There has been enormous headline reaction in the world’s media to the Ferguson protests, and many commentators have taken the opportunity to question America’s credentials as a human rights champion.
European papers highlight inequalities in American society, and a South African commentator sees echoes of his country’s own grim racial history.
China
The death of Michael Brown, whose killing sparked the unrest, is “a stark reminder for Uncle Sam that there are a lot of human rights violations on its own soil,” says China’s official news agency Xinhua.
“It should first fix its own problems before criticizing other countries.”
Xinhua adds that few other countries are “as self-righteous and complacent as the United States when it comes to human rights issues, but the Ferguson tragedy is apparently a slap in the face”.
According to Agence France-Presse, China’s state media said that “even in a country that has for years tried to play the role of an international human rights judge and defender, there is still much room for improvement.”
Iran
Iran’s Press TV dedicated all of its morning programmes to the Ferguson clashes, showing what appeared to be “live” video from the protests.
Press TV reported that attorneys for Mr Brown’s family had said that the “grand jury process was rigged to clear the white officer” who shot him.
Iran’s State TV said the grand jury decision “indicates the existence of racial discrimination in the USA”.
The protests in Ferguson are also one of the top stories in the Iranian press.
The conservative newspaper Kayhan carried a collage of pictures from Ferguson, including a US flag being set on fire. Its headline said: “A rebellion in 90 American cities as a result of the non-indictment of the murderer policeman.”
Javan, another hardline daily, carried a report headlined, “Non-indictment of a white policeman; anger engulfs 90 American cities”.
Iran’s State TV said the grand jury decision “indicates the existence of racial discrimination in the USA”.
The protests in Ferguson are also one of the top stories in the Iranian press.
The conservative newspaper Kayhan carried a collage of pictures from Ferguson, including a US flag being set on fire. Its headline said: “A rebellion in 90 American cities as a result of the non-indictment of the murderer policeman.”
Javan, another hardline daily, carried a report headlined, “Non-indictment of a white policeman; anger engulfs 90 American cities”.
Middle East
The story also features on the front pages of several Arab dailies.
In Egypt, Al-Wafd sums up the widely-expressed view in the headline “An uprising against racism in the USA”.
Qatar’s Al-Watan says US cities have been denouncing “lethal racism”, and Syria’s official Al-Thawrah newspaper notes that protests against police violence and racism are on the increase.
On social media, some Arabic-language posts have been mocking the US government and even gloating over its mishandling of the case. The Twitter hashtag #USAprotests in Arabic has been used more than 4,000 times since Tuesday.
Russia
The #Ferguson hashtag is also among the top 10 Twitter trends in Russia, and press articles have drawn parallels between Ferguson and the Maidan protests in Ukraine.
“Barack Obama gets his own Maidan”, the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestiya says.
Ren TV plays on the racial aspect of the Ferguson protests and also brings in the Ukrainian crisis, describing the demonstrations as a “colour revolution” and “an attempt to start a civil war in the US”.
Russia’s foreign ministry also reportedly condemned the actions of U.S. authorities in Ferguson, which witnessed days of protests, which sometimes turned violent with instances of looting, vandalism and bottle-throwing, while police resorted to the use of tear gas and rubber bullets to control the unrest, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon deployed the National Guard.
“The Ferguson unrest and the authorities’ fluctuations from tough suppression to appeals for peace and dialogue reveal once again the deep-rooted problems with human rights and democratic standards in the US,” the statement said.
As they call other governments to guarantee freedom of speech and avoid violence against political protest, US authorities act harshly against active opponents of continuing inequality, de facto discrimination and the state of second-rate citizens. Journalists also fall victim to this violence, as we have seen over the past few days.
Europe
Ferguson is also a front-page story in the German press.
Uwe Schmitt, the former Washington correspondent for Germany’s centre-right daily Die Welt, writes it is a “predictable explosion” given the juxtaposition of a “grotesquely over-armed police force” with a black community “untouched by economic recovery”.
He accuses many Americans of “self-delusion” when they ask how such violence can recur again and again, while abroad “people shake their heads unsurprised, either in mourning or glee”.
An editorial in France’s Liberation newspaper says: “Ferguson is a long way from being the post-racial America dreamed of by Barack Obama.”
In Spain, Pere Vilanova writes in El Periodico that “perhaps the symbolic value of the election of a black man as president in 2008 has been overestimated and inter-communal wounds will never be healed”.
In Italy, La Stampa‘s New York correspondent Paolo Mastrolilli says the discussion has become one about the race problem “connected to inequality and economic disparity”. He notes that some of the white demonstrators in New York and Los Angeles wanted to broaden the debate in that direction.
South Africa
Writing in South Africa’s Daily Maverick, Richard Poplak finds that images of officers facing off against enraged citizens show “an American city aping South African archival footage”.
“It’s a reminder that in divided countries, with histories of institutionalized racism, reconciliation without actually reconciling… justice is not just impossible, but a massive cover-up, a ruse used by power.”
North Korea
North Korea has also taken aim at the United States, calling it a “graveyard of human rights,” referring to the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, and its aftermath. The violent protests and the police’s handling of the situation also came in for criticism from the hermetic Asian country widely regarded to have one of the world’s worst human rights record.
A spokesperson for North Korea’s foreign ministry said that the U.S. should first “bring to light the real picture of the American society” before passing judgment on other nations, state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported Tuesday. China, Russia, Iran and Egypt too have taken the opportunity to criticize the U.S. following the violent demonstrations and vandalism that followed the shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer Darren Wilson in a St. Louis suburb.
“The US is, indeed, a country wantonly violating human rights where people are subject to discrimination and humiliation due to their races and they are seized with such horror that they do not know when they are shot to death,” the spokesperson said, according to KCNA. “It should not seek solutions to its problems in suppressing demonstrators, but bring to light the real picture of the American society, a graveyard of human rights, and have a correct understanding of what genuine human rights are like and how they should be guaranteed.”
North Korea, which is frequently condemned by Washington over allegations of numerous human rights abuses, said that the U.S. should “mind its own business, instead of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.”
That’s right on the point. The world has been watching and now everyone sees what a sham of a justice system was on display with Ferguson.
Great that these countries understand the plight of black people in America. Now who’s ready to send aid to black citizens? The inhumane treatment that blacks face on a regular basis by whites is a global human rights issue. We are in need of rescuing from some benevolent state.
What’s that smell? It’s America’s shit stinking around the world.