Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2015

MAY

May 4

A poll jointly released by the CBS News and the New York Times showed that 61 percent of Americans characterized race relations in the United States as "bad."

The figure was the highest since 1992.

May 5

The Washington Post website reported that Brendon Glenn, an unarmed and homeless 29-year-old black man, was shot by police outside a bar in Venice, California.

May 6

According to a report by the ABC News, figures released by the International Labor Organization showed that the United States is only one of three countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave.

May 7

According to a survey released by the Public Religion Research Institute, 51 percent of Americans disagreed that blacks and other minorities receive equal treatment as whites in the criminal justice system, and 78 percent of black Americans disagreed that blacks and other minorities receive equal treatment to whites in the criminal justice system.

May 11

The United States was reviewed for the second time on its human rights records through the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council on May 11.

Several reports produced as part of the review revealed that more problems concerning torture, the death penalty and other fields existed in the United States, which was in sharp contrast with the country's claim of improved human rights.

Many nations criticized the U.S. reluctance to sign the human rights treaties.

The UN has set up nine core human rights conventions, six of them are still awaiting the country's ratification.

The United States portrays itself as the global leader in human rights, but fails to safeguard the economic, social and cultural rights listed in international human rights instruments.

May 13

The Washington Post website reported that a mentally-ill female prisoner, Natasha McKenna, died after she was shot four times with a Taser stun gun by a guard in the Fairfax County jail three months ago. Her hands and feet were shackled when she was shot.

May 19

The Washington Post website reported that Alfredo Rials-Torres, an unarmed 54-year-old Hispanic man, was shot by police in an apartment in Arlington, Virginia.

May 22

The CNN website reported that in a complaint filed with the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, a coalition of more than 60 Asian-American organizations claimed that Harvard unfairly held Asian-American applicants to a higher standard.

May 26

The BBC website reported that the Mapping Police Violence project showed that black people are three times more likely to be killed by police in the United States than white people.

May 28

A New York Times article cited a report as saying that racial residential segregation has become a way of life in the United States. About one third of African-Americans live in severe segregation, with Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City among the cities suffering the most severe racial segregation.

May 29

A report released by the Pew Research Center shows that a majority of Americans opposed the government collecting bulk data on its citizens.

Sixty-one percent of those aware of the U.S. government's surveillance programs said they had become less confident that the programs were serving the public interest.