Categories
Join Us At:
|
ACLU Responds to AZ Gov. Jan Brewer's Ridiculous Comments on U.S. Human Rights RecordYou might've heard last week that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was shocked — just shocked! — that the State Department mentioned S.B. 1070, Arizona's new "papers please" racial profiling law, in its first-ever Universal Periodic Review report (PDF) to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Finding the mere mention of her law "downright offensive," Gov. Brewer fired off a letter (PDF) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing her "concern and indignation" and asked Secretary Clinton to remove the mention of the law. This is a ridiculous request. Over the weekend, Chandra Bhatnagar of the ACLU's Human Rights Program and Alessandra Soler Meetze of the ACLU of Arizona explain why it's so absurd on CNN. Chandra and Alessandra also point out why reports like the one submitted last month are so important, not least of all because they show the world that — despite troubling indications to the contrary — the U.S. does not take its international obligations lightly. They also mention what the U.S. report doesn't: that S.B. 1070 violates another international treaty the U.S. ratified, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). CERD mandates that federal, state and local governments do not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin. In fact, you might say CERD was designed to prevent laws exactly like S.B. 1070 from being enforced. So check out the CNN piece, and read the ACLU's report to the Human Rights Council here (PDF).
|
|
You might've heard last week that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was 
|
© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004 |
One important law in that regard is the prohibition on politically partisan activity. Given our nonprofit status, we may not endorse or oppose candidates for elective office. That means we cannot host comments on our site that show a preference for one candidate or party. Although we in no way wish to discourage you from that activity elsewhere, we ask that you not engage in that activity on our website (or include links to other websites that do so). Additionally, given that we are subject to very specific rules concerning the collection of personally identifying information through our website (names, email addresses, home address, financial information, etc.), we ask that you not use the comments portion of this blog to solicit this information from users of our website. We also ask that you not use the comments portion for advertising or requests for legal assistance, and do not add to your comment links to other websites, as we cannot be responsible for the content on other websites.
We are not able to respond to unsolicited inquiries, complaints or requests for assistance sent to this blog. Please direct your complaint or request for assistance to the ACLU affiliate in your state. Requests for legal assistance left in the blog comments will not receive a response or be published.
Finally, the ACLU cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information in the comment section and expressly disclaims any liability for any information in this section.