Human rights as a game

Dr Magdy Allam

  The United States and European states have forgotten the Iranian nuclear activities and the Covid-19 crisis and remembered only the human rights conditions in Egypt. This is strange, isn’t it?

Real human rights violations were committed in the United States in the past period, as the Republican and Democratic parties fiddled over power.

If the same violations had been committed in any African or Asian country, this country would have been scandalised on the international stage.

However, this would not have been shocking or bizarre in a world that favours whites and Anglophones to everybody else.

Dozens of states and organisations have teamed up at the United Nations Human Rights Council to criticise human rights conditions in Egypt.

Nevertheless, a close look at the names of the organisations signing a statement in this regard can show a number of laughable facts.

These organisations belong to a well-known lobby group that never criticises human rights conditions in western states.

They criticise the same conditions only in Russia, China and Arab and Asian states.

Western media and rights groups are also good at criticising the far-right president of Brazil. They are good at criticising the Venezuelan government.

I like to invite the attention of the American president to a number of human rights violations committed by American police in the past period.

American policemen easily open their gunfire on black Americans. A black American was killed in Indianapolis recently. Four policemen had to quit their jobs against the background of this horrific crime.

In Ferguson City, a 19-year-old man was shot down by police during an attack on his house.

The incident instigated riots, opening the door for the National Guard to intervene. Another 36-year-old black American was killed in a parking lot as he bought groceries.

The “I can’t breathe” phrase uttered by black American George Floyd before his death became a motto for everybody rising against injustice in the American society.

It became a slogan of the cry of the public against the brutality of the American police which is backed by President Biden himself.

Why does not President Biden inform the United Nations Human Rights Council about all the violations taking place across his country?

The US president apparently sees only the mistakes made and violations committed in African and Asian countries. As for his own country and Europe, he is willingly deaf, blind and dumb.

Dr Magdy Allam is the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Forum for Sustainable Development.