Some of the world’s worst regimes blasted America’s human rights record at a review session held by the UN Human Rights Council yesterday. Every one of the UN’s 193 member states is obliged to undergo the drilling by its peers once every four years.

Sudan took the floor to say it was “concerned about the situation of the human rights in the United States of America,” and it urged Washington “to eliminate any form of racial discrimination” and “to bring its legislation and laws in line with human rights obligations.”



Iran noted “our concern over the failure of the U.S. to close the Guantanamo prison,” and called upon the United States to “investigate torture allegations, extrajudicial executions and other violations of human rights committed in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, NAMA and BALAD camps and to subsequently close them.”

North Korea was “gravely concerned at the U.S. violations of human rights.”

Russia said that the human rights situation in America “has gravely deteriorated in the recent years.” Moscow called for “an independent and objective investigations of all cases of police arbitrariness” and for the United States to “investigate openly all cases of human rights violations against protesters”.

Pakistan expressed “serious concerns about the human rights situation in the U.S.” The Pakistani government recommended that the United States “combat racial profiling and Islamophobia on a non-discriminatory basis applicable to all religious groups.”

Maldives: “The U.S. should stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.”

The U.S. report was prepared by 14 U.S. federal agencies, in consultation with civil society groups.

Many other countries voiced legitimate concerns and offered constructive criticism about the state of human rights in the United States.

Almost all questioned the reluctance of the U.S. to ratify previously signed conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Many countries questioned America on indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, while additional concerns focused on issues of police violence, gender equality, the rights of migrants, and the use capital punishment at the state and federal level, which was addressed by Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

