Description

Human Rights Groups Decry Bush Administration’s Whitewash Report on Racial Discrimination in United States; Groups Call on Obama Administration To Implement Recommendations by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

According to the human rights coalition, the Bush administration's report glosses over significant issues of racial inequality during his tenure, including the post-9/11 racial profiling of Muslims and people of Arab and South Asian descent; the denial of adequate housing assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; the disproportionate representation of African Americans and Latinos among the 2,500 juveniles sentenced to life sentences without parole; and the deprivation of Western Shoshone American Indians of their ancestral lands.

"The refusal of the Bush administration to correct the racism inherent in current U.S. sentencing practices has resulted in a disproportionate number of children of color being sentenced to life in prison without parole," said Deborah LaBelle, Director of the Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative. "It is a stain on the U.S. to be the only nation in the world that commits the human rights violation of sentencing children to life in prison, and the fact that it disproportionately affects children of color is one more reason to end this unfair practice."