Delegation to travel to Geneva to tell human rights council that attempt is being made to restrict black and Latino right to vote
Ed Pilkington
The Guardian [UK]
9 March 2012
The leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, will travel to Geneva next week to tell the UN human rights council that a co-ordinated legislative attempt is being made by states across America to disfranchise millions of black and Latino voters in November’s presidential election.
The delegation, headed by the NAACP’s president, Benjamin Jealous, will address the council on Wednesday and call on the UN body to launch a formal investigation into the spread of restrictive electoral laws, particularly in southern states. The NAACP intends to invite a UN team to travel across America to see for itself the impact of the new laws, which it argues are consciously designed to suppress minority voting.
The UN has no power to intervene in the workings of individual American states. But Jealous told the Guardian that the UN had a powerful weapon in its armoury: shame.
“Shame alone is effective. The US, and individual states within the US that have introduced these laws, have a vested interest in maintaining the opinion that we are the world’s leading democracy. That means something,” Jealous said…
The article continues at The Guardian.
Related: NAACP warns black and Hispanic Americans could lose right to vote
