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ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û Responds to AZ Gov. Jan Brewer's Ridiculous Comments on U.S. Human Rights Record

Suzanne Ito,
ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û
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September 7, 2010

You might've heard last week that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was — that the State Department mentioned S.B. 1070, Arizona's new "papers please" racial profiling law, in its (PDF) to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Finding the mere mention of her law "downright offensive," Gov. Brewer (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 ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û's Human Rights Program and Alessandra Soler Meetze of the explain why it's so absurd .

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 , and read the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û's report to the Human Rights Council here (PDF).

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