Geneva: A UN committee has been urged to investigate the US federal government’s “gross violations” in the state of Minnesota, a prominent civil liberties organisation said this week.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it had sent an urgent submission to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), asking it to “investigate the US’s grave violations of its human rights obligations” in the midwestern US state.
CERD, which is composed of 18 independent experts tasked with monitoring how countries implement an international convention on eliminating racism, confirmed to AFP that it had received the ACLU submission.
ACLU asked the committee to urgently respond to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which saw the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.
The organisation charged that “federal agents have ignored basic human rights in their enforcement activity against Minnesotans, especially targeting Somali and Latino communities”.
“The Trump administration’s egregious crackdown in Minnesota is not only flouting the Constitution but also The request was filed under CERD’s early warning and urgent action procedure, which allows the committee to address urgent matters in between its regular sessions.
