UN EXPERTS HEAR HUMAN RTS ABUSE AT SHABAZZ CENTER
by ‘bro. Zayid’
May 3rd saw experts from
the United Nations hear testimony on human rights violations facing people of
African descent at the hands of law enforcement in New York City!
It took place at the historic
Malcolm X/Betty Shabazz Educational Center, (The Shabazz Center) the former
Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm was assassinated in spectacle fashion before
400 people and his wife and children on the still haunting Sunday that was February
21, 1965, and where he launched his courageously ambitious Organization of Afro
American Unity.
It was the ideal venue for these
hearings, because it was Malcolm who sought to transform our struggle from
Civil Rights to Human Rights by bringing the oppression of our people before
the international human rights community when he was viciously taken from us.
It was brought together by the
United Nations AntiRacism Coalition (UNARC), a coalition of organizations
dedicated to AntiRacism in the Americas. (https://unarc.org/ )
It came on the heels of two important
convenings on the issue-The 2021 International Commission of Inquiry on
Systematic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the
United States, which took place virtually from January 18 to February 6 (https://inquirycommission.org/report/ ) and the 2021
Spirit of Mandela International Tribunal, which examined human rights
violations against Black Brown and Indigenous Peoples in the United States. (https://www.tribunal2021.com/ ) The latter
had a wider range of examination, looking at human rights violations in the
form of police violence, mass incarceration, the targeting and incarceration of
activists from these communities, environmental racism, and health care
discrimination. It took place over the weekend of October 22, 2021 and was also
held at The Shabazz Center.
New York is one of several
cities that these experts are hearing testimony. Other cities include Atlanta,
Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington DC and Los Angeles over the course of 12 days.
The body of experts, known as the
Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and
Equality in the context of Law Enforcement, or the EMLER, was created in 2021
by a United Nations Human Rights Resolutions UNHRC 43/1 and UNHRC 47/21 in the
aftermath of the spectacle police killing of George Floyd.
Participants
and the Audience heard testimony on AntiBlack Racism by Immigration
Authorities, on Abuse by Prison Authorities, on the systematic judicial and
police violence of the ‘War on Drugs’ and the glaring violence that drove the
convening of the gathering-racialized police violence.
Attorney
Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement had this to say about
the hearing:
"The hearing is a continuation of
UN investigations of US human rights violations of Black people that began in
1994 when the December 12th Movement International Secretariat helped organize
the visit of the first UN Special Rapporteur on Racism to the United States.
“These investigations help fulfill Malcolm X's call for us to
place the situation of Black people in the U.S. on the international agenda.
“If
the experts present the evidence they've heard honestly, their report will
expose the systemic nature of white supremacy in law enforcement, the role of
poverty in creating crime, push international public opinion to condemn the
hypocrisy of U.S. so-called democracy and aid our domestic struggle for
liberation," he finished.
By the
way, it was the December 12th Movement whose organized protests of
the early 1990s led to the preservation of the Audubon Ballroom.
Wareham
then presented to the body survivors of the racist ‘stop and frisk’ and ‘war of
drugs’ campaigns. Among them was David Norman, who detailed how heroin tore
through his Harlem community from the 50s through the 70s, and through his
family affecting him and his parents. As David finished, he stopped everyone in
their tracks when he quoted top Nixon official and ‘War on Drugs’ co-architect
John Ehrlichman to capture and some up its genocidal intentionality.
“You want to know what this was
really all about?” Ehrlichman raised rhetorically.
“The
Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies:
the antiwar left and black
people.
“You
understand what I’m saying?
“We
knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by
getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with
heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
communities.
“We
could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and
vilify them night after night on the evening news.
“Did
we know we were lying about the drugs?
“Of course we did.”
To this
day, the national government has not taken one ounce of responsibility for the
racist intent and disastrous impact of this ‘war.’
Beloved Attorney
Jill Soffiyah Elijah, who has represented a number of Black political prisoners
over the years, including most recently Sundiata Acoli, presented and
interviewed a panel of prison abuse survivors in New York state to illustrate
how that abuse permeates its correctional facilities.
The
question of the abuse of female prisoners and how the incarceration of Black
and Brown women is increasing was painfully captured in the story of Aqirah
Stanley, who shared what she witnessed and endured when she was incarcerated. Aqirah’s
recount of how she was mistreated and how other pregnant female prisoners were
especially mistreated stopped everyone in their tracks, yet she affirmed her
dignity by courageously risking to give birth in her cell rather than endure
the overshackling and abuse that came with hospital based deliveries.
“Because
no one deserves to be shackled while they are in labor,” she said pointedly.
Kalief
Browder’s brother, Anthony Browder, also comported himself with great dignity
retelling his brother’s horror story.
Anthony not
only recounted the overwhelming abuse that his brother suffered after being
wrongly sent to Rikers Island that ultimately led to his suicide, he also
recounted how the trauma of losing Kalief destroyed their mother’s health and
how she died a year later from the medical fall out of that trauma.
On
racialized police violence, Gwen Carr who has become a resource and voice for
other mothers who have lost loved ones to police violence, was a picture of
grace and was amazingly understated in her recount of what happened to her son,
Eric Garner, but proudly lifted up the impact of the people’s movement that led
to the implementation of the Eric Garner Bill, banning chokeholds by the police
in New York City. It came at an enormous price, because it came at the cost of
Eric’s life. She could have also lifted up how the trauma of losing her son
destroyed the health of her husband and her granddaughter’s health. They both
died in the aftermath of his death. Erica, Eric’s daughter, had been very
public about how her father’s death was affecting her health, just before she
died. She was only 27 when she died. 27.
Natacha
Pannell, the sister of Phillip Pannell who was killed by Teaneck NJ police
officer Gary Spath, joined by her mother, Theresa Dantzler, told how it took 32
years for their version of the facts in her brother’s case to be proven that it
was in fact the truth. Pannell, only 16 when he was shot to death by Spath, was
shot in the back with his hands up. The police and the state created a story
that had the teenager was turning towards Spath as if he was going to shoot at
them. It took a recently aired four part investigatory documentary Model
America, which examined the case against the backdrop of the façade of a
liberal suburb, to vindicate the family’s position. Yet, even after that, to
this day, no one in Teaneck leadership will acknowledge the deadly injustice
done to Phillip and his family.
It ended
with an amazing note of resilience as Hertensia Peterson, the courageous aunt
of Akai Gurley who was killed by a NYC police officer in 2015, led the body
with Assata Shakur’s empowering pledge...
“...It is our duty to fight for our
freedom.
It
is our duty to win.
We
must love each other and support each other.
We
have nothing to lose but our chains...”
The EMLER, the experts, will present a report on these
hearings to the UN Human Rights Council at its 54th session in
September-October 2023...
*’bro. Zayid’ Muhammad is the lead organizer and press officer for the
Malcolm X Commemoration Committee. Follow them on Facebook. He can be reached
at babazayid@gmail.com...
©2023
