Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2017
APRIL
April 4
A USA Today website report quoted statistics from the Institute for Women's Policy Research as saying that women overall earned about 82 percent of the full-time weekly pay check of a man. Black women's earnings were just 68 percent compared to white men and Hispanic women's were 62 percent.
April 6
The Daily Mail website reported that Twitter had received an administrative summons in March demanding it reveal who is behind an account opposed to the US president's tough immigration policies. The government gave no reason for the demand. Twitter said the summons was an abuse of the law.
April 11
A report on the Economic Times website quoted WikiLeaks as saying that the US National Security Agency operators have hacked into Pakistani mobile networks and have been spying on hundreds of IP addresses in the country.
April 11
The Washington Post website reported that a passenger was forcibly dragged off an overbooked United Airlines plane. The passenger, bleeding, appeared to be of Asian origin and was overheard complaining that this might have been a factor in his treatment.
April 30
Website of the Independent reported that the Pentagon said at least 352 civilians have been killed in the US-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since operations began in 2014. Transparency project Airwars claimed that over 3,000 civilians have been killed in the bombing campaign.
MAY
May 8
According to Federal Election Commission data, dozens of political action committees collected tens of millions of dollars in the first three months of 2017. Individual donors contributed $236.4 million to political action committees and related political entities during the quarter, 30 percent more than contributions recorded during the same period following the 2012 presidential election.
May 11
Rane Baldwin, an African-American woman, booked two First-Class American Airlines tickets from Kentucky to North Carolina on May 2 with her white friend, but she was told after boarding that the plane had fewer First Class seats than originally thought, The Sun website reported. Her seat had been changed to a row in the back of the plane while her white friend stayed in First Class.
May 11
According to data released on May 10 by the US Census Bureau, an estimated 61.4 percent of US citizens who were qualified to vote cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, dipping to the lowest rate in 16 years, The Hill website reported. Only 49 percent of Asian-Americans and 47.6 percent of Hispanic-Americans turned out to vote; voter turnout among black voters fell almost 7 percentage points from 2012 to 59.4 percent.
May 14
The Zero Hedge website reported that a group of hackers used the US National Security Agency's "Top Secret Arsenal" of tools, which allow anyone to "back door" into virtually any computer system, to create a ransomware virus and launch a global malware cyberattack, holding at least 200,000 computer systems around the globe hostage.
May 15
According to data released by the US Census Bureau, there were 245.5 million US citizens aged 18 and older in November 2016, about 157.6 million of whom were registered to vote, the Pew Research Center website reported. By international standards, only 55.7 percent of the US voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, putting the US behind most member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
May 17
According to the website of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Carolina Creek company demoted employee Korrie Reed after learning she had a pregnancy-related complication. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws. After Reed told the company's executive director that she believed her demotion was illegal, Carolina Creek fired her and then sued her in two different lawsuits.
May 31
The BBC website reported that the "N-word" was spray-painted on to NBA superstar LeBron James' Los Angeles home. He said: "No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are... being black in America is tough. "Racism will always be a part of America, and hate in America - especially for African-Americans - is living every day."
JUNE
June 1
US President Donald Trump announced that the country would step away from the climate change agreement signed in 2015 in Paris, The Washington Post website reported. The article commented that the decision makes little sense since climate change is a real threat to the health of people in the US. However, the government viewed this international agreement solely through the lens of economic benefits to the US.
June 9
CNN reported that William Boucher, a 23-year-old white man in Chicago, spat at a black man for no reason, telling him that his children are "disposable vermin" and calling a second black man a slave.
June 10
The Al Jazeera website reported that Adam Purinton, a 52-year-old white man, shouted "get out of my country" as he shot dead one Indian man and injured another at a bar in Kansas.
June 21
In a poll of more than 1,000 political scientists in the US, most respondents believed that US democracy had been plateauing for decades and that the US government has failed to meet democratic standards for granting citizens an equal opportunity to vote or stopping officials from exploiting their public office for private gain, The Atlantic website reported.
June 22
The San Diego Union Tribune website reported that disability advocacy organization ADAPT organized a demonstration to protest against cutting Medicaid funding. Bruce Darling, an organizer, wrote in a statement that the American Health Care Act caps and significantly cuts Medicaid which will greatly reduce access to basic medical services for elderly and disabled US citizens who rely on them.
June 30
Latest statistics show Los Angeles County saw a 23 percent increase in the number of homeless people, to 57,794, the Guardian website reported. For the approximately 1,800 people sleeping on the surrounding streets of Los Angeles' Skid Row, only nine cisterns without doors are available at night.
