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United Nations Review Will Bring U.S. Human Rights Abuses to Light
As the United States' human rights record is examined under the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review during a two-week session, which begins today, Amnesty International USA issued the following statement:
"Today, the world watches to see whether the United States will seize the opportunity for its policies to be examined fully under the light of transparency or whether it will shirk from the sunlight and bury its human rights record in the shadows of excuses," said Bob Goodfellow, the executive director of Amnesty International USA.
WASHINGTON
As the United States' human rights record is examined under the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review during a two-week session, which begins today, Amnesty International USA issued the following statement:
"Today, the world watches to see whether the United States will seize the opportunity for its policies to be examined fully under the light of transparency or whether it will shirk from the sunlight and bury its human rights record in the shadows of excuses," said Bob Goodfellow, the executive director of Amnesty International USA.
Amnesty International expressed in its Universal Periodic Review submission concerns about policies impacting refugees and asylum seekers; gun violence and criminal justice; systemic racism and freedom of peaceful assembly, persistent human rights violations associated with the US government's national security and counter-terrorism programs; attacks on sexual and reproductive rights and the lack of protection for the LGBTI community; as well as high maternal mortality rates and levels of violence against Indigenous women and girls.
Amnesty International has updated this document to include human rights violations associated with the United States government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also includes concerns on the policing of the nationwide protests that took place following the torture and extrajudicial execution of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, as well as on key death penalty developments from 2020.
"The issue of gun violence in the United States has been brought to light on a global stage, and the way authorities have responded during a moment of introspection has been disastrous. Agencies from the Department of Justice to the Federal Bureau of Instigations have shielded away from addressing the real issue of too many guns in too many hands and swept this human rights crisis under the rug," said Bob Goodfellow.
Amnesty International USA is calling on the United States government to thoroughly review the hundreds of human rights issues raised by civil society and to fully implement the recommendations to address the abuses documented.
Amnesty International submitted reviews for ten of the fourteen countries that are to be reviewed during the 36th Session of the Universal Periodic Review: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Honduras, Jamaica, Libya, Malawi, Maldives, Mongolia and the United States.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
'A Barbaric Assault': Iran Condemns US-Israeli Bombing of Century-Old Medical Research Center
"Heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous," a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry said of the attack on the Pasteur Institute of Iran.
Apr 02, 2026
The Iranian Ministry of Health said Thursday that a US-Israeli airstrike hit and severely damaged the Pasteur Institute of Iran, a century-old medical research center that has played a key role in combating and preventing infectious diseases in the country.
Photos posted to social media by a spokesperson for Iran's Health Ministry, Hossein Kermanpour, showed flames and smoke amid the rubble of a devastated building. Kermanpour called the attack on the Pasteur Institute of Iran "a direct assault on international health security" and a violation of international law.
Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, also condemned the attack on social media, blaming "the American-Israeli aggressors."
"Heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous," Baqaei wrote. "This is not merely another war crime committed as part of an illegal war; it is a barbaric assault on basic human core values."
Heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous: the American-Israeli aggressors have attacked the Pasteur Institute of Iran — the oldest and most prestigious research and public health center in Iran and the entire Middle East, founded in 1920 through an agreement… pic.twitter.com/DQvyiuxIw6
— Esmaeil Baqaei (@IRIMFA_SPOX) April 2, 2026
News of the attack on the medical research center, which was founded in 1920, came hours after US President Donald Trump threatened in a primetime speech Wednesday night to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages."
Vali Nasr, an Iranian American academic and professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote Thursday that the Pasteur Institute "has been an icon of Iran's healthcare system, a symbol of modern Iran, established a century ago along with foundational health and education institutions."
"Destroying it," Nasr wrote, "could have no other purpose than assaulting Iran’s history, erasing the history of its modernization and development—take Iranians back to the Stone Age."
The attack on the Pasteur Institute comes days after the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that airstrikes hit "near WHO's office in the Iranian capital, Tehran, shattering windows."
"Strikes impacting the operations and damaging the premises of WHO and other UN agencies, the locations of which have been clearly identified, cannot be tolerated and must be avoided at all costs," Tedros said in a statement.
Since the start of the deadly US-Israeli bombing onslaught on February 28, the WHO has documented more than two dozen attacks on healthcare infrastructure and personnel in Iran—part of a broader assault on healthcare that Trump's Iran War has unleashed throughout the Middle East.
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Golden Dome as a Leaky Golden Shower: Trump's $4 Trillion Missile Defense System Ridiculed in DC
"This is not defense, it's deception—an illusion of safety. The Pentagon has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last several decades proving that this freaking thing doesn't work."
Apr 02, 2026
Critics of the 'Golden Dome' missile defense shield program championed by US President Donald Trump gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Wednesday to ridicule and condemn the wasteful military program, which experts warn will never work as promised but will plow billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the weapons industry.
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and found of the anti-war group Up In Arms, led the event which included the unveiling of an art installation—complete with a statue of Trump holding a golden umbrella filled with holes, urinating missiles, and running water—to represent the "unworkable space shield" known as the Golden Dome, a space-based missile defense shield that varying studies estimate could cost from $540 billion to a mind-blowing $6 trillion over 20 years to operate.
With the DC event taking place on April 1, Cohen told those gathered that the problem with the Golden Dome is that "it's not a prank," but rather a real program that Trump is trying pursue despite its deep and obvious flaws.
"Sure, you know, an invisible shield that protects you from any possible threat, is a nice idea," said Cohen, "but it's full of holes."
"This is not defense, it's deception—an illusion of safety," Cohen continued. "The Pentagon has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last several decades proving that this freaking thing doesn't work, but it's just such an attractive fantasy that it's being pulled out of the trash bins of history to soak the taxpayer once again."
"It's another one of the harebrained ideas that pops out of our president's head every now and then, but the Hole-in-Dome [statue] demonstrates that he's all wet on this one," said Cohen. "The other thing the Hole-in-Dome demonstrates is that our country is under water—we are drowning in debt. And wasting another $4 trillion on a holey dome ain't gonna help, especially when we need that money for Social Security, affordable housing, and healthcare."
The overall message, he said, was that "if we don't stop this boondoggle, we're sunk."
Dr. Igor Moric, a research physicist at the Princeton Program on Science and Global Security, also spoke at the event, explaining how the Golden Dome system—despite Trump's unfounded claims that it will be able to shield the American people from future ballistic missile attacks—runs up against fundamental scientific limits.
“The United States has been building ballistic missile defense, a magical shield against nuclear weapons for over 80 years,” Moric said. “The reality is ballistic missile defense does not work, it cannot work, and it will not work. Space-based missile defense, as envisioned by the Golden Dome, cannot work because of known physical and technological realities limiting what it can do."
According to the Up In Arms website, "Golden Dome would be an enormously expensive system that would not provide an effective defense. It would instead fuel an arms race that would reduce US and international security, and increase the risk of nuclear war."
Dr. Ira Helfand, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Back from the Brink campaign, noted that even "optimistic scenarios" of success by a Golden Dome system would not prevent catastrophic consequences, warning that even if the system could intercept 80% of incoming weapons, tens of millions of Americans could still be killed in a large-scale nuclear attack.
“This system does not protect the American people,” he says. “The attempt to build this system will fuel the arms race and torpedo efforts to actually get rid of [nuclear] weapons."
Other speakers focused on the need to use precious tax dollars not for unrealistic and unworkable weapons like Golden Dome, but rather to invest in social programs—including education, Social Security, healthcare, and affordable housing—that the nation desperately needs.
“The Golden Dome is not golden for the people of the United States or the world,” said former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, who also spoke at the event.
People in Cleveland and other US cities, Turner said, would “much rather have the money that is being wasted on a pipe dream and a fantasy invested in lifting them and their children out of poverty.”
“There is a connection between this foolishness and folly and the reason we can't have nice things in the United States of America," added Turner. "They tell us they can't afford universal healthcare, but they can afford this!"
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'Wow, He Actually Admitted It': Trump Says US Can't Pay for Childcare Because It's 'Fighting Wars' Instead
"Trump is right. A pointless war or universal daycare," said one Democratic politician. "He’s right: That’s the choice."
Apr 02, 2026
A day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio unironically advised Iran to spend its public funds "helping the people of Iran" instead of on weapons, President Donald Trump announced that the US government has "to take care of one thing: military protection" and isn't able to provide people in the US with necessities like healthcare and childcare.
"Oh wow, he actually admitted it," said US Rap. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) in response.
At an Easter lunch at the White House Wednesday, the president said that "the United States can’t take care of daycare" and demanded that states fully fund childcare programs.
"We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too," said Trump. “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things."
Trump: We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things. pic.twitter.com/vLGpp7KJnm
— FactPost (@factpostnews) April 1, 2026
The wars the president has waged and threatened to wage since taking office last year include his invasion of Venezuela in January and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro; the killing of more than 160 people in boat bombings in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean; an oil blockade on Cuba that's left tens of thousands of people waiting for surgeries and unable to access essential medications, with Trump threatening to take over the country by force; and the current US-Israeli war on Iran.
The conflicts that Trump said Americans must sacrifice federal funding for public programs in order to continue are opposed by a majority of Americans, according to polls. All have been called violations of international law by legal experts.
Trump's comments on the government's inability to provide public services came as the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion to continue funding the war on Iran, which has killed nearly 2,000 Iranians and more than 1,000 people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened, and exacerbated the US affordability crisis by raising average gas prices to over $4 per gallon.
A 2021 analysis by The New York Times found that the US spends about $500 per family each year on early childhood care, or roughly 0.2% of its GDP. Other wealthy countries that the US considers its peers spend an average of more than $14,000 per family annually, with Norway spending close to $30,000, Finland spending more than $23,000, and Germany spending over $18,000.
The president has previously attacked childcare spending, cutting $10 billion in federal childcare funds to five Democratic-led states in response to a social services fraud scandal in Minnesota. Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year are projected amount to about $1 trillion over the next decade, and hundreds of hospitals are at risk of closing or having to reduce healthcare services as a result of the cuts—which, in addition to funding Trump's military actions, helped pay for tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
"The warmongers in the White House and Congress will always fund death and destruction," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) Wednesday night after Trump's comments. "They will let people in our country starve and die before they stop funding wars."
Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Maine, said Trump's remarks were a simple statement of fact about the choice the administration has made about its priorities.
"Trump is right. A pointless war or universal daycare," said Platner. "He’s right: That’s the choice."
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