China issued on Thursday the Human Rights Record of the
United States in 2006 closely following the release of the US
State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 2006 on Tuesday.
Released by the State Council Information Office, the Chinese
report lists numerous incidents showing the US human rights
situation in a bad light and its violation of human rights in other
countries.
"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger
at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions,
including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation
in the US," the document says.
By shining a light on the US human rights record, the document
aims to "help people have a better understanding of the situation
in the US and promote the international cause of human rights."
Relying on its strong military power, the US has blithely
trespassed on sovereignty of other countries and violated their
human rights, the document says, additionally highlighting the high
number of Iraqi civilians killed by the US-led war since 2003.
A survey by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of
Public Health places at over 655,000 the number of Iraqis that have
died since the war started in March 2003, translating to around 500
unexpected violent deaths per day nationwide, according to a
Washington Post report on October 11, 2006.
On November 19, 2005, a US marine unit searched an Iraqi
community door-to-door and slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians after a
marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha.
The dead included 76-year-old disabled man, a three-year-old
child, and seven women, BBC News reported on November 19, 2006.
The document says the US has repeatedly violated the Geneva
Convention in systematically abusing prisoners during the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
On February 15, 2006, Australia's SBS TV broadcast over 10
pictures and video clips taken at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison which
showed among other harrowing scenes: a man's throat having been
cut, the left forearm of a detainee left with burns and shrapnel
wounds, a blood-stained interrogation room, and a seemingly insane
man's body covered with his own feces.
The document further reveals that even in the US, people's life,
property and personal security are not secure.
The document quotes a US Justice Department report dated
September 10, 2006 that counted 5.2 million violent crimes in the
US in 2005, up 2.5 percent from the previous year and the highest
number in 15 years.
The statistics for 2006 counted 23 million crimes among people
aged age 12 or above and that for every 1,000 persons age 12 or
older, there occurred 1 rape or sexual assault, 1 assault with
injury, and 3 robberies.
In the US, law enforcement and judiciary forces also commonly
breach human rights.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and other government agencies remanded 6,472
individuals in custody and referred them to prosecutors on
terrorism-related charges.
However, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at
Syracuse University reveals that close to three-quarters of
terrorism suspects seized by the US since 2001 have not gone to
trial due to a lack of evidence against them.
In 64 percent of the cases, federal prosecutors decided against
prosecution, while an additional nine percent were dismissed out of
hand or the suspects were found not guilty, according to a report
by the AFP on September 4, 2006.
In recent years, American citizens have suffered increasing
civil rights infringements, as the US government has ramped up
surveillance measures targeted at average Americans since the
September 11 attacks.
According to a survey released in December 2006, two-thirds of
Americans think the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on
their right to privacy, according to a Washington Post
report on December 13, 2006.
The US touts itself as the "beacon of democracy," but the US
brand of democracy is one relying on the power of money, the
Chinese document says.
In 2004, candidates for the House of Representatives who raised
less than US$1 million usually had no chance of victory, the
USA Today quoted a spokesman for the Center for Responsive
Politics as saying in a report dated October 29, 2006.
For the Senate, a successful campaign on average cost US$7
million, the USA Today says. For all of 2006, the total
amount poured into state campaigns in the US reached close to
US$2.4 billion.
Confirming a lack of confidence in their government, 74 percent
of respondents to a new Opinion Research poll pronounced the US
Congress as being out of touch with average Americans, as CNN
reported on October 18, 2006, and 79 percent of those
questioned?confirmed the too important impact of big business
in the administration's decisions.
The Chinese document further takes the US to task for failing to
guarantee its people's economic, social and cultural rights.
A report released by the US Census Bureau on August 29, 2006
numbered 37 million people living in poverty in 2005, accounting
for 12.6 percent of the total population. The report also places
7.7 million families or one out of every eight Americans living in
poverty as of 2005.
"Ethnic minorities are at the bottom of American society," the
Chinese report says.
Statistics released by the US Census Bureau in November 2006
show income disparity among ethnic groups as according to the 2005
data, the average yearly household income was US$50,622 for whites,
compared with 36,278 for Hispanics and 30,940 for blacks. This
placed white people's income as 64 percent higher than for blacks
and 40 percent than for Hispanics.
Racial discrimination was also found to be crippling America's
law enforcement and judicial systems.
According to National Urban League, of the sentences issued in
12 criminal categories saw black males receive longer sentences
than white males.
To explain this disparity, researchers blamed poverty, a lack of
opportunities and institutional racism in the criminal justice
system as reasons for the gap.
The document accuses the US of strutting by lecturing other
countries by condemning their human rights practices while ignoring
its own problems, showing double-standards by the US in terms of
human rights.
By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United States
in 2006, the document says it aims to "help the world people
have a better understanding of the situation in the US and promote
the international cause of human rights."
This is the eighth consecutive year that China's report on the
US' human rights record has shortly followed its US
counterpart.
(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2007)
