The brother of George Floyd has made a heartfelt plea the U.N.’s top human rights body to launch intense international scrutiny of systemic racism and the killing of unarmed blacks by police.
Philonise Floyd’s message by video to the Human Rights Council came as it contemplates an unprecedented bid sought by the Africa Group to create a Commission of Inquiry — the council’s most powerful tool of scrutiny — to examine and report on racism and violence against protesters by police in the United States.
“I am my brother’s keeper. You in the United Nations are your brothers and sisters’ keepers in America — and you have the power to help us get justice for my brother George Floyd,” Floyd said. “I am asking you to help him. I am asking you to help me. I am asking you to help us: Black people in America.”
Jasmine Rand, International Legal Strategist for the George Floyd legal team said, “We are hopeful that the United Nations will establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate George Floyd’s murder and the killings of Black people in America. The United States must be called on to reckon with its legacy of historic injustice that has manifest in yet another generation of African Americans and threatens the future of all Americans.”
