Opinion / Op-Ed Contributors

Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2015

(China Daily) Updated: 2016-04-15 08:27

NOVEMBER

Nov. 3

The Washington Post website reported that Jeremy Mardis, an unarmed 6-year-old male, was shot by police in Marksville, Las Vegas.

A study released by the Economic Policy Institute on the same day found that in the third quarter of 2015, African-American unemployment in the United States is about double the white unemployment rate. The largest racial gap was in the District of Columbia, where African-American joblessness is 5.7 times more than whites.

Nov. 10

The USA Today website reported that fast food workers in the United States walked off the job in hundreds of cities on Nov. 10, staging strikes aimed at a minimum wage of $15.

Nov. 11

The CNN website reported that a Republican presidential candidate said he would build a "deportation force" to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants from the country. He has also proposed ending birthright citizenship.

On the same day, the Pew Charitable Trusts website reported that since September, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Oregon and the state of Hawaii had all declared states of emergency to tackle a worsening homeless crisis. Los Angeles had about 25,000 homeless people.

Nov. 12

The Washington Post website said that a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that rate of newborns with syphilis jumped 38 percent between 2012 and 2014. The disease was found in 11.6 of every 100,000 births in 2014.

Nov. 15

According to a report on the CNN website, African-American Jamar Clark was shot dead by police early morning. According to witnesses, Clark was handcuffed when one of the cops had his knee in his back and the other cop was straddling him. It is said that Clark was unable to move and he didn't resist.

Nov. 16

According to an FBI report on 2014 hate crime statistics, the country reported 5,479 hate crime incidents involving 6,418 offenses. There were 5,462 single-bias incidents involving 6,681 victims. A percent distribution of victims by bias type showed that 48.3 percent were targeted because of the offenders' racial bias, and 17.1 percent were targeted because of the offenders' religious bias.

Nov. 17

The Washington Post website reported that, as of the morning of Nov 17, the governors of 27 states have said that they are opposed to letting Syrian refugees resettle in their states. Some Republican Party lawmakers and presidential contenders have even called for a ban on letting any Syrian Muslim refugees into the United States.

On the same day, a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute revealed that 63 percent of respondents say blacks face a lot of discrimination in the United States, and 56 percent say Hispanics face a lot of discrimination in the country. Also, 70 percent of Americans say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims and 45 percent say there is a lot of discrimination against women.

Nov. 18

The US News and World Report website reported that researchers found 18 percent of students said they'd been raped while incapacitated before college, and 41 percent of those young women were raped again while incapacitated during their freshman year. The US CDC revealed that one in five women have been raped in their lifetimes, and a majority of victims personally knew their perpetrators.

Nov. 19

The USA Today website reported that about 2,000 airport workers went on strike overnight from Nov 18 to Nov 19 at seven major airports in the United States to protest low wages, demanding a minimum wage of $15.

On the same day, the Guardian website reported that a Republican presidential candidate said that he would consider warrantless searches of Muslims and increased surveillance of mosques, and that he would not rule out tracking Muslim Americans in a database or giving them a special form of identification that noted their religion.

Nov. 23

The Chicago Tribune reported that nearly 17,000 immigration cases are pending in Chicago' s immigration court. The typical case here is already two and a half years old, on average. So clogged is the Chicago court that some cases aren't being scheduled for hearings until 2020. Among these cases, about 600 immigration cases involving children are still pending, leaving families in limbo.

Nov. 24

The CNN website reported that a Chicago police officer, who was charged in African-American Laquan MacDonald' s shooting death, had a history of 20 complaints before he gunned down the 17-year-old, but none resulted in him being disciplined. Outraged that it took as long as 13 months to charge the police officer in MacDonald' s death, demonstrators took to the street to demand justice in his death.

Nov. 26

According a report published on the Guardian website, government statistics suggested that between 2008 and 2014 at least 48.1 million people a year, including 19.2 percent of all households with children, could not always afford to eat balanced meals.

Nov. 30

The Washington Post website reported that a court filing released on Nov. 30 disclosed details of so-called national security letters, which showed that the FBI used special authority to compel Internet firms to hand over user information, including full browsing histories. These letters are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval.

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