The UN human rights chief on Monday urged US authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly and refrain from using military force in the context of large protests against President Donald Trump's actions while in office.
"I urge the authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly and to uphold human rights in law enforcement, including by refraining from any resort to military force when civilian authorities are capable of maintaining public order," Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in a broad opening speech.
His comments come after Trump sent US marines to Los Angeles to square off against protesters as part of a rare use of military force to support domestic police.
Protests over federal immigration enforcement raids have been flaring up around the country.
Opponents of Trump's immigration policies took to the streets as part of the “no kings” demonstrations Saturday that came as Trump held a massive parade in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the US Army.
Saturday's protests were mostly peaceful.
But police in Los Angeles used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to clear out protesters after the event ended.
Officers in Portland, Oregon, also fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse a crowd that protested in front of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building well into the evening.
Trump made the call for stepped up enforcement in Democratic-controlled cities on social media as he was making his way to the Group of Seven economic summit in Alberta, Canada.
He suggested to reporters as he departed the White House for the G7 on Sunday evening that his decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles was the reason the protests in that city went peacefully.
“If we didn’t have the National Guard on call and ready, they would rip Los Angeles apart,” Trump said.
The shift also come as Trump is grappling with the impact his mass deportation effort is having on key industries that rely on workers in the country illegally.
Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he heard from hotel, agriculture and leisure industries that his “very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them” and promised that changes would be made.
That same day Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote to regional leaders telling them to halt investigations of the agriculture industry, including meatpackers, as well as of restaurants and hotels, according to the US official.
