Human rights activists are poised to mount protests against US President Donald Trump as he lands in the UK on a three-day state visit.
The President and First Lady Melania Trump touched down at Stansted Airport at 9am today (June 3) for his second UK visit in less than a year.
He is due to visit the Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall as well as outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May.
Protestors are due to gather today outside of Buckingham Palace and on Vauxhall Bridge, near the US Embassy, while thousands are expected to gather for the nationwide Stop Trump march tomorrow.
Amnesty International last week sent a letter to outgoing prime minister Theresa May to stand up for human rights principles in her meeting with the President.
Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK’s Director, said: “Within the Anglo-American relationship, we’d like to see the UK Government being far more vocal about human rights.
“Our fear is that the Government’s desperate hunger for post-Brexit trade deals with the USA could mean we end up giving a free pass to the White House as this onslaught against human rights continues.”
Campaigners from the group unfurled five brightly-coloured banners in front of the embassy which say: “Resist sexism”, “Resist racism”, “Resist hate”, “Resist cruelty” and “Resist Trump”.
https://twitter.com/AmnestyUK/status/1135485625946333185
What Human Rights Violations Is Donald Trump Accused Of?
Image Credit: Flickr.
Amnesty International UK has compiled the following list of moves ‘hostile to human rights’ it has criticised President Trump’s administration for:
- Separating child migrants from their parents
- Reinstating and expanding a “global gag rule” affecting funding for international women’s health programmes
- Pushing ahead with a revised multi-country travel ban
- Saying it would formally withdraw its support for the global Arms trade Treaty
- Withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council and the Paris Agreement on the climate emergency
- Blocking the work of the International Criminal Court and withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council
- Making remarks apparently excusing racist violence at neo-Nazi gatherings such as Charlottesville
- Having no regard for serious allegations of sexual assault against a Supreme Court nominee
- Using phrases like “enemies of the state” to describe journalists, and limiting or cancelling altogether regular press briefings
- Failing to introduce wide-ranging new gun-controls laws
- Continuing to sell military equipment to countries with poor human rights records, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain
- Introducing a ban on trans people in the military
- Drastically reducing the number of refugees the USA would admit annually
- Ending “Temporary Protected Status” for over 250,000 people from El Salvador
- Recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
- Failing in any way to hold leaders of governments in Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Turkey (among others) accountable for appalling human rights records
- Terminating funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency
- Issuing an executive order on the US-Mexico border which allows for the forcible return of people to life-threatening situations
- Significantly increasing the rate of US drone strikes in Somalia and failing to acknowledge civilian casualties
- Failing to investigate the deaths of civilians in large-scale US-led bombing operations in Mosul and Raqqa
- Appointing Gina Haspel as director of the CIA
- Pushing thousands of asylum-seekers at the Mexico border back into Mexico
- Cavalierly suggesting the possible use of nuclear weapons in response to a cyber-attack in the USA and the imposition of death sentences in drugs cases
- Constructing the Dakota pipeline despite environmental and cultural concerns