy objectives.

The United States did not abandon their practice of accusing “undesirable” international structures. In April 2019, for example, the United States revoked the visa for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The reason was the investigation of the war crimes committed by the American military in Afghanistan. The accusatory rhetoric against Court employees also developed “increasingly”. There were even direct threats to impose restrictions on them, as well as persecution in the United States.

Washington’s criticism of the WHO and the severance of relations with this structure are called by human rights defenders nothing less than undermining global efforts to protect people from the worst health crisis in the last 100 years.

The political confrontation between the two main political forces and their supporters, which the world has been observing in recent years, has escalated to the limit in the United States and has become the main cause of ongoing social unrest throughout the country.

According to the report by Pew Research Centre issued in November 2020, there is an exceptional political divide in such important areas as economic issues, racial justice, climate change, law enforcement, etc. in the United States.

The Presidential elections 2020 have sharpened differences. According to a survey conducted a month before the elections, roughly 80 percent of the registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about more than just politics and policies, but also about core American values, and about 90 percent in both camps worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the growing internal divisions in the United States and hit the most vulnerable categories of the population. Low-income groups lost their jobs (the number of applications for unemployment benefits exceeded 40 million) and were unable to pay for expensive treatment.

The deplorable state of affairs in this area is confirmed by the report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus for 2022 on the most resonant cases of human rights violations in certain countries of the world. It states, in particular, that during the spread of coronavirus infection, the US authorities were unable to provide their citizens with effective protection in the field of healthcare.

These conclusions largely echo the provisions of the report of Chinese experts on the human rights situation in the United States in 2021. It documents that despite having the world’s most advanced medical equipment and technology, the United States has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths worldwide.

Thus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, by late February 2022, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States had exceeded 78 million and the death toll surpassed 940,000. However, the US administration lacked effective plans to curb the epidemic.

Section 2. Economic rights and food security

Leading human rights centers have repeatedly highlighted the inadequacy of the US government’s efforts to redress the deepening social divisions and inequalities in the American society over the past 30 years, which have been exacerbated by the massive COVID-19 infection.

As stated in the report of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, the United States is currently the only developed country where millions of people continue to starve.

Moreover, Human Rights Watch found a high proportion of US citizens living in poverty and lacking access to safe work conditions, housing, education, health services, clean water and basic sanitation. They may be unable to participate in political life or vindicate their rights in court due to their poverty, and suffer discrimination in various spheres.

Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity experts believe that the US leadership deliberately inflates employment figures. According to their data as of February 2024, “functional unemployment” (includes the unemployed themselves plus those in search of work with full-time jobs and wages above the official poverty level ($25,000 per year) in this country was 24.9% of the total working-age population.

At the same time, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country’s labor market situation looks better in March 2024. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8% (3.9% in February), and 303,000 jobs were created in March (and the average for the last three months was 276,000 jobs). It is stated that this indicator has not reached the bar of 4% for 26 months in a row (record dynamics for more than 50 years). And the number of unemployed increased only slightly, to 6.4 million people.

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 41.2 million people (about 12.3% of the U.S. population) were food insecure and were participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2023. Of these, 13.8 million are children under 18 years of age (2020 data).

The pandemic has increased food insecurity among families with children and communities of color, who already faced hunger at much higher rates before the pandemic. Rural communities are especially hard hit by hunger. Many households that experience food insecurity do not qualify for federal nutrition programs and apply at their local food banks and other food programs for extra support.

Between June and November 2020, the poverty rate in America increased by 2.4 percent, from 9.3 to 11.7 percent, according to researchers at the Universities of Chicago and Notre Dame. A combined net worth of the richest 1% of Americans was 16.4 times that of the poorest 50%. In addition, during the pandemic, the collective net worth of USA’s wealthiest part increased. Income inequality is higher in the US than in other advanced economies.

Observers continue to draw attention to rising child poverty amid US administration decision to limit monthly child support payments to low-income families.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the official poverty rate in the U.S. in 2022 did not change significantly from 2021, but there was a doubling of the child poverty rate.

According to the China Society for Human Rights Studies’ 2022 report on human rights violations in the United States, the child poverty rate in the United States rose from 12.1 percent in December 2021 to 16.6 percent in May 2022, with an additional 3.3 million children living in poverty.

There has also been a decline in wealth among U.S. citizens over the age of 65.

These findings are supported by the results of public opinion polls. Thus, according to a Pew Research Center survey, 61% of Americans say there is too much economic inequality in the country today. 23% of respondents say the country has about the right amount of inequality and 13% say there is little inequality.

Social inequality is most pronounced for ethnic and racial minorities. The aforementioned studies by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame also show that the poverty rate among Black Americans has increased by 3.1%. According to USA Today, in the first quarter of 2020, the national homeownership rate among Whites was 73.7%, but only 44% of African Americans owned a home. According to ABC News, 15.7% of Hispanic Americans lived in poverty in 2019, more than double the rate compared to white Americans.

According to the Pew Research Center, the uninterrupted from the 1980s rise in economic inequality in the US is tied to several factors, including technological change, globalization, the decline of unions and the eroding value of the minimum wage. As a result, people in the lower rungs of the economic ladder may experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility. Inequality has negative impact on the political influence of the disadvantaged, on geographic segregation by income, and on economic growth itself.

The China Society for Human Rights Studies Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2021 states that the elderly’s rights to life are flagrantly violated in the US. American politicians declare that the elderly could sacrifice for the country and that the national economy is more important than the lives of the elderly. The report also notes that the vast majority of US COVID-19 deaths have been among people aged 65 or older.

According to the Belarussian Foreign Ministry’s 2022 Report “The Most Resonant Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries of the World,” the US government fails to provide the population with adequate housing as part of the right to decent standard of living. The number of homeless people in the US is astonishing. On 7 December 2021, the Washington Post reported that “homelessness is one of the United States’ greatest current challenges, no matter the region.” On 19 December 2021, the New York Times echoed it and reported that in San Francisco, one in every 100 residents is homeless.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of homeless people in the country reached a record high of 650,000 in 2023. The number of people living in shelters, on the streets, in tents or in cars increased by 12% in the country compared to 2022. 40% of homeless people in the U.S. are African-Americans, and a quarter are elderly. There has also been a significant increase in homelessness among people of Hispanic origin.

The increase in homelessness is mainly due to rising rents. This was confirmed in an interview with NPR’s Jeff Olivet, chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, who said that there are “simply not enough homes in the U.S. that people can afford.”

Experts at the National Alliance to End Homelessness believe another reason is the influx of migrants. In their opinion, in order to solve the problem, the US authorities should make it easier for migrants to find jobs and speed up the processing of asylum applications, as well as provide more support in renting housing.

Despite the underlying contradictions in American society, the US continues to declare itself a global leader in human rights protection. However, Washington is in no hurry to expand its international legal commitments in this area.

Of the 14 core international human rights treaties categorized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United States is party to only five. These are the following treaty instruments: the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (2000), the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (2000), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). For comparison, Russia and the Republic of Belarus are parties to 9 treaties.

Section 3. Racial, national and religious intolerance. Discrimination. Excessive use of force by the police

The United States faces rise in racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of similar discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. The problem remains a weakness in Washington’s policy. To attract voters, the United States administration and the entire party of Democrats have made combating all forms of intolerance a priority.

The White House conducted a national event called United We Stand in September 2022, inviting survivors of various forms of violence and discrimination, human rights defenders, and local officials. The conference’s goal was to demonstrate a commitment to combat hate speech and advance “diversity” in line with a left-liberal agenda. The president and other prominent speakers made the support of various “minorities” a main point of their talks.

It is worth noting that, in American society, the issue of racism and racial discrimination has spread throughout all facets of social life. Human rights organizations indicate it with concern.

Citing the August 2022 findings of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) that the U.S. is not fully meeting its obligations to combat racism, experts from the NGO Human Rights Watch pointed to the need to implement a CERD recommendation calling on Washington to establish a commission to study the legacy of slavery and reparations proposals.

Local experts condemn particular US states’ laws prohibiting school curricula that accurately depict historical racial practices in the country.

Representatives of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) asserted to have joined the Freedom to Learn campaign and offered it their unflinching support in a May 4, 2023, release on censorship in educational institutions. Several African-American rights organizations are in charge of the project, which was founded in 2019. Eliminating barriers to education on racism and other forms of prejudice, such as those affecting ethnic and sexual minorities, is the goal.

According to HRW specialists, the aforementioned derogatory policy is observed in 36 states, including the state of Florida.

The human rights defenders declare that one of their goals is to ensure, as far as possible, the implementation by local authorities of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. First of all, in the field of education and culture, recall the call of the CERD that monitors compliance with this international treaty to take effective measures to include chapters on the history of peoples of African descent in textbooks. They also encourage the creation and distribution of printed materials on this subject as well.

The situation of respect for the freedoms of people of color has become more acute. Human rights defenders have been noting cases of discrimination against African and Asian Americans as well as Latinos, which are particularly prevalent in law enforcement, healthcare and social spheres.

Black and Asians face discrimination in the justice system, particularly in criminal justice, in the US. Black people in the United States are incarcerated at several times the rate of White people.

According to opinion polls, 32% of African Americans and 21% of Asian Americans live in fear of racially-motivated attacks.

The political rhetoric often plays on racist tropes relating to the trafficking in enslaved Africans, the history of lynchings, derogatory assessments, exploitation of people of African descent, and violence against them.

Sinophobia has increased in the U.S. since 2020 amid the widespread spread of the coronavirus: Asian Americans have been harassed and insulted in public places, not allowed inside public and commercial facilities, and on public transportation.

According to the report on the USA of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, one in four young Asian Americans has been the target of racial bullying.

According to the NGO Stop AAPI Crime, from March 19, 2020, to June 30, 2021, 9081 incidents were recorded, 4548 of which occurred in 2020 and 4,533 occurred in the first half of 2021. The majority (63.7%) were insults, 16.5% were intentional avoidance, 13.7% were physical attacks, 11% were workplace discrimination, denial of service, etc., and 8.3% were cases of insults on the Internet. A significant portion of occurrences happened in public places (31.6%) and in offices (30.1%) Women made up the majority, i.e. 63.3%, of all victims.

Experts continue to note an increase in the number of crimes motivated by racial, national and religious intolerance in the United States, which is facilitated by the prevalence of extremist and neo-Nazi groups in the country.

According to FBI data for 2022, there were 11,288 incidents committed because of various forms of animosity (in 2021 there were 1,530 and in 2020 there were 7,759). The majority of them (59.1%) were motivated by rejection based on race, ethnicity, or country of origin. Next comes persecution on religious grounds (17.3%), on the basis of sexual orientation (17.2%), and gender identity (4%). Of the 7,759 hate crimes committed in 2020, 4,939 were motivated by racial or ethnic hatred and 1,174 had religious overtones. A number of experts have expressed doubts regarding the accuracy and completeness of the provided data. The low number of law enforcement organizations that took part in the reporting is the cause.

In recent years, attacks on African Americans have increased from 1,930 to 2,755, and on people of Asian descent from 158 to 274. There were 773 attacks on white people.

Hate crimes have increased in the twenty largest cities. Increases in New York and Los Angeles have been 18% and 20%, respectively. African Americans continued to be the primary victims (63.2% of cases), followed by Hispanics (13.4%).

The unprecedented spike in crimes against citizens of Asian origin is evidenced by data from the California State University, San Bernardino, showing a 224% increase in offenses against Asian citizens in 2022 compared to 2021.

The unprecedented level of hate crimes against the Asian community in the U.S. is also cited in a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, which found a 339% increase in such crimes against people of Asian descent in 2021 compared to 2020.

These grim figures are complemented (and the upward trend is confirmed) by Voice of America, which reported that violent crimes against Asians in 2020 increased by 150% compared to 2019. There was a sharp increase in New York, from 30 to 133 incidents, and in San Francisco there were 60 incidents, compared with 9 the previous year.

Local media outlets (CNN, Houston Public Media, and Chicago Sun Times) have reported numerous cases of Asians being attacked in a number of American cities amidst absolute inaction by law enforcement officials.

According to a 2022 report on the United States by the China Society for Human Rights Studies, religious intolerance is on the rise in the country. According to the FBI’s 2021 Hate Crime Statistics, which were made public on December 15, 2022, a total of 1,005 religious hate crimes were reported in the United States in 2021, of which 31.9% involved anti-Semitic incidents, 21.3% targeted Sikhs, 9.5% targeted Islam, 6.1% targeted Catholics, and 6.5% targeted Christians.

The aforementioned China Society for Human Rights Studies’ 2022 report on the United States, which discovered a sharp rise in the number of hate crimes motivated by racial bias in the country between 2020 and 2022, also documents the rise in racism.

Human rights groups have pointed to an increase in hate speech against minorities against a backdrop of rising white nationalism and an increase in violent crime across the country.

Thus, according to a report by the NGO Anti-Defamation League, the number of mass murders linked to right-wing extremism (primarily the idea of white supremacy) has increased dramatically in the country over the past decade.

One of the USA’s largest racially-motivated mass shootings in 2022 is considered to be the May 14 attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in which an 18-year-old killed 10 people. The shooter had previously published a “manifesto” setting out his white-supremacist views. The text is full of intolerant statements, including claims that immigrants and Black people were “replacing” whites.

In March 2021, the killing of Asian women in Atlanta, Georgia, sparked nationwide discussion: an armed White man went on a shooting spree in spas that resulted in the death of employees and visitors.

On August 26, 2023, the 60th anniversary of the “March on Washington” (during which Martin Luther King gave his famous speech), another mass shooting incident occurred at a shopping mall located in one of the “black neighborhoods” of Jacksonville, Florida. Three African-American men were the victims of 21-year-old Jacksonville resident Ryan Christopher Palmeter, armed with a rifle and handgun. The rifle had a swastika painted on it.

Some time after the special services arrived on the spot, the perpetrator committed suicide. Police believe the incident was a racially motivated hate crime, as the shooter’s demeanor suggests he intentionally targeted victims based on their skin color.

This latest racially motivated incident exacerbated an already fierce debate in American society.

Immediately after the incident, President Joe Biden said that Americans “must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.”

In this context, Vice President Kamala Harris, emphasizing that the country is living in an “epidemic of hate,” said federal agencies are treating what happened as an act of “domestic violent extremism.” The latter phrase (in some cases the word “terrorism” is used) is the legal definition enshrined in the infamous Patriot Act of 2001 and subsequent documents enacted after the September 11 attacks that have extremely restricted the rights of Americans. A 2020 Department of Homeland Security circular identifies “proponents of white supremacy” as the primary source of the threat of “domestic terrorism”.

In her statement, K. Harris touched on another integral topic for Americans. The Vice President called on Congress to ban assault weapons, and to enact “other common sense gun safety measures”.

Over the past few years, the statistics of shootings in the United States have been on the rise: the Jacksonville incident was the 24th in 2023. However, not in all cases the White House reacts so quickly and decisively.

For example, the main issue for discussion in American media space following the July 2023 shooting of five people in Philadelphia by Kim Brady Carriker was whether the shooter was transgender or just a transvestite (at the same time, the official police statement referred to the perpetrator himself in the plural, i.e. with the pronoun “they”). There was no official reaction from the White House, especially at the level of a personal statement by the two top officials.

Anti-Semitic sentiment is high in the United States. In his words, President Biden has made no secret of the situation, including neo‑Nazi expressions of swastikas on automobiles, attacks on synagogues, and Holocaust denial.

Institutional Islamophobia is widespread in the country, with 50 extremist anti-Islamic organizations and 61 anti-Semitic organizations operating.

Many cases of attacks on mosques and synagogues and their congregations have been documented. In 2022 alone, 3,697 unlawful acts victimizing members of the Jewish community were recorded.

According to sociological surveys, American Jews face constant fear of being targeted by crimes. 63% of respondents either experienced or witnessed racially motivated crimes in the last five years. 56% heard antisemitic comments, slurs or threats, while 9% of respondents were physically or verbally attacked.

According to the non-governmental organization Anti-Defamation League, the United States had a record level of anti-Semitism in 2021, with 2,717 cases of anti-Semitic attacks, harassment, and vandalism. In comparison to the number of instances recorded in 2020, this number is 34% greater. (2,024 episodes). It is the highest indicator since the ADL started keeping track of attacks involving Jews in 1979.

Attacks on Jewish facilities, such as synagogues and community centers, rose by 61%; incidents at schools rose by 106%; and incidents on college campuses rose by 21%. There were 14% more acts of vandalism and 167% more attacks on individuals motivated by anti-Semitism.

Among those participating in the January 6, 2021 riots (“storming of the Capitol” by ultra-right-wing supporters of D. Trump), persons with neo-Nazi symbols have been noticed: a man wearing a sweatshirt that read “Camp Auschwitz”, another wearing a T-shirt that read “6MNE” (“6 Million Not Enough”).

On February 26, 2020, four extremists operating in Seattle, Tampa, Houston and Phoenix were arrested on charges of conspiracy to endanger the lives of journalists and nongovernmental organization activists. The affected persons were Jewish Americans and African Americans. Images of Nazi swastikas, weapons and Molotov cocktails were sent to them by mail.

During the Israeli-HAMAS conflict in May 2021 there was a significant spike in the number of anti-Semitic attacks – an increase of 148% compared to May 2020. Their number rose from 127 two weeks before the beginning of the hostilities to 222 two weeks after it. Hundreds of anti-Israeli protests took place in dozens of cities across the country. There were assaults on Jews in major cities (New York, Los Angeles): 387 incidents were reported overall, 297 of which occurred after May 10, when the conflict officially began. Law enforcement officers intensified patrols in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.

Anti-Semitic incidents included an attack by a group of people carrying Palestinian flags on Jews dining outside in Los Angeles, aggression against Orthodox Jews in New York, and the desecration of a synagogue in Alaska with Nazi symbols. Pro-Palestinian protests and acts of vandalism in synagogues were also reported in Arizona, Illinois, Florida and New York, as well as in Salt Lake City, where an unknown person painted a swastika on the door of the synagogue.

On February 24, 2021, a memorial to the victims of the Jewish genocide was vandalized in Oklahoma, and on March 31, 2021, a Jewish family with a young child was attacked by gunfire in New York City.

Another shocking incident occurred in Florida on 26 March 2021. A car belonging to a Holocaust survivor was marked with swastikas.

In January 2021 journalists from CBS television reported that there had been more than 2,100 incidents since 2016, in which members of the diaspora were assaulted or insulted, or in which their property was vandalized.

Section 5: Right to Life and Right to Bear Arms

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. However, their availability, flawed legislation, and negligent attitude towards the mental health of citizens have resulted in an increasing number of firearms-related victims every year.

The US leads the world in the number of firearms per capita with 120.5 guns per 100 inhabitants – about 390 million firearms in 2020. Ten years ago, that number was 88 firearms per 100 people, which was already far higher than in other countries around the globe.

According to the China Society for Human Rights Studies’ 2022 report on human rights violations in the United States, Americans make up less than 5% of the world’s total population, but own 46% of the world’s total stockpile of civilian firearms.

The number of federally licensed gun dealers is 71,600. This indicator has increased over the past five years by by 2,000.

The rate of gun purchases accelerated between 2020 and 2021, with 5 million new gun owners compared to 2.4 million in 2019. In 2022, the number of new gun owners in the United States was 4.2 million.

A study published in February 2022 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that 7.5 million American adults – about 3% of the population – first purchased a gun between January 2019 and April 2021.

According to August 2023 survey by the Pew Research Centre, four out of ten American adults admit to owning a firearm in their household, including 32% of those surveyed personally owning one. Personal safety tops the list of reasons for gun ownership (72% of those surveyed). This is followed in percentage terms by hunting (32%), sport shooting (30%), gun collecting (15%) or work (7%).

In a Gallup poll conducted in August 2019, gun owners were most likely to cite personal safety or protection as the reason for owning a firearm (63%). Other reasons included hunting (40%), non-specific recreation or sport (11%), their gun was an antique or family heirloom (6%) or the gun was related to their occupation (5%).

Along with the increase in gun trafficking, the number of gun-related incidents is also increasing.

According to the China Society for the Study of Human Rights report on human rights violations in the United States in 2022, America’s gun homicide rate is eight times higher than Canada, 13 times higher than France, and 23 times higher than Australia.

There were 647 mass shootings in 2022 (693 in 2021, in 2020. – 611, and 417 in 2019). Mass shootings in the United States are defined as an incident in which four or more victims were shot or killed.

As of 6 December 2022, there were 622 mass shootings in the USA. The major were the incidents on 14 May at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where an 18-year-old perpetrator killed 10 people on the ground of racial hatred, and on 24 May at a primary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 pupils (ages 8 to 11) and two teachers. Other episodes occurred on 3 April in downtown Sacramento, on 5 April in Corsicana, Texas, and on 23 January in Milwaukee, each with six people killed. On 19 March, one person was killed and 27 injured in a shooting at a car dealership in Dumas, Arkansas.

In 2022, shooting incidents in the United States have claimed the lives of more than 44,300 people.

In the first half of 2023, there were more than 260 incidents in the United States. Thus, on 25 June, at least three people were killed and five others were injured in a shooting in a car park in the U.S. city of Kansas City (Missouri). Some 29 people were injured on 18 June in Willowbrook, Illinois, and nine citizens were injured in San Francisco, California, on 10 June. On 6 June, 2 people were killed and 13 others injured by an unknown gunman on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. On 29 May, about 9 people were injured in Hollywood (Florida). The previous day, three people were injured in a nightclub car park in Fort Worth, Texas. As a result of several incidents with the use of firearms on 27‑28 May in Chicago (Illinois) killed at least 8 people, 26 were injured of varying degrees of severity. On 28 May, a fatal shooting occurred during a Memorial Day motorbike rally in Red River, New Mexico. On 23 May, four people were victims of a shooting at an apartment building in Nash, Texas. On 15 May, at least three people were killed in Farmington, New Mexico.

In March 2023 alone, at least 57 people have died in 38 mass shootings in the U.S., with another 133 injured. As of 7 December 2023, at least 40,167 people have died in the US, an average of almost 118 deaths each day.

According to Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a US‑based NGO that collects daily information on armed incidents in the country from 7,500 sources, between January and 18 December 2023, at least 4,344 people were killed by gun violence in the United States (by comparison, more than 15,000 people were shot dead in the United States in 2019, and as of the end of May 2021, the total number of people killed in such incidents was 17,147).

In the first quarter of 2023 alone, there were at least 128 mass shootings in the United States – more than the number of days. A total of 604 incidents involving firearms occurred in 2023, 10 of them in educational institutions. 746 people were killed and 2,442 were injured.

In the first two months of 2024, there have already been more than 60 tragic incidents. If we look at a map with the locations of these incidents, the bloodiest picture is in the states adjacent to the East Coast of the United States.

Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents between the ages of 1 and 19. In these incidents, 1,338 teens and 286 children were killed.

Over one thousand firearms incidents have been reported on U.S. school campuses since 2018, significantly more than in any similar period since at least 1970, with 273 people killed or injured in 303 incidents on school campuses in 2022 alone.

Between 2013 and 2022, the rate of firearm-related deaths among children and adolescents increased by 87%. In 98% of educational institutions, students were taught how to behave in the event of an unknown person with a gun.

According to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2022, 48,117 people died from firearms (that is, an average of one every 11 minutes), 26,993 people died from gun suicides (in comparison, in 2020, a total of 45,222 people died from gunshot wounds as a result of homicide or suicide). The number of firearm deaths increased 21% from 2019. Mass shootings and homicides with firearms usually attract more media attention, but statistics show that most episodes of firearms use are suicides.

Data collected by the FBI showed that firearms are involved in a quarter of violent crimes and 60% of murders. Approximately 8,500 hate crimes per year against national, religious and other minorities are committed using a weapon.

Amnesty International, after reviewing the latest available official data on deaths from gunshot wounds, came to the disappointing conclusion that over half of the deaths in the country (58.5%) were in the Black population.

At the same time, a number of experts note that representatives of ethnic minorities in America take part in shootings themselves. According to the NGO Gun Violence Action Fund, 37 percent of homicides are committed by African-Americans aged 15‑34.

Notably, there is no federal prohibition on the purchase of guns, shotguns or other such weapons in the US for people with a criminal record for any minor crime.

As the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), an NGO, points out, while mass shootings do not make up the majority of gun violence in America, their impact on communities and residents is clear. Incidents such as the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Yuvalde, Texas, continue to plunge cities into mourning and have led to repeated calls for reform of the firearms system.

Gun violence is on the rise at the same time as the number of gun owners is increasing, according to a 2022 report by the Chinese Society for the Study of Human Rights on human rights violations in the United States. The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), shows that weakened gun control in the United States has led to a simultaneous increase in gun ownership and mass shootings. The United States leads the world in the number of gun owners, as well as gun homicides and mass shootings. According to the report, gun violence has become an “American disease”.

Another issue linked with gun violence is that, at times, American law enforcement officers resort to the use of force and firearms as well as other weapons or to brutal treatment even if there is no real and immediate threat to their lives by suspects. Racial profiling is closely tied with this problem since police abuse of power disproportionately impacts non‑White members of the US society.

Human rights activists point to a lack of social programs for survivors of such violence, as well as serious problems with the system of financial compensation for victims. The high cost of psychological help in the United States makes it impossible for those in need to turn to specialists.

Human right defenders in the US continue campaigning for tougher regulations of acquisition, possession and use of firearms. According to Amnesty International, the NGO Amnesty International, the requirements to undergo special training for potential purchasers of firearms are insufficient. Additional acts aimed specifically at preventing violence in “at‑risk groups” need to be developed. And their efforts do pay off at times. Relevant legislation in a number of states has been adopted.

Since 1 January 2019, the minimum age to buy arms in California increased from 18 to 21 years. Still, there are exemptions to the rule, i.e. military personnel, law enforcement officers, individuals with unexpired hunting license. The Bill puts a lifetime ban on gun ownership or possession for individuals convicted on or after 1 January 2019 for domestic violence. Similarly, the legislation prohibits individuals who were admitted to a mental health facility more than once within a one-year period from owning a gun. To apply for a California gun license one has to undergo mandatory 8‑hour firearm training. As of 1 July 2019, it became mandatory for firearms sellers to check buyers with the US Department of Justice registries to ensure there are no bans on such transactions.

In Illinois, to prevent incidents with the use of firearms, there is a system of temporarily (from 2 weeks to 6 months) seizure of guns from someone determined to be a danger to the public. A relative, representative of a religious community, employee of an educational institution or employer could now petition law enforcement for such a restriction against an individual.

Still, various experts and lawyers believe that there are not enough legal measures in place to help end gun violence. The administration is expected to adopt a federal legal act restricting gun ownership and protecting the right to life.

An August 2023 Pew Research Centre poll found that Americans increasingly say gun violence is a serious problem. 60% of those surveyed believe gun violence is a big problem in the country, 23% said it is a moderately big problem, and the rest are of the opinion that it is either a small problem (13%) or not a problem at all (4%).

According to the same Pew Research Centre. According to the same Pew Research Centre, a majority of Americans are in favour of addressing the problem at the federal level. This opinion was expressed by 81% of respondents from the Democratic Party and 38% from the Republican Party. 58% of respondents were in favour of tougher laws regulating the issue, while 62% of Americans believe that gun violence will increase in the next five years.

A number of states continue to remove restrictions on the free carrying of firearms. In June 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorsed a law that allows state residents to carry firearms without a license or training. A similar law was passed in Georgia on 12 April 2022.

In 2022, President Biden proposed new restrictions on access to firearms to address violence ranging from rising homicide rates in some major cities to mass shootings. It would raise the age limit for purchasing firearms from 18 to 21, and tighten background checks on potential buyers.

Great public resonance was caused by the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of the “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA, Bruen)”, issued in 2022, which found unconstitutional the previously adopted law of New York, restricting the right of citizens to carry weapons in public places such as hospitals, schools, bars and stadiums. Previously, citizens wishing to obtain a licence to concealed carry weapons had to prove an objective need to do so. The Supreme Court found this requirement contrary to the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that the right of citizens to bear arms “shall not be infringed”.

According to the China Society for Human Rights Studies’ 2022 report on human rights abuses in the United States, the decision has led nearly half of US states to loosen restrictions on carrying guns.

The report found that serious crime continues to rise. On 11 September 2022, USA Today reported that homicides in Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) member cities increased by 50 percent in the first half of 2022 and aggravated assaults increased by about 36 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

According to The Wall Street Journal, as of September 2022, New Orleans’ murder rate is up 141%, shootings are up 100%, carjackings are up 210%, and armed robberies are up 25% compared to the same period in 2019. According to Fox News statistics, since June 2021, New York City’s overall crime rate is up 31%, theft is up 41%, robberies are up 36%, and the number of felony victims is increasing by about 1,000 per quarter. According to a CNN (CNN) poll dated 8 June 2022, 72% of Americans were dissatisfied with the country’s policies to reduce or control crime.

President Biden calls the situation an “epidemic”. He calls on Congress to implement legislative initiatives to tighten control over firearms. Biden says most Americans want lawmakers to take reasonable steps to curb violence. However, he says, “too many Republicans are fulfilling the requests of gun manufacturers rather than their constituents.”

At the same time, on 14 May 2023, the President approved a number of initiatives aimed at preventing shooting incidents. In particular, they focus on increasing cooperation between federal and local authorities, ensuring more intensive data sharing, conducting background checks on people who purchase guns.

The seriousness of this problem has long been highlighted by UN human rights treaty bodies. In particular, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) and CERD have noted with concern the continuing high rate of gun-related deaths and injuries in the US, and the disproportionate impact of such incidents on ethnic minorities, women and children. The HR Committee highlighted the discriminatory nature of the Stand Your Ground legislation, which, according to the Committee’s experts, is used to justify exceeding the limits of necessary self-defence in violation of the US authorities’ duty to protect life.

Section 11. Protection of personal data. Surveillance of citizens

In 2013, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the breadth of US government surveillance shocked the world. The public has learned about the NSA’s PRISM and Upstream programs, in which the NSA works closely with Google, Facebook, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), and Verizon Communications to conduct mass surveillance of Americans’ international communications and obtain their personal data.

Intelligence officials also admitted that the NSA had for years been secretly collecting records about virtually every American’s phone call – who’s calling whom, when those calls are made, and how long they last. In addition, whistleblowers and media reports revealed that the NSA was conducting bulk surveillance abroad, without any judicial oversight whatsoever, under an authority known as Executive Order 12,333. In 2013, it was reported that the CIA paid USD 10 million a year in order to gain access to AT&T’s call data.

In September 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA’s mass surveillance program violated the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, one of the most sweeping surveillance laws ever passed by Congress, was in effect in the United States until the end of 2023. The Act essentially gave the United States government and intelligence agencies unlimited authority to conduct extensive surveillance of foreign government officials and American citizens in contact with them, including phone calls, text messages, emails, social media posts, and web browsing.

A bright illustration of such practice is discovered intelligence abuses during wiretaps of conversations between officials of Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian representatives. It is first and foremost about “declassified” conversations between former National Security Adviser to the US President and Russia’s ex-Ambassador to the United States (transcripts of conversations in 2016-2017 intercepted by the US intelligence community.) At the same time, Trump has publicly announced his intention to veto a number of surveillance programs under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, citing “massive abuses” of the law by intelligence agencies. In this regard, it is also worth recalling the scandal that broke out in 2015 in Germany, when German journalists revealed the fact of wiretapping by US intelligence agencies of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

US intelligence agencies continue to use electronic surveillance mechanisms without control on both foreign nationals and Americans to obtain information on citizens’ contacts via e-mail, social networks, and messengers. There are systematic violations of statutory surveillance procedures, including improper disclosure of information to third parties, failure to duly notify the court whose approval is required, providing unverified information to courts, etc.

Journalists, lawmakers and NGOs continue to draw attention to numerous violations of legal norms on the protection of personal data by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Human rights activists emphasize the systemic nature of the violations, calling the existing practice of controlling the electronic communications of Americans in the country a grave threat to constitutional rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. Members of national and religious minorities, including African Americans, Asians, Muslims, etc., are noted to be particularly affected by the actions of the intelligence services.

During the surge of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, for example, police collected social media data to identify protesters. For example, Dataminr, a monitoring company, used its Twitter connection to help law enforcement geolocate protesters during rallies in the summer of 2020, allowing police to track and disrupt events.

Dataminr also alerted the U.S. Marshals Service (a federal law enforcement agency that is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice) about locations for anti-abortion demonstrations in 2022.

Amnesty International notes that mass surveillance is not only a violation of the right to privacy, but also a threat to the work of the organization itself, which works to expose human rights violations around the world. Amnesty International’s research is based on confidential sources. By sharing stories, witnesses to human rights violations and victims put themselves at risk of being exposed and punished. According to the NGOs, the government is illegally conducting surveillance on researchers, activists and victims, with the potential for more human rights violations.

In December 2020, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General initiated an internal review after it was revealed that the Federal Customs and Border Protection (FCPB), under the Department of Homeland Security, was purchasing citizens’ personal information from third-party commercial companies. According to Vox, citing the Wall Street Journal, the FCPB, in particular, used cell phone movement data illegally obtained from Venntel to track the movements of Americans and foreigners across the State border.

In addition, in June 2020, the Wall Street Journal learned that in 2017‑2018, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service also bought personal data from Venntel, X‑Mode, and Babel Street to circumvent current laws, allegedly hoping to use it to combat money laundering, organized crime, and drug trafficking. This information received wide publicity only a few years later – during a briefing by the leadership of the Internal Revenue Service for the office of Senator Ron Wyden.

Human rights organizations and journalists have repeatedly pointed to the lack of a legal document in the United States that contains detailed, clear rules for when competent authorities can gain access to citizens’ personal data, including their personal correspondence.

On December 22, 2023, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was extended until the end of April 2024. This section allows U.S. intelligence agencies to access the emails and phone records of Europeans and to conduct surveillance without a warrant on individuals who are outside the United States but use U.S. electronic services. By doing so, intelligence gains data used to fight international terrorism.

Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), including Section 702, were enacted in 2008. In early 2018, Section 702 was extended by Congress for six years, until the end of 2023. Recently, there have been discussions about expanding the scope of this section, in particular, expanding the list of companies that can be included as U.S. agencies. A number of U.S. policymakers have proposed making Section 702 permanent.

Despite the above flaws, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan called Section 702 the cornerstone of U.S. national security. According to him, “this authority is an invaluable tool that continues to protect Americans every day and is crucial to ensuring that U.S. defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies can respond to threats from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, nefarious cyber actors, terrorists, and those who seek to harm our critical infrastructure.”

At the same time, representatives of local NGOs urge parliamentarians to revise the current rules to take greater account of the right to personal data protection.

Human Rights Watch notes in its 2019 report that information from individuals’ electronic devices is often used by law enforcement without court orders, allegedly to “prevent” crimes. Based on the content of users’ correspondence, law enforcement officers decide to open investigations. Courts, on the other hand, deny requests for disclosure of investigation methods, guided by the provisions of laws on the possibility of making such information private. Thus, the accused are deprived of the opportunity to challenge the illegal surveillance installed thereon. This leads to a violation of the constitutional right to a full trial.

Among other things, police in the United States practice surveillance of citizens with criminal records. The nominal purpose of surveillance is to prevent recidivism and reduce crime in certain areas. In practice, the surveillance of citizens has no legal basis and is carried out without relevant court orders and warrants from higher law enforcement agencies.

Collection of personal data (including medical histories, information about one’s religious or political beliefs, etc.) by transnational corporations based in the United States has also been criticized. Human rights activists have found serious human rights violations in the use of collected information to increase the profits of “business giants.” It has been argued that legal entities thus control citizens and limit their right to freedom of expression (First Amendment to the US Constitution).

Over 50 human rights NGOs submitted an open letter to Google CEO to take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices and allow users to permanently uninstall the apps. According to human rights activists, many smartphones running on this operating system contain applications that are not visible, but at the same time carry out covert surveillance of the owners through the microphone, camera and geolocation data. Technical experts note that pre-installed apps are most often found in low-end phones. For example, researchers at the anti-virus company Malware Bytes revealed the existence of malware inside apps pre-installed on low-end smartphones sold to low-income Americans via the government-subsidized Assurance Wireless program. Experts believe similar apps are likely to be installed also on other devices subsidized by the US government.

Another cause for concern for the human rights community is the draft Lawful access to encrypted data act (LAEDA), introduced in the Senate in June 2020. According to the developers, the bill aims to ban encryption algorithms in mobile devices and applications, as well as to introduce obligations for Internet companies to assist law enforcement agencies in accessing encrypted information. In fact, according to experts, the document would threaten the privacy and security of users’ personal data, since it legitimizes the practice of intelligence services to hack into cell phones and read users’ personal data. Another danger of the draft is that the ban on encryption gives attackers access to users’ personal information.

The systemic abuses of USA intelligence agencies, which engage in widespread mass surveillance of citizens, also show signs of racial profiling.

The use of cameras with face recognition technology (FRT) is a good example of these biases. According to the experts, about 25% of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States have access to such systems. Over half of all American adults are in a driver’s license database used for personality identification. A number of states use this technology not only on suspects in normal criminal cases, but also on people suspected of violating migration law. Human rights groups have repeatedly pointed to the inadequacy of such systems and their bias against members of racial and religious minorities, particularly African Americans. The high cost of the systems themselves and their maintenance and update have also been criticized.

According to experts from the NGO Amnesty International, such equipment discriminates against representatives of national minorities. Human rights activists demanded that the New York Police Department stop using FRT video cameras against ethnic minorities.

More than 7,000 volunteers participating in a global campaign called Ban the Scan helped rights activists identify more than 25,000 FRT‑enabled CCTV cameras in the city. AI researchers later compared their findings with the statistics on arrests and demographic data. As a result they found that, of New York’s five boroughs, the cameras were largely concentrated in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, which are the boroughs where law enforcement bodies’ officers stop and search primarily African American and Latino residents.

Commenting on the results of the research, Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, expert on artificial intelligence and human rights at Amnesty International, noted that the police’s indiscriminate use of such identification systems is in effect a digital version of the stop and frisk policy, which constitutes an infringement of citizens’ right to privacy, free assembly and equality, and facilitates police discrimination against non-white citizens. The use by the police of surveillance technology during protest events can also be seen as a deliberate attempt to intimidate participants, as it enables people who are exercising their civic rights to be identified, tracked and harassed.

Amnesty International alleges that the software often malfunctions when identifying people’s appearance. Jumaane Williams, the Public Advocate for New York City agrees with Amnesty International’s views. He has pointed out that community representatives and activists have for a long time been observing how law enforcement bodies are biased against ethnic minorities, and how the frequent malfunctioning of face-recognition software leads to wrongful arrests andinfringe on the rights of the citizens.

For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that in April 2021 Detroit resident Robert Williams was detained by the police for over 30 hours for alleged burglary. Police ran the store’s security camera footage through a facial recognition system, which produced a photo of R.Williams’ driver’s license. After comparing the photo of the intruder and R.Williams, it turned out that he was incorrectly identified by the security cameras and facial recognition system used by city law enforcement.

In July 2020, a similar incident occurred again in Detroit, Michigan. Michael Oliver, a Black man, was arrested for allegedly reaching into a person’s car. Facial recognition “flagged” him as a possible suspect. However, the perpetrator, captured on the footage, did not look like Michael Oliver, as the latter had tattoos on his arms unlike the person in the video. After a more detailed comparison of M.Oliver’s images with the real perpetrator, the police concluded that a misidentification had taken place, like in the abovementioned case of R.Williams.

Once Detroit Police Department’s use of facial recognition technology gained national attention after human rights advocates and journalists had brought to light the aforementioned cases, its chief admitted that the software misidentified individuals “96% of the time”.

Human rights defenders also found that facial recognition technologies were used not only by law enforcement agencies, but also other organizations. In particular, owners of rental properties were tracking their African-American tenants. In 2018-2019, tenants of apartments in the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City challenged in court the installation of facial recognition cameras by the landlord company. Residents learned about the introduction of the devices by accident, from the mailing of letters about repair work. As a result of public and media pressure, the company that owns the building announced in November 2019 that it would stop installing facial recognition systems in its buildings.

In July 2021, over 40 human rights NGOs called on the authorities to ban the use of facial recognition technology. It is alleged that law enforcement officials in New York City have unjustifiably used some 15,000 video cameras to track people’s movements.

To date, the US has enacted a number of laws governing the use of facial recognition. Law enforcement agencies have broader authority to use the system than other government agencies. In Washington, for example, law enforcement agencies are required to obtain a warrant or court order prior to using FRT, while other government agencies are required to provide public notice, hold a meeting, and publish a report. Before conducting a facial recognition search, Massachusetts and Utah require law enforcement to submit a written request to the State agency maintaining the database. Officers in Maine are prohibited from using a facial recognition match as the sole basis for a search or arrest. A New York bill would prohibit State agencies from retaining or sharing facial recognition images with third parties without prior court authorization.

A number of U.S. cities and states are phasing out rules adopted over the past few years and prohibiting or restricting the use of facial recognition software by local police (e.g., Virginia and New Orleans relaxed their use of this technology in 2022).

However, according to the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), U.S. intelligence agencies, primarily the FBI, routinely violate the law. According to the FISC report released in April 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the United States, there were found violations in conducting warrantless searches of email messages and other electronic communications of US citizens without getting the appropriate court authorizations. It is noted that this practice affects not only foreigners, but also American citizens. After this became public knowledge, a number of lawmakers demanded an explanation from the intelligence services.

Besides, the online portal Vox reports that government agencies regularly obtain personal information from US media companies about millions of users of social media, online platforms, and apps, in circumvention of the applicable law. It is argued that this practice is contrary to the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carpenter v. United States, which refers to the need to obtain court authorization to access personal data. The Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are among those accused.

Section 15. Persecution of Dissent

It should be noted that persecution of dissenters has been widespread in the United States since the Cold War. At that time, the authorities actively fought against supporters of leftist ideas (e.g., the infamous McCarthyism campaign). Now a new phase of the “witch hunt” is in fact underway in America. According to the estimates of international human rights organizations, there are now about 100 political prisoners in US jails, not counting the Guantanamo prisoners. Among them are fighters for the independence of the US Virgin Islands, activists for racial equality and Native American rights.

One of the leaders of the American Indian civil rights movement, Leonard Peltier, has been in prison since 1975 and is still imprisoned – according to some reports, more than 500 public figures and prominent personalities from the world of science and art (Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Dustin Hoffman, Sting, Yoko Ono, Nelson Mandela, etc.) have spoken out in favour of his release. He was denied parole in 2010, and the next hearing in the case could take place in July 2024, when political prisoner L. Peltier, who has been nominated six times for the Nobel Peace Prize, will be 79 years old.

In October 2023, the Florida authorities ordered all public universities to cease the activities of the Students for Justice in Palestine, which has over 200 chapters in the United States. The reason was their views on the situation in Palestine. State and university officials made false accusations of “terrorism” against the students. This decision violates the rights to freedom of speech and association enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

According to the 2023 report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus The Most Resonant Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries, former U.S. Congresswoman from the State of Hawaii T. Gabbard, speaking on 9 February 2023 at a hearing of a special subcommittee of the House of Representatives Legal Committee, stated:

“Unfortunately, we live in a culture of fear where many Americans are afraid to speak freely, to express their opinions, to engage in open dialogue and debate. They fear losing their jobs, being cancelled, or being charged with a crime.” This fear is generated by the government, through its people in the mainstream media and major IT companies, arrogating to itself the sole authority, “backed by the deadliest forces on earth, capable of striking down anyone they deem a threat…, to decide what is true and what is false, what is information and what is disinformation.”

To prove her point, Gabbard said that Meta CEO M. Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook had restricted the distribution of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop after talking to the FBI. Twitter, which did the same, recently apologised, admitting its mistake. The convenient interactions between White House officials, the FBI, and large IT companies are well documented. As a result, private companies, unconstrained by the First Amendment, are doing the dirty work of censorship that those in government have no legal right to do themselves.

Gabbard also said that 644 Twitter accounts, including her own, that FBI and CIA officials believed were allegedly linked to “Russian online influence activities” were actually anti-establishment voices from various segments of the U.S. political spectrum.

Since the beginning of 2024, the fight against dissidents and “enemy spies” among undergraduate, graduate students and professors from “countries dangerous to the security of the United States” has affected one of the most popular American states for foreign students – Florida. Local universities are banned from hiring teachers, researchers and considering applications from undergraduate and graduate students from seven countries: China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea (although there have never been students from North Korea in America). State universities are also prohibited from entering into partnership and exchange agreements with universities in these countries, with China and its citizens being the main victims of such restrictions.

Despite the objections of teachers and university administrators in Florida, who argue that this seriously reduces their competitiveness, the state has already passed a law that prohibits the admission of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as hiring employees from the above-mentioned countries. This law was approved unanimously in the local Congress, and talented graduate students and researchers, even those who have previously studied at Florida universities, will be forced to move to other states or will no longer consider the U.S. as a potential place to receive a quality education.

The leadership of the state of Florida has identified 12 universities that are also prohibited from receiving money to pay for students’ education. At the same time, such restrictions do not apply to those who are already living in the United States for one reason or another. However, university employees are prohibited from dealing with these students and faculty members, hiring them to work on campus, even though many of these students have been studying in Florida for years.

According to the Florida Department of Education, the most students from this “enemy seven” are from China and Iran. They apply more often than others to study in America. More than 700 students from “banned countries” are studying at the University of Florida alone.

It should be noted that back in 2018, the “China Initiative” (in fact, anti-China) was adopted at the level of the US Congress, according to which universities themselves were required to investigate the links of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students studying or planning to study in the United States with the Chinese Communist Party. There have been several instances where Chinese students have been denied visas or had their documents cancelled for this very reason when they had already applied to study at a U.S. university.

In 2022, this initiative was cancelled as “racist in its content”. And it was not only Chinese undergraduate and graduate students (including, incidentally, those of American origin) who protested against its introduction into the practice of American universities, but also natives of other Asian countries wishing to study in the United States.

Now in Florida universities when accepting documents, the commission is obliged to check the possible connection of the student and his parents with a foreign country or state structures (for example, the student’s father serves in the Chinese or Russian army). The stated goal is to protect the country and the state of Florida from alleged potential spies.

Similar measures will apply from the beginning of 2024 to American students who, for one reason or another, have previously lived abroad for more than three years. In this case, usually all documents submitted by students are sent by the university to state law enforcement agencies, which are directly subordinate to the governor’s office.

U.S. universities must now monitor and report to law enforcement agencies on both faculty and graduate students travelling abroad. This applies not only to the participation of the entire student body in conferences, but also to their leisure or tourist trips. And this is especially true for those who dared to visit one of the seven countries mentioned above.

All of this creates a tense environment both within the student body itself and within the faculty. Since all university administrators in Florida are unwilling to violate state laws in order not to lose their jobs and studies, there are no indulgences for anyone in this expulsion of the unwanted.

As a result, the same Chinese and Iranians are already looking for options to continue their research and studies in universities in other US states. In fact, the only way out for them now is to either leave Florida and its universities altogether, or to abandon their studies in the America that once so actively attracted them, replacing it with other countries where they can get no less quality education.

In January‑February 2024, the story about Chinese students who were interrogated while crossing the U.S. border at Washington’s Dulles Airport received wide publicity. Under the pretext of protecting national security interests, American law enforcement officers “tortured” the students for a long time with questions about their “political activities” and the nature of their scientific research, and offered to provide “information about the Chinese government” in exchange for their “release”. Upon refusal, the Americans cancelled the students’ visas, banned their entry into the country, and forcibly deported them.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, since the end of November 2023, at least 8 Chinese students with valid entry documents have been subjected to such interrogations at Dulles Airport alone and subsequently expelled to their home country without justification. At the same time, airport security officials blatantly induced their “victims” to co-operate (i.e., in effect, recruited) during the “verification measures”.

Beijing characterised such actions on the part of American law enforcement agencies as a violation of the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and an obstacle to interstate cultural contacts. Such discriminatory steps run counter to the San Francisco agreements between the leaders of China and the United States on the promotion and expansion of educational, student, youth, cultural, sports and business exchanges.

In this context, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin noted in a briefing for reporters on 31 January 2024 that the US likes to portray itself as an open and inclusive country with academic freedom where “science knows no boundaries,” but politicises academic research and uses it as a weapon, and overly broadly interprets the concept of national security to pressure and abuse Chinese students. According to Wang Wenbin, such actions undermine the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and basic human rights, cause a “chilling effect” and darken the atmosphere of humanitarian exchanges between China and the United States.

Section 16. Electoral Rights

According to the China Society for Human Rights Studies’ 2022 report on human rights violations in the United States, the political donation system poses a huge threat to American democracy and has effectively turned elections into a game for the rich. According to the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, “political bribery has undermined the US political system” and “now only oligarchs with unlimited political bribery decide who to nominate as presidential candidates and elect as president. The same goes for governors, senators and members of Congress.” In an interview with renowned political scientist Tom Hartman, J. Carter noted that

“American democracy is a fake no matter how much money is pumped into it by the oligarchs who control the country and the national media. The final nail in the coffin of the US democratic system was driven by the US Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) and on the constitutionality of the Federal Election Campaign Act in 2014. As a result of these decisions, candidates were allowed to pay for their competitors’ anti-advertising and the limit on the sponsorship of private campaign contributions was lifted. As a consequence, the US has become a marketplace where political decisions can be bought. At the same time, both politicians and oligarchs are happy with the situation.”

A similar point of view on the corruption of the American system was previously expressed by former Vice President Albert Gore and a number of authoritative political scientists.

The authors of the China Society for Human Rights Studies report on human rights violations in the United States for 2022, citing an analysis by Open Secrets, a research organisation advocating for greater transparency of funding in politics, noted that the 2022 US midterm elections were the most expensive in the country’s history, with a total cost of nearly 17 billion dollars. American parties spent $8.9 billion to promote candidates of national importance in the midterm elections for the U.S. Congress held on 8 November 2022. It was a record. The campaigns of candidates at the individual state level spent at least another 7 billion dollars.

Many Americans criticise their electoral system for being archaic and undemocratic and propose reform. According to a recent Pew Research Centre poll (June-July 2022), some 63% of Americans are in favour of this. However, 35% support the current order of the electoral institution.

According to the NGO Brennan Centre for Justice, state legislatures passed a record number of new restrictive voting laws in the first half of 2023. Legislation is classified as restrictive if it contains one or more provisions that make it more difficult for Americans to register, stay on the voter rolls, or vote than under current state law.

The authors of the Chinese Society for the Study of Human Rights report on human rights violations in the United States for 2022, citing a study published by the Brennan Centre for Justice on 26 May 2022, found that in 2021, 18 states passed 34 restrictive laws. In 2022, lawmakers in 39 states considered at least 393 restrictive bills that significantly affected voters of colour, creating a number of barriers to voting. Up to 200,000 voters could lose their registration after Arizona passed a law to document citizenship for voter registration.

Violence and intimidation are not uncommon in American elections. On 4 August 2022, the Global Organization to Combat Hate and Extremism published a report entitled “Americans’ Fears Suppress Participation in Democracy,” which stated that 40 percent of African Americans and 37 percent of Latinos are very concerned about being denied the opportunity to vote. Historically, groups such as the infamous Ku Klux Klan have prevented African Americans from voting through beatings, lynchings, and assassinations, creating a sense of fear that persists to this day.

Voters, particularly minorities, are concerned about security at polling stations. 63 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned” about things like violence, harassment and intimidation at their polling stations. The psychological shadow of lynching and the climate of fear was a big obstacle to voters exercising their right to vote.

Serious shortcomings of the US electoral system are also recorded in the area of voter identification directly at the polling stations: in many states it is allowed to vote practically without documents – on the basis of a receipt of payment for housing and utilities. At the same time, the work of international observers at polling stations is prohibited in many regions of the USA. Prosecutors openly warn: they are ready to arrest any international observer who tries to approach the polling station closer than 30 metres.

Another important problem of the American electoral system is the lack of an election observation institution. This, in particular, was pointed out by I.B. Borisov, Chairman of the Board of the Russian Public Institute of Election Law, member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, noting that “the United States does not have an institution of election observation as we do. We created the system taking into account international experience and taking into account the nuances and gaps that exist in the US electoral system”.

The lack of transparency in the electoral law raises even more questions against the backdrop of the unprecedentedly scandalous presidential campaign in 2020. The mutual distrust of the opposing sides served as a reason for D. Trump not to recognize the victory of J. Biden, who remained the illegitimately elected head of the United States for two-thirds of the conservatives’ supporters. The “war” for the White House culminated in the “storming of the Capitol” on 6 January 2021 by Trump’s far-right champions. After coming to power, the democratic administration with the hands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies launched a large-scale campaign to prosecute the participants in the “takeover” of the parliament, who were labelled “internal terrorists”.

More than two thousand charges have been filed with the FBI alone. Hundreds of permits have been requested through the courts to search and subpoena suspects, and some 500 people have been detained. According to the media, those taken into custody are subjected to torture and psychological pressure. With the help of such methods, as well as “brainwashing” of relatives and friends of the “terrorists,” the investigation seeks to obtain the “necessary” testimony.

According to the Belarussian Foreign Ministry’s 2022 Report “The Most Resonant Human Rights Violations in Certain Countries of the World,” the unprecedented scale of the criminal prosecution of participants in the events of 6 January 2021 on the territory of the Capitol in Washington, DC, demonstrates a politically motivated prosecution of opponents of the current government. Over 625 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds; over 75 – with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon; approximately 45 – with destruction of government property, and over 30 – with theft of government property. At least 270 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so.

Forty-five federal defendants have been tried and sentenced for their criminal activities. 19 have been sentenced to imprisonment.

The liberal public tries to portray Americans who express alternative viewpoints as spreading fakes and conspiracy theories. They are fired and made outcasts. They are publicly harassed and ostracized in social media. Internet giants have denied access to the social media accounts of Trump and members of his administration.

Republican lawmakers called the persecution of their supporters a “witch hunt.” According to Congressman Paul Gosar, “Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding US citizens, especially Trump voters. The FBI is fishing through homes of veterans and citizens with no criminal record and restricting the liberties of individuals that have never been accused of a crime.” There was widespread publicity about the August 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Florida estate, which he and his supporters characterized as political persecution of rivals. As follows from the opinion, posted in June 2023 in the electronic database of the court of the Southern District of Florida, the American law enforcement agencies brought charges against D. Trump and his assistant U. Nauta on 38 counts. In total, according to the opinion, FBI agents seized 102 documents, 17 of which were allegedly labelled “top secret”, during a search of the former president’s Mar‑a‑Lago estate in Florida in August 2022.

In 2016, Arizona passed laws limiting ballot collection and out-of-precinct voting. This created significant barriers to voting for residents of rural Native American communities. Approximately 90% of the state’s counties assign voters to a particular precinct based on their home address. Meanwhile, traditional community boundaries often do not coincide with State-established precinct boundaries. Combined with the location of communities in remote areas with dirt roads that become impassable during November elections, lack of Internet and cell phone coverage abound on reservation, and insufficient transportation, the new rule has made it much more difficult for residents of rural communities to access basic government services. At the same time, the decision to criminalize ballot collection adds one more hurdle for Native voters who often carry ballots for friends and family.

The Democratic National Committee and voters addressed to federal court in 2016 to overturn the new provisions of the law. They argued that the ban on ballot collection was the result of intentional discrimination by the state legislature and a violation of the Constitution, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote on the basis of race. However, Native voters were unable to assert their rights. On 1 July 2021, the US Supreme Court released its decision in Brnovich v. DNC, which upheld two voting policies in Arizona.

Section 19. Restrictions on the rights of citizens to a healthy environment

Washington continues its policy of repealing domestic regulation aimed at protecting and ensuring a favourable environment and national health.

Meanwhile, journalists are being attacked who cover the work of US government agencies charged with environmental regulation with a grain of salt.

In July 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to continue using chloropyrite. This pesticide is used to increase crop yields and, according to numerous studies, often leads to developmental delays in children. The EPA also relaxed the current rules regulating the circulation of coal slag, a highly toxic by-product obtained from coal mining and the second most intense source of environmental pollution in the United States. This legal norm has led to an increase in water and air pollution up to dangerous levels. Deteriorated health of the population near coal mining facilities was also noted.

In September 2019, the Administration repealed major regulations related to clean water standards. These standards used to set up a permissible level of pollutants and chemicals in water. Now, industrialists rely only on local legislation, which inevitably leads to a degrading environmental situation and significant limitations of citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.

Section 20. Violations of the rights of Russian citizens and compatriots in the USA

In recent years, there has been a distinct increase in Russophobic sentiment in the United States against the backdrop of anti-Russian rhetoric in the local officialdom and media. The situation remains extremely bleak with respect to the rights of Russian citizens.

The Russophobia propagated by the US government has had a negative impact on the people of Russian origin (the US is home to one of the largest Russian expatriate communities, with over 2.8 million people, or 0.8 percent of the total population, according to the 2020 census).

Thus, throughout 2021, about 300 Russian nationals who are permanent residents of the United States were persecuted by the American special services on far-fetched grounds, in reckless violation of their legal right to a national cultural identity and to freely maintain ties with Russia. As a result, some members of the Russian Community Council of the USA (RCC), including its Chair Elena Branson and Executive Secretary Sergei Gladysh, had to leave the country. In view of the situation, the RCC decided on 18 November 2021 to suspend its activities. In a statement, the RCC noted that the US authorities had created unacceptable conditions for the organisation to continue its work aimed at consolidating the community, promoting the Russian language and holding commemorative events.

Russian citizens were subjected to searches, interrogations and psychological pressure, and their documents and personal belongings, including electronic devices, were seized. These actions were carried out under the pretext of investigating the activities of the RCC without registering it as a foreign agent in the United States.

Earlier, in the US presidential election run-up, attempts had been made to threaten Russian citizens for “staying in touch” with the Russian Embassy and consular offices in the United States.

RCC members informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Government Commission for the Affairs of Compatriots Living Abroad and the Foundation for the Support of Compatriots Living Abroad of the complaints of US law enforcement agencies regarding the organisation’s public activities and asked to take measures to address them.

Russia has repeatedly reminded the US authorities that it is unacceptable to put pressure on Russian citizens and interfere with their right to maintain ties with their historical homeland.

Since Russia’s special military operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine and protect civilians in the Donbass region began on 24 February 2022, the anti-Russian sentiment, has increased in the US being actively promoted in the media and official rhetoric.

The US authorities have orchestrated a campaign to “cancel everything Russian”, which has now surpassed the fanatical anti-communist campaign of the McCarthy years.

The anti-Russian hysteria is now affecting people’s daily lives. Russian restaurants and cafeterias, cultural centres, Russian Orthodox churches and cemeteries have been vandalised.

For example, in May 2023, the Chapel dedicated to the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God in Washington was vandalised when the perpetrators poured paint over the fresco of St John of Shanghai and the walls).

Owners of shops and restaurants who used the word “Russian” in the name of their business or had Russian dishes on the menu were among the first to face hatred, mostly, in the form of hooliganism – offensive graffiti on walls and shop windows, negative reviews on websites, threats through anonymous phone calls, etc. It was enough to spread fear among restaurant owners. Thus, Varda M., owner of The Russian House restaurant in Austin, Texas, decided to rename her restaurant as simply “The House”.

Svetlana Savchits, who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1993 and owns the Sveta restaurant in Manhattan, New York, receives dozens of threats and insults every day, so she often has to call the police to report the abuse. Because of the harassment, Svetlana has changed the style of her cuisine to general Eastern European.

Igor Kochin, president of the Russian Youth of America, confirmed the rise of Russophobia in the United States in an interview with FAN. According to Kochin, negative attitudes are becoming more pronounced, even though “no Russians allowed” signs have not yet been put up in food and drink venues and “we do not employ Russians” has not yet been included in job advertisements.

In particular, Igor Kochin notes that Russian children are being pressured and bullied at school, while Russian adults are losing their jobs. People of Russian origin are increasingly losing their source of income, he says. Discrimination is illegal in the US, but proving harassment on the basis of national or ethnic origin is difficult. Because of so much negativity, many expatriates, even those who have achieved great success abroad, begin to think about returning to Russia. Not only the Anti-Russian narrative in the American society affects the attitude towards people of Russian origin in the workplace, but also breaks up families. There have been reports of Americans no longer talking to their Russian spouses, being estranged from them or even not letting them home.

Russian scientists have been excluded from US projects, and in many cases the local scientific community is concerned about the situation (for example in joint Arctic research projects). Things went so far that Congressman (D) Eric Swalwell called for “Russians to be kicked out of US universities”. The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) has refused to certify Russian doctors. US oncology associations prompted OncoAlert, a global network of oncology professionals, to expel Russia from its membership. The NGO Space Foundation changed the name of its first manned space flight annual event from Yuri’s Night to Celebration of Space.

Activists from the Russian-speaking diaspora are persecuted. Those compatriots who remain loyal to Russia are threatened with criminal prosecution for allegedly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act adopted as early as in 1938.

The US authorities have set out to work to erase all historical memory of fruitful cooperation between the peoples of Russia and America. In 2022-2023, the Russian Embassy was barred from the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery in Washington to commemorate the meeting between the US and Soviet troops at the Elbe in April 1945. US WWII veterans, who had planned to participate in the May 2022 and 2023 Victory Parade, were virtually forbidden to do it.

Russians and Russian speakers face highly aggressive attitude by some aggressively disposed members of the US Ukrainian community. Out of fear of being attacked, Russians, similar to Jews in a number of European countries, avoid speaking their native tongue in public places. Igor Kochin also noted in this regard the US police staff’s tolerance of facts of discrimination against Russian speakers. Our compatriots fear that this will mostly affect events held in support of Russia. Even before, nationalists used to approach pro-Russian activists in an attempt to prevent their events from being held. They even had confrontations with police. However, our compatriots believe that one cannot expect protection from US law enforcement agencies any longer.

Even the slightest relation to Russia may trigger physical violence. One example is the assault on a US blogger from Brooklyn by his Ukrainian neighbour; this was provoked by the fact that the man had the imprudence to unfold outside the flag of the Somalia battalion – a present mailed to him by his subscriber from the Donetsk People’s Republic.

For this, he suffered a blow on the face that chipped his tooth. The attacker pursued him for several blocks shouting racist insults. Charges have been already brought against him, including those of committing a hate crime, and a restraining court order against approaching the blogger has been issued. The latter actually has both Russian and Ukrainian origins.

In July 2022, the US Department of Justice entered on the sanctions list the independent non-profit organization Centre for Support and Development of Public Initiative – Creative Diplomacy and its president Natalia Burlinova personally, claiming that they “had acted or purported to act for or on behalf, directly or indirectly, of the Government of the Russian Federation” in violation of local foreign agents legislation.

In April 2023, US law enforcement authorities brought criminal charges against Natalia Burlinova for attempting to “recruit” American scientists and researchers to travel to Russia within the Meeting Russia programme, and the FBI officially put her on a wanted list. The activist was further put on the list of the notorious Mirotvorets website as “a person to be immediately detained and handed over to the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine or NATO countries.”

Such aggressive steps by the US authorities are yet another example of the blatant and rough pressure exerted on the expert, scientific and academic community, which calls for an adequate public and international legal response.

Many Russian speakers have faced harassment at work. They are often threatened, including personally, and suffer physical abuse from the hostile Ukrainian diaspora (for instance, for singing Russian patriotic songs).

The popular Rubic.us website published its readers’ stories of discrimination incidents they had faced. Cases of discrimination and aggression in respect of Russian children at schools, biased attitude towards and fault-finding with persons of Russian descent at work, especially on the part of company owners of Ukrainian origin, have been reported. The number of insults online and in social media has considerably increased.

The propaganda of Russophobia and its visible manifestations come to complete absurdity. After the onset of the Russian special operation, many shops, cafes, health centres, dry cleaners and other public places in the US began putting stickers with the Ukrainian flag at the entrance. Their employees often explain to Russian clients that by doing so they just avoid unnecessary discussions.

There have been attempts to substitute Russian culture with Ukrainian one. For example, the substitution of P.I.Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave for M.P.Mussorgsky’s Great Gate of Kiev in the repertory of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, and the launch of Ukrainian language courses to replace Russian language courses, not just to add to the list of foreign languages taught in a number of US universities.

Art historians and the management of Metropolitan Museum in New York labelled I.K.Aivazovsky, A.I.Quingi, and I.E.Repin as Ukrainian artists (though Aivazovsky was later recognized as an Armenian). Many in the US cultural community welcomed the new Russophobic trend. They likewise approved the re-labelling of Edgar Degas’s Russian Dancer as Dancer in Ukrainian Dress.

Concerts and exhibitions featuring Russian performers were cancelled across the US (including annual Pushkin evening readings held in New York).

On 24 February 2022, the management of Carnegie Hall announced that Russian conductor Valery A.Gergiev would not lead the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at three concerts. The performance of Russian pianist Denis Matsuev in a concert scheduled for 25 February 2022 was also cancelled.

Pieces by masters of Russian classical music were removed from theatre and concert programmes. The US authorities are persistently seeking disqualification of Russian athletes, coaches and referees from international competitions. Simultaneously, Russian cultural figures and athletes are exacted to publicly denounce “Russia’s policy in Ukraine”.

On 6 April 2022, the Boston Athletic Association, a non-profit association claiming promotion of healthy lifestyles as its primary purpose, announced its decision to deny Russian and Belorussian athletes – residents of the two countries – participation in the annual Boston marathon. However, non-residents are allowed to compete irrespective of their nationality. Until further notice, the organization refused to accept any sign of athletes’ relation to Russia and Belarus, including the use of their national flags.

At the same time, the US side has failed so far to provide all the reports required by the Russian competent authorities regarding the conditions of living and upbringing of Russian children adopted earlier (before the ban on adoption was introduced). Currently, communication and explanatory work continues on this issue with line institutions and agencies of the United States.

US authorities enthusiastically resort to the “false flag” tactic against Russia and Russians. This includes, first and foremost, providing large-scale military aid to the regime in Kiev and exerting pressure on NATO allies to make them take similar steps. Besides, sovereign states are overtly pressed in attempt to create a relevant negative image of the Russian Federation on the international scene.

Over and above interfering with the work of US authorities, transnational corporations openly impose their own interests on the country and society. According to a number of experts, the US leaders have fallen under the control of oligarchs over the recent three decades. In the past, corporations were dependent on large government-controlled banks, but now the largest multinationals independently mobilize capital and public resources for their own purposes. Government authorities hand out contracts and subsidies without any control from general public.

US politicians have traditionally been highly dependent on major companies. This is facilitated by the still confusing and opaque legislation in the field of election campaign financing, which often turns into a competition between business lobbyists promoting candidates that benefit them.

Modern US oligarchs, without a doubt, also include the owners of large Internet resources, including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube. It is noteworthy that on the eve of 2020 presidential campaign, they simultaneously blocked the accounts of Donald Trump and his supporters.

Basic freedom of speech norms do not apply to social media. Meanwhile, their coverage is total, which cannot but cause alarm or serious concerns over ensuring and protecting human rights. The most important communication platforms are under the political control of US elite, whose corruption has been clearly highlighted, among other things, against the backdrop of scandals related to the crisis in Ukraine.

This elite itself increasingly feels its impunity. Scandals involving Hunter Biden, the son of US President, would have destroyed his father’s career in another era – he received fictitious positions with huge salaries, built business schemes supported by the ruling circles of countries friendly to Washington (including Ukraine and Romania). Insider market trading by Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, would have ruined his powerful wife’s career, as well as the reputation of the entire party. Now US politicians are getting away with such things, because the moral and ethical principles that, at least declaratively, had served basis of US democracy for decades are being destroyed.

The uncontrolled global power, capture of new markets and lack of restraining factors after the collapse of the Soviet Union created a sense of permissiveness among the US elite. The practice of using economic instruments and information resources as coercive means along with military force is expanding.

Such approaches make the US understanding of democracy seem increasingly watered down and manipulative to the world community and contribute to a general discredit to democratic principles and values.

To be continued.

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