« Ukriane's Civil War Is Restarting: a Good Site for Following ItThe Pentagon and Big Oil: Militarism and Capital Accumulation »

Amnesty International reports on human rights abuses in Ferguson

October 26th, 2014

Mary Shaw

Amnesty International (AI) recently released a report on human rights abuses in Ferguson, Missouri, in the wake of the August 9th shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer.

The report, titled On the Streets of America: Human Rights Abuses in Ferguson, outlines the findings by AI observers who were in Ferguson from August 14-22 to monitor the post-shooting protests and police response, along with recommendations to local, state and federal authorities regarding both the use of lethal force and the policing of protests.

The report addresses the following issues:

  • Use of lethal force

  • Racial discrimination and excessive use of police force

  • Law enforcement response to protests

  • Imposition of restrictions on the rights to protest - curfews, designated protest areas, and other restrictions

  • Intimidation of protesters

  • Use of tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protests

  • Use of Long Range Acoustic Devices

  • Restrictions on the media as well as legal and human rights observers at protests

  • Failures of accountability for law enforcement in policing protests

"What Amnesty International witnessed in Missouri on the ground this summer underscored that human rights abuses do not just happen across borders and oceans," said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of AI USA. "No matter where you live in the world, everyone is entitled to the same basic rights as a human being – and one of those rights is the freedom to peacefully protest. Standing on W. Florissant Avenue with my colleagues, I saw a police force, armed to the teeth, with military-grade weapons. I saw a crowd that included the elderly and young children fighting the effects of tear gas. There must be accountability and systemic change that follows this excessive force."

"The events in Ferguson sparked a much-needed and long-overdue conversation on race and policing in America," added Hawkins. "That conversation cannot stop. In order to restore justice to Ferguson, and every community afflicted by police brutality, we must both document the injustices committed and fight to prevent them from happening again. There is a path forward, but it requires substantive actions on the local, state, and federal levels."

Read the full report.

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • Tracy Turner The Reclamation of the Republic When, in the Course of human events, it shall become absolutely necessary for the People to dissolve the political ties which have united them to a government that has betrayed its trust to obtain their…
  • Tracy Turner SMELE's (Slow-Motion-Extinction-Level-Events). Not yet common in academia, but it should be. I. Introduction: The Timebombs We Ignore "Not with a bang but a bureaucratic shrug, the world ends." - Revisionist reading of Eliot by the…
  • By David Swanson I wish U.S. academics would spend less time fantasizing choices between various murders with trollies, or playing games with theories about how greedy robots might do diplomacy, and more time on the impeachment problem. The United…
  • Cathy Smith Hidden Bombshells in Trump’s “Big Bodacious Pill” “The most dangerous place to be is between power and its reckoning.” —Rewritten maxim of Beltway survival In the dark guts of Trump’s 2025 legislative monolith—cheekily christened the Big…
  • Robert David A global exposé of how corporations distort science, erase truth, and turn human death into quarterly growth. I. Introduction: When Truth Becomes a Liability In an age when algorithms dictate belief and lobbyists author legislation, truth…
  • Robert David Polluters don’t just dump toxins. They dump stories—engineered by billion-dollar PR firms. They Poisoned the Planet—Then Hired Spin Doctors to Make You Forget When a chemical spill poisons a town, when a pipeline ruptures in a fireball,…
  • By David Swanson, World BEYOND War Switzerland got that way through NEUTRALITY Remarks at Neutrality Colloquium: A Call to Action for Active Neutrality & World Peace, June 26-27, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland. I grew up in a town in the United States that…
  • Fred Gransville I. The Fluoride Question For decades, fluoride has had an uncontested official story: it is a beneficial, even benevolent substance—vital to healthy teeth. In toothpaste tubes to water supplies, fluoride has been presented as a dental…
  • Tracy Turner #SCOTUScorruption #FascistAmerica #EndCitizensUnited Bush started it. Obama enabled it. Trump perfected it. And the Court? It never checked power—it built it. I. Opening Jab: The Judicial Illusion "They wear robes to appear impartial. But…
  • Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic Carl von Clausewitz The focal questions about war In dealing with both theoretical and practical points of view about war, at least six fundamental questions arise: 1) What is war?; 2) What types of war exist?; 3) Why do wars…
July 2025
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

  XML Feeds

Online manual generator
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi