REUTERS NEWS STORY - US Defends Record to Eliminate Racial Discrimination

Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The United States, in the dock at a U.N. forum accused of racial discrimination, said on Thursday it was combating hate crimes such as displays of hangman's nooses as well as police brutality against minorities.

A U.S. delegation defended Washington's record at the start of a two-day debate at the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The committee's 18 independent experts grilled U.S. officials on issues including racial profiling in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, police brutality against minorities, and the high proportion of African-Americans on death row.

"We note that sadly, racial discrimination exists all over the world, including the United States," Grace Chung Becker, acting assistant attorney-general at the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division, told the meeting.

"The United States is committed to continuing its hard work to combat racial discrimination," she declared.

Substantial progress had been made over the years in addressing disparities in housing, education, employment and health care, according to a U.S. report submitted to the body.
Last year, the United States launched a "racial threats initiative" to facilitate investigations of nooses and other racially-motivated threats around the country, Becker said.

It was prosecuting a case involving nooses hung from the back of a truck which circled around a group of peaceful civil rights demonstrators waiting at a bus stop, she added.

U.S. President George W. Bush last week condemned as "deeply offensive" a spate of incidents involving hangman's nooses, a potent symbol of racist lynchings and hatred of blacks.

Some 47 states have laws against hate crimes, which they actively enforce, according to the U.S. delegation on Thursday.

U.S. officials had investigated more than 800 racially-motivated incidents against people perceived to be Arab, Muslim, Sikh or South Asian since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite a drop in the number and seriousness of such crimes, identifying and prosecuting them remained a priority.

The Bush administration had been "the first to issue racial profiling guidelines for federal law enforcement officers and remains committed to the elimination of unlawful racial profiling by law enforcement agencies", Becker said.

Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, the U.N. committee's rapporteur on the United States, replied that instead of ending the practice, the government appeared to be giving guidance to police to show them how to carry out racial profiling.

He also cited "overwhelming evidence" of police brutality against racial and ethnic minorities, including African- Americans, Latinos, Arabs and Muslims.

Experts also raised questions on the rights of Native Americans, the disproportionate number of people of colour in prison, juveniles serving life sentences without parole, and the estimated 5.3 million felons who have lost their voting rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in its own shadow report issued earlier this week, blasted what it called "the persistent structural racism and inequality" in the country.

The U.N. committee upholds compliance with a 1965 treaty ratified by 173 countries including the United States. It is to issue its findings on seven countries on March 7. (Editing by Andrew Roche)