Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, July 18th, special feature: Ignorance, Discrimination, Ignorance-"American Human Rights" under the magnifying glass of the epidemic

　　Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Dingdu

　　The 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council closed in Geneva, Switzerland on the 17th. The issue of human rights in the United States received special attention at the meeting. For a long time, the human rights situation in the United States has been inferior, but it has acted as a "human rights defender". From time to time it wields a "human rights stick" to other countries and infringes on the human rights of other countries.

　　Ignoring people’s lives, discriminating against ethnic minorities, and ignoring international cooperation... This year, a new coronary pneumonia epidemic has left the United States with nowhere to go. The way the US government responds to the epidemic has continued to aggravate the long-standing problems of social tearing, differentiation between the rich and the poor, racial discrimination, and weak protection of the rights and interests of vulnerable groups in the United States. Thoroughly exposed.

　　"The image of'City on the Mountain' is moving away," the US "Diplomatic" magazine website wrote.

　　Ignorance-not all lives are lives

　　"U.S. anti-epidemic has become a state-approved killing." A recent report in the Washington Post was shocking.

　　The statistics of the new crown epidemic released by Johns Hopkins University in the United States on the 17th show that as of 22:35 on the 17th of Eastern Time (10:35 on the 18th of Beijing time), the cumulative number of diagnosed cases in the United States reached 3,641,539, and the cumulative deaths There were 139,176 cases.

　　As the country with the strongest economic and technological strength and the most abundant medical resources in the world, the United States received the early warning of the epidemic, but it soon became the hardest hit by the global epidemic. The number of diagnosed and dead cases is currently the highest in the world. Now, the new crown epidemic has surpassed heart disease as the number one cause of death in the United States. The number of Americans killed by the new crown virus exceeds the total number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War and Iraq War.

　　In the face of the epidemic, some American politicians ignored the people’s right to life and health, giving priority to election political and capital interests, neglecting the early warning of the epidemic, and delaying the best time to contain the spread of the virus; as the epidemic worsened, they did not pay attention to how to strengthen the epidemic prevention, but instead The issue of anti-epidemics has been politicized again and again, and “dumping pots” and looking for “scapegoats” have been repeated; when the epidemic has not yet been brought under control, they have ignored economic warnings from experts’ consideration for economic benefits and can’t wait to relax the epidemic prevention measures, causing the epidemic to rebound quickly again ... The self-interested short-sightedness, willful inefficiency, and irresponsible attitude displayed by the US government blame the seriousness of the current US epidemic.

　　In this "American tragedy", the elderly are ruthlessly abandoned, and nursing homes have become the places with the highest rate of infection and mortality of new coronary pneumonia in the United States.

　　According to the "New York Times" statistics, as of July 7, there were 14,000 nursing homes with new crown cases in the United States, reporting a total of more than 296,000 confirmed cases and more than 55,000 deaths, accounting for 10% of the total number of confirmed cases and deaths in the United States. 42% of the total number of cases.

　　However, some American elites do not seem to care. Ben Shapiro, the editor-in-chief of the "Daily Connection" news network of the American right-wing media, once declared in an interview show: "If an 81-year-old grandmother dies in a nursing home, although this is tragic, the life expectancy of Americans is 80 years." Texas Deputy Governor Dan Patrick has also expressed support for "risk to restart the American economy" at the expense of the lives of older people.

　　In addition to the elderly, there are disadvantaged groups such as working people, African Americans, Hispanics, and the poor. The British "Independent News" website commented that the United States always puts human rights on its lips, but ignores its human rights obligations and blatantly ignores people's lives. The Huffington Post website quoted Yale University epidemiologist Greg Goncalves as saying that the poor performance of the US government in responding to the epidemic was "very close to the tacit approval of the Holocaust."

　　Francis Fukuyama, a well-known American political scholar, pointed out that the spread of the epidemic and the large number of avoidable deaths are "the price of American political decay." The epidemic should have become an opportunity to put aside differences and show unity, but it further deepened political polarization. "Politicians see the epidemic as an opportunity to seize power and partisan interests at the cost of the lives of many Americans."

　　Discrimination-a prejudice that can't breathe

　　"I can't breathe..." This was the pleading of American African-American man George Freud before he died. On May 25, he died after being kneeled on the knee by a white policeman for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, triggering a global outcry and prolonged mass protests across the United States. Shortly before the incident, Freud's restaurant was closed, and he became a member of the tens of millions of new unemployed troops in the United States.

　　Looking back at Freud's life, from illness to unemployment to death, his misfortunes are both the result of long-term systemic racial discrimination in the United States and the epitome of the increasing suffering of American minorities during the epidemic.

　　"There is nothing better than the life and death of this epidemic to reflect the difference in skin color in the United States." The Financial Times pointed out that African Americans and Latino Americans are more likely than whites to engage in the necessary to maintain social operations. Work, the poverty rate and the probability of suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and other diseases are higher, and are more susceptible to new coronavirus.

　　According to data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on June 25, the infection rate and lethal rate of New Coronavirus among African-American residents is 5 times that of whites and 4 times that of Latinos.

　　Statistics show that among Americans aged 18 to 64, the number of African-American and Latino residents without medical insurance is more than double that of whites. High medical costs have forced a large number of ethnic minorities to give up treatment. In addition, the quality of medical services in African and Latino communities is generally inferior to that of white communities.

　　Mark Morial, chairman of the National City Alliance of the United States, said: "The medical system is biased against African Americans. Compared with whites, African American patients receive fewer medical services and the quality of medical care is worse."

　　Not only are ethnic minorities facing greater risks of infection and death, but also more difficult to withstand the economic impact of the epidemic. The data released by the US Department of Labor in early July showed that in June, the unemployment rate of white Americans was 10.1%, and the unemployment rate of African Americans was 15.4%. The gap between the two reached the maximum since May 2015. Fortune magazine in the United States pointed out that the ethnic employment gap under the impact of the epidemic has revealed the historical discrimination and injustice of ethnic minorities in the US job market.

　　Celia Maxwellbo, associate dean of African descent at the Howard University School of Medicine, said: "Look at our ethnic group, here are food deserts, transportation deserts, education deserts... We have no social factors that are beneficial to health. "

　　Ignore-"put the world at risk"

　　At the Catahola immigration detention center in Louisiana, the United States, the 38-year-old Guatemalan Marvin Canavi is frightened every day.

　　Kanavi lives in a large room with more than 200 other people, sharing the bathroom and toilet. This immigration detention center has found a large number of confirmed cases of new crowns, but the managers have not taken any epidemic prevention measures, which makes Kanavi deeply worried. He complained: "Not even a piece of soap for hand washing."

　　Some politicians in the United States spared no effort to bring in private goods, used the epidemic to promote anti-immigration policies, and drove more and more illegal immigrants into detention centers, but did not improve the sanitary conditions of these shelters. The US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that in early June, the United States screened more than 20,000 illegal immigrants in detention centers and diagnosed more than 1,700 new crown cases.

　　What is even more shocking is that a report from the US Center for Economic and Political Research pointed out that after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in some immigration detention centers, the US government will still repatriate illegal immigrants detained in these detention centers to the country without testing. This is undoubtedly "exporting" the new coronavirus. More than 60 institutions, including the Washington Institute for Latin American Studies in the United States, issued a joint statement condemning the U.S. government’s continued expulsion of illegal immigrants during the global outbreak, saying the act "puts the world at risk."

　　According to data released by the US Center for Economic Policy Research, since March, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service has dispatched 135 flights to 13 Latin American countries, among which Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia and Haiti and other countries have reported being repatriated. Find out the confirmed cases.

　　In addition, the United States also intercepts anti-epidemic materials in other countries, competes for vaccine patents in other countries, prohibits the export of domestic medical materials, buys out related drugs, and increases sanctions against other countries... In the face of the new crown virus, a common enemy of all mankind, the United States ignores global solidarity and anti-epidemic The urgent need is still pushing for unilateralism under the banner of "America First".

　　At the critical moment of the international community's joint fight against epidemics, the "dropout" addicted United States announced that it would withdraw from the World Health Organization in July next year. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the internationally renowned medical journal "The Lancet", called the move by the United States "atrocity against people all over the world." Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University in the United States, said that WHO is working to unite the world, while the US government is undermining international cooperation. The American approach will result in the death of many people in themselves and the world.

　　Fair and comfortable. A new crown epidemic has removed the false mask of "American human rights" and made people all over the world understand the truth of human rights in the so-called "liberal lighthouse". (Participating reporters: Liu Lina, Luo Jun, Liu Yang, Huang Yin Jiazi, Ma Qian)