Amnesty International USA Human Rights Questionnaire for 2020 Presidential Candidates

Protecting People Forced to Flee

Asylum-seekers: As growing numbers of people have sought asylum, the U.S. government has responded by restricting access for those seeking asylum, including by turning back asylum-seekers at the U.S. southern border, indefinitely detaining them, and separating families and children.

Preventing Gun Violence and Killings by Police

Gun violence: The U.S. has both the highest absolute and highest per capita rates of gun ownership in the world, and guns are easily accessible by those likely to misuse them. In 2017, gun violence killed an average of 109 people each day. Gun violence is the second leading cause of death among children, and firearm deaths disproportionately affect African American and Latino communities.

Protecting Religious Freedom and Ethnic Identity

Religious and ethnic persecution: Across the globe, individuals are being targeted on account of their religious beliefs and ethnic identities. In Asia, the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region of China have experienced state-sponsored campaigns of violence, harassment, and surveillance. In the Middle East, Christian populations face persecution in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, while other religious minorities, such as the Yezidis and Mandaeans of Iraq, the Bahais and Zoroastrians of Iran, and Shi’a Muslim populations in Yemen, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia are under attack by state and non-state actors.

Promoting Gender Equality

LGBTI rights: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people face violence, discrimination, and inequality. The U.S. government has banned transgender individuals from serving in the military and has refused to defend vital protections for transgender children in schools. Abroad, from Malaysia’s draconian laws permitting caning for same-sex acts to the Russian government’s complicity in the face of a homophobic crackdown in Chechnya to the life sentences under proposed Ugandan law for the “crime” of being gay, LGBTI individuals are under attack.

Sexual and reproductive rights: Recent years have seen a regression in U.S. commitment to sexual and reproductive rights. Over the past two years, the State Department has erased mention of sexual and reproductive rights from its annual human rights reports. Furthermore, the government not only reinstated the “global gag rule,” which withholds all assistance to organizations abroad who even mention abortion-related services, it has also created a U.S. version: the “domestic gag rule,” which bars clinics performing or referring women for abortions from getting any federal family planning funds.

Guaranteeing Freedom of Expression, Association, and Assembly

Human rights defenders and journalists: Around the world, governments are targeting activists fighting for human rights, as well as journalists seeking to bring the truth to light. In 2018 alone, 321 human rights defenders in 27 countries were assassinated because of their work, including the Brazilian activist Marielle Franco, an outspoken critic of police brutality, and countless more have been arbitrarily detained, including a group of Saudi women fighting for equal rights. That same year, 34 journalists were murdered, including the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Political repression: Across the world, authoritarian leaders seeking to retain power are repressing political dissent and quashing the right to free expression of political opinion. These forms of repression include deadly crackdowns on protesters in Venezuela and Nicaragua, widespread censorship in China, the shuttering of civil society organizations in Turkey, and extrajudicial executions and arbitrary arrests of dissidents in Syria, Egypt, and Cameroon.

Respecting Human Rights in the Context of National Security

Use of lethal force and indefinite detention: In the name of national security, the U.S. has engaged in torture and indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay. It has also killed a quarter of a million civilians abroad since 9/11 and has increased its use of lethal force against civilians in multiple countries, including Somalia. Yet no one has been held accountable for these acts, and the U.S. government has taken numerous steps to forestall a possible International Criminal Court investigation into alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including attacks on civilians, committed during the war in Afghanistan.

Arms sales: In 2019, the United States announced it would revoke its signature of the Arms Trade Treaty, a landmark instrument that ensures arms transfers are not used to fuel conflicts, atrocities, and abuses. Two of the United States’ largest weapons importers are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have used weapons to commit human rights violations against Yemeni children and civilians and to blockade ports of entry to restrict aid from entering Yemen, thereby placing 11 million Yemenis at risk of famine. Nonetheless, the U.S. continues to build the military capacity of the Saudi-Emirati coalition, making the U.S. complicit in creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

Promoting Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights

Business and human rights: U.S. corporations frequently are involved in human rights abuses, harming Indigenous communities and exacerbating climate change through anti-environmental practices. The U.S. government’s human rights standards for corporations – including extractive industries, supply chains, and contractors engaged in trades from arms manufacture to for-profit incarceration – are inadequate and ill-enforced. Thus, businesses are often not required to identify and address human rights abuses in their operations.