which were marked by widespread excessive providing a bipartisan set of proposals to use of force by law enforcement agencies. reform certain aspects of policing. Instead, lawmakers in at least 36 states and HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS at the federal level introduced more than 80 pieces of draft legislation limiting freedom of The annual Country Reports on Human assembly, with nine states enacting 10 such Rights Practices issued by the US State bills into law in 2021. At the end of the year, Department were accompanied by public a further 44 such bills were pending in 18 recognition by the Secretary of State of the states. Proposed legal restrictions on freedom importance of, and risks faced by, human of assembly included increased penalties for rights defenders. The Biden administration acts of civil disobedience relating to also re-published its policy on US Support for infrastructure projects such as pipelines, Human Rights Defenders, which had been obstructing roads and defacing monuments. sidelined for several years. Other laws sought to prevent reductions to In May, news media revealed that US policing budgets by local governments and authorities tracked and harassed human remove civil liability for car drivers who hit rights defenders active in the USA-Mexico protesters blocking streets, among other border area during 2018 and 2019, including things. through an illegal US watchlist of activists, By contrast, the California state legislature detailed in Amnesty International’s 2019 enacted new laws providing broad report, ‘Saving Lives is not a Crime’: Politically protections to journalists reporting on public Motivated Legal Harassment against Migrant assemblies, who were often targeted for Human Rights Defenders by the USA. arrest and violence by law enforcement Human rights defenders and journalists officials in 2020, and creating statewide continued to report intimidation and standards and regulations for law harassment by authorities when crossing the enforcement’s use of kinetic impact projectile border or when conducting their work in weapons and chemical agents during public Mexico, which impacted both their ability to assemblies. do their work and their overall well-being. In EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE September, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security issued At least 1,055 people were reported killed by a report confirming that agency officials police using firearms in 2021, a slight unlawfully harassed journalists and border increase from previous years. The limited activists without an appropriate legal basis public data available from 2015 to 2021 and, in some cases, apparently covered up suggested that Black people were their violations by destroying evidence of their disproportionately impacted by police use of communications and coordination with lethal force. The federal government’s Mexican authorities in those abuses. programme to track how many such deaths DEATH PENALTY occur annually remained unimplemented. In April, the Maryland state legislature In March, Virginia became the 23rd US state passed and overrode the governor’s veto of a to abolish the death penalty. use-of-force statute, leaving just six states During the final days of the Trump without such statutes to regulate police use of administration in January, the federal force. However, no state laws governing the government carried out three executions, use of lethal force by police – where such continuing the reversal since 2020 of a 17- laws exist – complied with international law year moratorium on federal executions. In and standards. July 2021, the US Department of Justice The US Senate failed to introduce the placed a moratorium on federal executions George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill amid a review of department policies related to capital punishment. However, the federal Amnesty International Report 2021/22 392