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Amid the continuing condemnation over the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US troops, the United States released an annual report Monday on its efforts to improve human rights, which Chinese experts considered the most "satiric" human rights report issued since human society entered the "civilized" 21st century. The following is an excerpt from the Xinhua News Agency:
"While trumpeting the US endeavor in helping other countries improve human rights, the report mentions no word about its own abuse of Iraqi prisoners," said China Foundation for Human Rights Development Vice President Lin Bocheng.
"Posing as a 'world human rights watchdog,' the United States has made itself a scoundrel as its forces ruthlessly ravaged the dignity of prisoners and trampled their basic human rights in Iraq, which has tarnished civilization and is despised by the whole international community.
"The release of the record, therefore, only serves to satirize its human rights 'promotion' around the world."
Entitled Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2003-2004, the report summarizes in 270 pages actions in 101 countries to promote freedom and to end abuse, including torture, the very crime US soldiers are accused of in Iraq. The US State Department had postponed its publication for 12 days due to the abuse scandal that has erupted since the end of April.
Lin regards the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers as an inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power politics in the world.
"The US' persistence in publishing the record despite all the condemnation over the recent scandal once again exposed its hegemony," he said.
In addition, Lin also pointed out that the United States was the only country to publish human rights records every year to denounce or press other countries in human rights issues.
"Its real attempts to interfere in and even to trample on human rights and internal affairs of other countries, under the excuse of promoting 'democracy and human rights,' will never be accepted by the international community," Lin said. "The facts also prove that it is not qualified for the role of 'world human rights judge' at all."
(China Daily May 20, 2004)
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