Tilottoma Rani Charulata
(tilottomarani99@gmail.com)
Although there are many human rights violations and ethnic violence in the USA, it is advisable to check on human rights situations in other countries in any event. The US ambassadors in different parts of the world, including Bangladesh, are busy with the idea of saving humanity or preaching human rights to developing countries. But the guardian of global human rights appears to be struggling lately at home. There are incidents of repetitive domestic gun violence in the United States. It seems that in the national sphere, the USA itself has questionable actions that go against human rights and tends to bypass the existing international laws and norms when it comes to its interests. The time has come for the United States to stop caring about other countries’ protection of democracy and human rights and instead concentrate on enhancing its domestic law and order.
In a modern, civilised country, no one wants incidents like murder, gun violence, or human rights violations to happen again and again. But gun deaths are rising horribly in the USA, and expatriates from different states are becoming major targets of this hate crime. Less than six months after the murder of a 20-year-old American citizen of Bangladeshi origin, Syed Faisal Arif, 42-year-old Abul Hasim, and 22-year-old Yaz Ahmed Ramim died in terrorist attacks in the United States, On July 18, a group of terrorists broke the window of Yaz’s car parked outside during work hours and tried to enter inside. When Yaz stopped them, a gunman fired at him, which took his young life. On July 23, another Bangladeshi individual lost his life in the United States, marking the second fatal shooting in five days. The victim, Abul Hashim, was shot during a robbery at his grocery store in the Casa Grande area near Phoenix, Arizona.
According to the information of the international media, CNN, there have been 407 gun attacks until July 24, 2023, which has increased several times over the previous period. Their report says that the number of gun attacks in the first six months (January–July) of any time in the past has exceeded the record. In 2021, there were nearly 400 gun violence incidents in the first six months, and the pace is only increasing. Advising others about human rights shows the United States’ failure to protect the lives of people on its own soil. Every day, someone loses their life to gun violence. According to the information provided by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organisation based in Washington, more than 24,000 people have faced gun deaths in the United States since the beginning of this year. Among them, 10,787 people were killed, and 13,596 people committed suicide using guns. Out of which 163 children aged 0–11 years and 858 young teenagers aged 12–17 years were killed,
It is clear from these statistics from the Gun Violence Archive that gun violence in the United States has taken a terrible form. However, this huge number of deaths includes not only gun attacks but also gun suicides. Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that most of the deaths during this period were suicides. Five percent of the world’s population lives in the United States, but 46 percent of the guns in the hands of the common man are in the hands of American citizens. The United States tops the list for both privately owned guns and mass shootings. According to one statistic, more than 1,000 people die each year in the United States at the hands of law enforcement agencies alone. Bangladeshi expatriates are not left out of these attacks. White police have not started investigating the killer of Bangladeshi youth Faisal, who was shot dead by the police in January this year, but he is still employed on the job. And the terrorist who killed Ramim ran away from the police in handcuffs. This is the human rights situation of the country that gave all human rights lectures to the world.
Martin Luther King’s lifelong dream was that the United States would be a nation without racism. For this, he has fought all his life. It is said that George Washington brought freedom to America, Abraham Lincoln gave democracy, and Martin Luther King civilised the United States. Under his leadership, black people got the same rights as white people, and white citizens got rid of the curse of racism! Then again, why do thousands of people die from gun violence every year because of racism? Why incidents like gun violence are happening continuously in schools, supermarkets, petrol pumps, restaurants, parks, or places of worship. Why do people take to the streets under the slogan ‘Stop Police Brutality’ in the US? Why are people repeatedly accusing the police of racist behaviour? Why do human rights only take a dual form on the walls of white and black?
Even though these questions are on everyone’s mind now, the United States, maddened by the addition of new imperialism, is busy violating human rights in other countries. Which country will have the Arab Spring, and which country’s natural resources will be seized by the new trap? After the futile Afghan war, when will Russia be able to open a successful store of its weapons and ammunition in Ukraine? But who will understand that thousands of people are being killed extrajudicially in their own country?
One gunshot after another has shattered the American Dream that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life and liberty and led people to reflect deeply on where US-style human rights are. Some US politicians have long treated the American people’s right to life with indifference. Faced with growing gun proliferation, they have done nothing more than indulge in empty talk and prolonged debates while pointing fingers at the human rights conditions of other countries.
It goes without saying that Bangladesh’s human rights situation is much better than theirs. There are logical reasons to question the right of the United States to speak on human rights issues. The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It killed millions of civilians. According to Brown University in America, at least 184,000–2,700,000 civilians died due to the American attack. The US later admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. According to research titled “Cost of War” by the American Brown University, 1,74,000 people were killed directly in the Afghan war. 47,000 of them were civilians. In the United States itself, the way black people are shot dead by the police without trial, strangled with boots on their necks, human rights itself cries out: We can’t breathe. Notwithstanding, America’s hands are full of blood, and the stain of human rights violations cannot be removed even if one pours all the perfumes of Arabia on those hands. Therefore, it is the demand of the time to avoid the human rights blabbering of protecting the interests of the United States in other countries and pay more attention to the protection of the human rights of children, teenagers, and foreign citizens in their own countries.