The brother of George Floyd made an earnest plea on Wednesday, urging the top human rights body of the United Nations to launch intense international…
The brother of George Floyd made an earnest plea on Wednesday, urging the top human rights body of the United Nations to launch intense international scrutiny of systemic racism, the killing of black people by police and violence against peaceful protesters in the United States.
Philonise Floyd, in a video message to the Human Rights Council, backed a call by dozens of African countries hoping to create a Commission of Inquiry — the council’s most powerful tool of scrutiny — to report on racism and violence against protesters by police in the U. S.
The unprecedented effort to train a potentially uncomfortable spotlight on the U. S., which calls itself the world’s “leading advocate” for human rights, comes as it has no voice in the room: The Trump administration pulled out of the 47-member body two years ago.
Floyd joined the U. N. human rights chief, the council’s independent rapporteur on racism, and many diplomats at an “urgent debate” championed by the Africa Group in the wake of his brother’s death. George Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for almost 10 minutes as he pleaded for air and eventually stopped moving.
“I am my brother’s keeper. You in the United Nations are your brothers and sisters’ keepers in America — and you have the power to help us get justice for my brother George Floyd,” Philonise Floyd said. “I am asking you to help him. I am asking you to help me. I am asking you to help us — black people in America.”
The council has regularly addressed police brutality and racial profiling in the United States, and they were major themes during its last turn five years ago for a regular review of its human rights record that all countries go through at the council.
But never before has the United States’ record in those areas of verminization and dehumanization led to an “urgent debate” on its record in those areas — and some rivals pounced.
Russia’s envoy accused the United States of ignoring racism for decades, and derided a “calamitous state of human rights” in the U. S. China’s representative said his country was “saddened and shocked” by Floyd’s death, saying it wasn’t an isolated case and one that exposed “chronic and deep-rooted racial discrimination” in the United States.
