Police Brutality Against Faisal Reveals Fragile Human Rights Situation in the USA

On January 4 th 2023, Police gunned down a young man in Massachusetts. It was just another afternoon when the police received an emergency call and rushed to the location. Ultimately ended up killing the victim who needed help more than killing. The victim was Sayed Faisal, a 20-year-old Bangladeshi expatriate attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Faisal was the only child of his grief-stricken parents who migrated to the land of opportunity for a better life. But one afternoon changed all that as they lost their only son.

It is reported that Faisal was armed with broken glass and a Kukri knife- a basic utility knife popular in South Asia. Perhaps, he was experiencing a breakdown and needed to restrain only. But the police were quick to judge broken glass and Kukri knife as fatal weapons and decided to

shoot him that ultimately killing him. It seems the police judged so quickly because of Faisal’s race. Therefore, it is a racial incident and police brutality by white police officers.

The local Bangladeshi community also labeled the incident as racist and police brutality and demanded justice for their ‘young brother’. They have also held protests and demanded answers from the local mayor regarding the event. However, Faisal is not the only person killed wrongfully by the police in a racial incident. Instead, he is one of the many victims of police brutality or killing. Arguably, after all these years, the term “police killings” has become synonymous with the law- and-order situation in the US. According to the data of World Politics Review, the US is one of the top 10 countries with the highest number of police killings (1,099) in the world. In addition, Police Violence Report 2020, 1124 people were killed by police in the United States and only 16 cases were filed against the responsible officers. Despite obligations in international human rights law to investigate, prosecute and provide reparations for excessive use of force by state agents, 98.3% of killings by police from 2013 to 2020 have resulted in no accountability, unearths the report of US-based think-tank Mapping Police Violence.

Since racial inequities in the criminal justice system are deeply rooted in American history and penal policy, black people have long been the subject of purposefully discriminatory criminal statutes. A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that black Americans are 2.5 times more likely than white Americans to be murdered by police, and account for 31% of all deaths involving police. What’s more, the concept of “race” has been institutionalized to the point that it is now considered the “defining” feature in the American system. According to a Washington Post report, African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than double the rate of White Americans, which the UN has touted as a “vestige of slavery and racial segregation.”

While the US is hasty to denounce and rebuke human rights violations beyond its borders, its human rights record is definitely far from ideal and in some cases, beyond belief. Moreover, in 2021, the US detained more than 1.7 million migrants at its southern border, including 45,000 children. Violent law enforcement claimed 557 lives, the highest number since 1998, which more than doubled the previous year. Hence, given all these, it is imperative to ask if the US, a title- holder in pointing fingers at the human rights shortcomings of other countries, will take responsibility and address its dismal human rights record within its borders and beyond.

The cliche says that “history repeats itself” and it couldn’t be more accurate than the case of the US. Farcically, the “global policeman” stoked anarchists, formed authoritarian regimes and exported color revolutions in the guise of so-called democratization and human rights violations

across the world for its blatant self-interests. However, Washington’s so-called “leaseholds of humanity” in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia eventually backfired in the forms of the Capitol Riots, violent political protests, unsubstantiated claims of electoral irregularities and Black Lives

Matter Movement in its own land. Notably, the US is the only major world power that has failed to fully ratify or adhere to any of the significant human rights instruments introduced by the United Nations (UN) or other human rights bodies. Despite its claims of being the champion of international human rights, the US has failed to ratify crucial human rights documents, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – part of the International Bill of Human Rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and

the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). Groundbreaking research by Brown University’s Cost of War project estimates that the United States has spent $8 trillion on the worldwide war on terror, which has resulted in the deaths of over 900,000 people and the displacement of tens of millions.

Faisal’s death at the hand of the white police once again revealed how flawed and unequal the human rights situation in the US is. While the US is advocating for Human Rights and Democracy worldwide, it must address its systematic racism within itself. However, it is not the only issue that needs to be addressed. Instead, it is simply one of the many human rights issues. Lastly, the US must address its own Human Rights issues before lecturing the global South. Aziz Patwary is a British-Bangladeshi and a former World Bank Employee

From: Aziz Patwary

London, England

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