Full text: Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2015

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 1

According to a report, titled "Crime in the United States 2014," released by the FBI, an estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes occurred nationwide in 2014, of which 63.6 percent were aggravated assaults, 28 percent were robberies, 7.2 percent rapes and 1.2 percent murders. Firearms were used in 67.9 percent of the nation's murders, 40.3 percent of robberies, and 22.5 percent of aggravated assaults in 2014. Nationwide, there were an estimated 8,277,829 property crimes, with the victims of such crimes suffering losses calculated at an estimated 14.3 billion U.S. dollars.

Sept. 9

The USA Today website reported that according to a poll released by the National Bar Association in the United States, 88 percent of African Americans believed African Americans are treated unfairly by police, and 59 percent of whites shared that view.

Sept. 10

The U.S. government had blocked the release of documents detailing the alleged torture of a suspected top Al Qaeda operative held in Guantanamo Bay, said the Daily Mail of Britain on its website. Abu Zubaydah, a 44-year-old Saudi national, was captured in 2002 and has been held in Guantanamo since 2006. According to documents released last year, he lost an eye and was waterboarded 83 times in a single month while in the custody of the CIA at Guantanamo Bay. Joe Margulies, Zubaydah's lead defense lawyer, said the CIA declared all the 116 pages of testimony by Zubaydah classified.

Sept. 16

The USA Today website reported that a former employee is suing Microsoft, alleging the technology giant discriminates against women in technical roles. Microsoft policies and practices "systematically violate female technical employees' rights and result in the unchecked gender bias that pervades its corporate culture," charges the lawsuit, which is seeking class action status.

Sept. 18

According to a report released on the Institute for Policy Innovation website, there were still 33 million people in the U.S. uninsured in 2014, although the incumbent U.S. president promised to sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of his first term.

Sept. 21

The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported on their websites that a survey released by the Association of American Universities that covered more than 150,000 students at 27 universities showed that more than one in four female undergraduate students say they have been victimized by nonconsensual sexual contact. In California, 29.7 percent of female undergraduates at the University of Southern California reported the most serious sexual misconduct. Nationally, the rate of such misconduct ranged from 13 percent to 30 percent across campuses.

Sept. 22

The Washington Post reported that those who were not Christians found it difficult to run for a post in public office in the United States. And it was more difficult for those who did not have a religious belief. A Pew poll found that of all religion-related groups, atheists and Muslims were viewed the most negatively by Americans.

Sept. 23

The Washington Post website reported that Keith Harrison McLeod, an unarmed 19-year-old African-American man, was shot by police in Reisterstown, Maryland, after they were called to a pharmacy after the man attempted to fill a prescription that had been forged. After a short chase, officers confronted the man.

OCTOBER

Oct. 1

The Guardian reported on its website that observing the current American politics was like watching a game of money. The 2016 presidential election was almost going to be the most expensive one in history.

Oct. 2

The Chicago Tribune and the Huffington Post reported on their websites that on October 1, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer, a student at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, entered a classroom in the college with a bullet proof vest on and six guns. He opened fire, killing nine people and wounding nine others, before killing himself. It was the 45th shooting at a school in 2015. There have been 142 shootings at schools since December 14, 2012, the date of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Oct. 3

According to the CNN and Sputnik News, a hospital run by aid group "Doctors Without Borders" in the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan was bombed by the U.S. military on October 3, causing 42 deaths, including 12 medical staff and three children. The aid group accused the air strike a "war crime" instead of an "error."

Oct. 5

The Washington Post website reported that Omar Ali, an unarmed 27-year-old man, was shot by police in a bar in Akron, Ohio.

Oct. 8

A report by the Al Jazeera America said that approximately one-fifth of all U.S. children live in food-insecure households, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As of 2014, 15.4 percent of Americans overall reside in food-insecure households-a total of more than 48 million people.

Oct. 10

The USA Today website reported that in the United States, the gap between the rich and poor jumped dramatically in the 1980s, making upward mobility increasingly difficult for low-income Americans. In the United States, 3.1 percent of income earned annually went to the poorest 20 percent of people, while 51.4 percent was earned by the richest 20 percent. Statistics showed that over half of all wealth in the United States belonged to the top 3 percent of earners.

On the same day, the BBC and the RT America reported that gunfire broke out on October 9 on the Northern Arizona University and Texas Southern University campuses. With the two shootings on college campuses, the number of U.S. school shootings in 2015 has climbed to 52, with 30 people killed and 53 others injured.

Oct. 14

An AFP report showed that New York was a city of extreme inequality, where people in the poor neighborhood of Brooklyn died 11 years earlier than those living around Wall Street, according to data released on October 14.

Oct. 15

According to a report run by Daily Mail website, when carrying out drone assassinations, the U.S. military used "phone data alone" -- a limited way of guaranteeing a kill. During Operation Haymaker, a campaign in northeastern Afghanistan which ran between January 2012 and February 2013, some 219 people were killed by drones but just 35, 15 percent, were the intended targets. During another five-month stretch of the operation, a staggering 90 percent of those killed were not the intended target. Despite this all the deaths were labeled EKIA, or "enemy killed in action."

Oct. 22

The AOL website reported that protests were held in many major cities and towns across the United States on October 22 to stop police brutality. The event's organizer posted 5 shocking facts about police brutality in the United States on its website: 1. More than 920 people have been killed by the police in 2015; 2. Black Americans are more than twice likely to be unarmed when killed during police encounters than whites; 3. Native Americans are the group just as likely as blacks to be killed by law enforcement officers; 4. Excessive force is one of the most common forms of police misconduct; 5. For every 1,000 people killed by police, only one officer is convicted of a crime.

Oct. 23

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Amir Meshal couldn't sue the FBI for illegally detaining, interrogating and torturing him abroad for four months. Meshal claimed FBI agents held him without process or access to counsel, put him in solitary confinement, and threatened him with torture and death, and returned him to the United States after multiple transfers to squalid jails in several countries.

On the same day, the Christian Science Monitor reported on its website that the American Chamber of Commerce, the biggest commercial lobbying group in the nation, planned to play an active role in the 2016 presidential election. The chamber said it would spend 100 million U.S. dollars in 2016 presidential election, compared with 70 million in 2014.

Oct. 31

According to information provided by the Coalition for the Homeless, in recent years, homelessness in New York City had reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In October 2015, there were 59,568 homeless people, including 14,361 homeless families with 23,858 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters was 86 percent higher than it was ten years ago. Each night thousands of unsheltered homeless people slept on New York City streets, in the subway system, and in other public spaces.