Under Abbott, state in Human Rights Hall of Shame

State executions, criminalization of homelessness, imprisonment of debtors, systemic racism, abuse of immigrants. These are not simply moral ills or social problems. More deeply, they are human rights violations.

And Texas knows its fair share of such violations.

The concept of human rights took on a sense of urgency following World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust. On Dec. 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, setting forth a person's “basic rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The declaration lists 30 articles that apply to every person. It includes the freedom of movement and residence, freedom of education, right to property, right of peaceful assembly, and the rights of conscience, religion, opinion and expression.

Importantly, it declares the right to equal pay for equal work, and the right to an adequate standard of living, including medical care and freedom from torture. Further, no one should be subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The drafting committee for the declaration consisted of an international group chaired by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. There was no dissenting vote when the U.N. adopted the declaration.

The U.S., never reluctant to lecture other countries — China, North Korea, Russia, Cuba — on their human rights violations, does not itself have a very good record on human rights.

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative tracks 13 rights in three categories: civil and political rights, safety from the state, and economic and social rights. The scores for the U.S. are

“worse than average” compared to other high-income countries in the latest report.

The HRMI notes, “Our research shows that if the United States used its existing resources better, millions more Americans could be enjoying their basic human rights.” It is no wonder the HRMI says that “human rights defenders fight an uphill battle” in the U.S.

Nowhere is that battle more crucial than in Republican-controlled Texas.

With the recent assault on women's reproductive rights imposed by the near-total ban on abortions and various forms of voter suppression becoming law, Texas has willfully joined the Human Rights Hall of Shame.

To get a clearer sense of the human rights climate in Texas, I spoke with Rick Halperin, a historian and director of the Human Rights Program at Southern Methodist University.

“Human rights are not a Democratic or Republican issue,” Halperin told me. “They pertain to all people at all times.

“We must ask ourselves two fundamental questions,” he said. “First, do we believe that everyone is entitled to the fundamental, inherent rights and freedoms in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion, or do we not? And if not, why not?

“Second, if we are truly committed to the defense, protection and advocacy of human rights for all people at all times, then why do we continue our hateful language, which dehumanizes groups and countries merely because of who we think they are?”

Texas' shabby record on the death penalty is “the No. 1 human rights problem in this state,” Halperin said. But he listed others: hate crimes, hate groups, violations against asylum-seekers, substandard prison conditions, and the ongoing assaults against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“There is almost no culture of human rights in this country,” he said. “Our elected officials bear the responsibility to respond to human rights violations in a prompt and timely manner. Gov. Greg Abbott and this Legislature bear the responsibility for these violations committed on their watch.”

Two things strike Halperin as important. First, there is almost no human rights education in Texas schools, which needs to start in elementary school. Second, the history of lynching in Texas, and the resultant failure to acknowledge the mistakes of the past, are so terribly obvious.

The First Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states simply: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

With Abbott and Republicans in control of the Legislature, Texas will continue to fail in realizing that all people have an inherent dignity that should be protected and that there is no such thing as a lesser person.

Texas deserves to be in a Human Rights Hall of Shame.