'Grave Concern': SPLC official takes part in UN panel on
growing threats to minority rights, democracy in US

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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here

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Friend,

Amid growing international concern that the U.S. is failing to protect
minority groups within its borders, a top official of the Southern
Poverty Law Center traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, this week to meet
with officials at the United Nations.

Lecia Brooks
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, chief of staff and culture for the SPLC, is participating as an
expert in a panel discussion - "Open Dialogue: Urgent
Situations of Minorities" - at the 15th session

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of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues
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, which began yesterday and continues today.

The situation is indeed "urgent," said Fernand de Varennes

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, U.N. special rapporteur on minority issues, who is directing the
forum. De Varennes called rising threats to voting rights in the U.S.
"of grave concern" and said he fears that attempts by
political leaders to sow doubts about the integrity of elections, to
gerrymander electoral districts to benefit particular candidates and
political parties and to restrict access to the ballot could, if not
addressed, spill over from the U.S. into other countries.

"We don't often address the issues of minorities in the
U.S. at a session of the United Nations," de Varennes said.
"But I am concerned that the right to choose one's own
representation, the cornerstone of democracy, is threatened in the
U.S. I think the international community should get more involved and
open more opportunities for specific minorities to make their case at
the level of the U.N."

The SPLC's more than half-century track record of fighting for
racial justice, civil rights and voting rights in the U.S. "is
certainly what I had in mind when I invited" the organization to
address the issue on the international stage, de Varennes said.

Brooks' participation in the forum is part of an evolving
strategy at the SPLC to employ the pressure of international
condemnation as a powerful tool for advocacy.

"It's an opportunity to talk about the ongoing, systemic
issues facing marginalized populations in the U.S., and to acknowledge
that we face the same issues in the U.S. as these communities face
globally," Brooks said. "The U.S. is not unique in that
way. It has a long way to go in terms of honoring the human rights of
all its people."

READ MORE

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