On the Occasion of Human Rights Day: Statement on Colonialism, Imperialism, and Militarism

On the occasion of Human Rights Day, December 10, 2023, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we released a statement that says in part:

If there is anything to be gleaned from the horrors of this moment, it is that an expansionist, non-Western view of human rights is a necessity. While so much of human rights defense has understandably sought to protect people from harms like racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, and ableism, the realization of affirmative, positive rights such as the right to food, the right to healthcare, the right to shelter, and the right to clean water begins to craft the foundations of an entirely different society.

That future society is being contested now, and so we must be brave now. We must join students and activists who are occupying bridges and university halls, who are taking to the streets to firmly reject the white, imperialist human rights framework and imagining a world in which the preconditions of genocide are eliminated, where the harms of the violent, living history of colonial and imperial powers are addressed and repaired, and where we recognize our collective responsibility to protect human dignity beyond nation-state borders. This is what we declare as universal human rights, and the only declaration worth celebrating and fighting for.

Read the full statement on our website here. 

End Solitary Confinement Act introduced in the Senate  

On December 5, 2023, the 10th anniversary of solitary confinement survivor Nelson Mandela's death, Senator Ed Markey, along with Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Peter Welch, introduced the End Solitary Confinement Act (text here, summary here, companion legislation to HR 4972), which would end solitary confinement in all federal custody and incentivize states and localities to do the same. We joined our partners in the Federal Anti-Solitary Taskforce (FAST) and over 175 other organizations nationwide in celebrating the bill’s introduction in the Senate. 

“Prisons and immigration detention centers throughout the country use solitary confinement, and the threat of it, to silence dissenters, compel labor, and isolate Black, Brown, and LGBTQIA+ people at disproportionate rates. The End Solitary Confinement Act is a monumental step toward eliminating this abhorrent practice in federal carceral systems, and we celebrate its introduction in the Senate." 
– CJ Sandley, staff attorney

Learn from our staff in multiple upcoming webinars related to Palestine 

2023 War on Gaza: The Responsibility to Prevent Genocide 
Date: Tuesday, December 12, from 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: UN Headquarters, Conference Room 7 in New York City and livestreamed on UN WebTV
The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will hold a panel discussion with legal experts featuring Senior Staff Attorney Katherine Gallagher.

Repression of Palestine Activism Amid the War on Gaza 
Date: Tuesday, December 12, from 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. ET
Location: Online via Zoom
Learn more about this event, featuring Senior Staff Attorney Diala Shamas, on the Arab Center DC website. Register for the Zoom link. 

Deep Violence, Anti-Palestine Repression, and the Work of Consciousness 
Date: Thursday, December 14, from 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. ET
Location: Online via Zoom
Conversation between scholar-activists and movement-builders, featuring Senior Staff Attorney Diala Shamas, Fred Moten, Loubna Qutami, and Kris Manjapra. Register for the Zoom link.

Biden Tries to Evade Legal Responsibility for Failure to Prevent – and Complicity in – Israel’s Genocide in Gaza 

After the U.S. government’s response late last Friday in the genocide case brought by Palestinian organizations and individuals, we issued a statement that says in part: 

The U.S. government’s filing came hours after it vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. The U.S. government’s filing is no less disappointing for being predictable. President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin are attempting to evade legal responsibility for their failure to prevent – and their complicity in – Israel’s unfolding genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Their lawyers focus on jurisdictional issues rather than the substance of the lawsuit, which was brought by Palestinian human rights groups, Palestinians who live in Gaza, and Palestinians in the U.S. with family members who live in Gaza. On their behalf, we are seeking an emergency court order to halt U.S. support for Israel’s unrelenting assault and brutal siege.

Read the full statement on our website.

Reject the government’s attempts to manipulate hate violence to expand state criminalization 

We join over 70 grassroots, advocacy, and movement organizations calling upon broader movements, civil rights organizations, and anti-hate groups to reject the government’s attempts to manipulate hate violence, antisemitism, and Islamophobia to further expand state criminalization. 

These initiatives do not address community safety. Instead, they simply expand state power and criminalization while ignoring the fact that the state itself has laid the groundwork for this violence. We call upon groups to take leadership from an abolitionist call: build community safety that is not rooted in the carceral state. Increased individual violence against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities is rooted in state-sanctioned violence.

This moment calls for collective solidarity. The repression, violence, and suppression we are witnessing against movements demanding an end to the genocide of Palestinians and for a permanent ceasefire will set a dangerous precedent for all movement groups that seek to resist state violence and ongoing genocides and to build toward a better future. 

Read the full statement and full demands online. Organizations can also still endorse the statement in the link.

Support our work with an end-of-year contribution! 

Your support of the Center for Constitutional Rights helps to make this important work possible. With you by our side, we will continue to fight for justice in the U.S. and around the world. Please consider making a donation today to support our work against solitary confinement, and if you have already contributed, thank you!