China slams US human rights report

    BEIJING, March 3 (Xinhuanet) -- China issued the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004 Thursday in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004 issued by the U.S. on Feb. 28.

    Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show that serious violations of human rights exist on the homeland of the United States.

    "In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States. The scandal shocked the humanity and was condemned by the international community. It is quite ironic that on Feb. 28 of this year, the State Department of the United States once again posed as the 'the world human rights police' and released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004. As in previous years, the reports pointed fingers at human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions (including China) but kept silent on the US misdeeds in this field. Therefore, the world people have to probe the human rights record behind the Statue of Liberty in the United States," said the report.

    The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2004 from six perspectives: Life, liberty and Security of Person; Political Rights and Freedom; Economic, social and Cultural Rights; Racial Discrimination; Rights of Women and Children; and Infringement of Human Rights of Foreign Nationals.

    This is the sixth consecutive year that the Information Office of the State Council has issued human rights record of the United States to answer the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued annually by the State Department of the United States.

    American citizens are threatened by rampant violent crimes and severe infringement of civil rights by law enforcement departments. "Violent crimes pose a serious threat to people's lives," said therecord.

    The record quoted the Department of Justice of the United States on Nov. 29, 2004 as saying that in 2003 residents aged 12 and above in the United States came across about 24 million cases of crimes, including 1.38 million violent crimes like murders and robberies, averaging 475 cases per 100,000 people.

    "Police violence and infringement of human rights by law enforcement agencies also constitute a serious problem," the record said.

    Chinese citizen Zhao Yan was handcuffed and severely beaten onJul. 21, 2004 while she was in the United States on a normal business trip. She suffered injuries in many parts of her body and serious mental harm, according to the record.

    Boasted as "a paragon of democracy," the United States' democracy is actually manipulated by the rich and malpractice, said the record.

    Referring the elections in the United States are in fact a contest of money, the record said, the presidential and Congressional elections last year cost nearly four billion US dollars, some one billion US dollars or one third more than that spent in the 2000 elections.

    According to the U.S.' official website www.opensecrets.org, the 2004 presidential election has been listed as the most expensive campaign in the country's history, with the cost jumpingto 1.7 billion US dollars from 1 billion US dollars in 2000.

    Poverty, hunger and homelessness have been haunting the United States, the world richest country, according to the record.

    The report stressed the United States refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and took negative attitude to the economic, social and cultural rights of the laborers.

    According to the statistics released by the US Census Bureau in2004, the number of Americans in poverty has been climbing for three years. It rose by 1.3 million year-on-year in 2003 to 35.9 million, the report said. 

    Racial discrimination has been deeply rooted in the United States, permeating into every aspects of society, said the record

    The record said that the colored people are generally poor, with living condition much worse than the white. According to a report of The Guardian of Britain on Oct. 9, 2004, the average netassets of a white family is 88,000 US dollars in 2002, 11 times of a family of Latin American ancestry, or nearly 15 times of a family of African ancestry.

    Racial prejudice is ubiquitous in judicial fields, the record said. The proportion for persons of colored races being sentenced or being imprisoned is notably higher than whites.

    In accordance with a report published in Nov. 2004 by the US Department of Justice, colored races accounted for over 70 percent of inmates in the United States.

    The situation of American women and children was disturbing. The rates of women and children physically or sexually victimized were high, said the report.

    According to FBI Crime Statistics, in 2003 the United States witnessed 93,233 cases of raping. Virtually 63.2 in every 100,000 women fell victims. Statistics released by the US Labor Departmentin Jan. 2004 showed a woman who worked full time had the median earning of 81.1 percent of that for a man, according to the report.

    In addition, according to the report, child poverty was a serious problem. A story released from AP Washington on Oct. 12, 2004 said that about 20 million children lived in "low-income working families" -- with barely enough money to cover basic needs.

    Children were also victims of sex crimes. Every year about 400,000 children in the US were forced to engage in prostitution or other sexual dealings on the streets.

    The atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the infringement of human rights of foreign nationals by the United States, said the record.

    According to US media like the Newsweek and the Washington Post,as early as several years ago, in US forces' prisons in Afghanistan, interrogators used various kinds of torture tools foracquiring confession, causing many deaths.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross believed that abuse of detained Iraqis in the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison was not a single case and it was a systematic behavior, the report said.

    The report pointed out that the United States frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks. A survey on Iraqi civilian deaths, based on the natural death rate before the war, estimates that the US-led invasion might have led to 100,000 more deaths in the country, with most victims being women and children.

    Jointly designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the survey also finds that the majority of the additional, unnatural deaths since the invasion were caused by violence, while air strikes from the coalition forces were the main factor to blame for the violence-caused deaths.

    Despite tons of problems in its own human rights, the United States continues to stick to its belligerent stance, wantonly trample on the sovereignty of other countries, and constantly stage tragedies of human rights infringement in the world, said the report.

    At last, the report said that the United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously instead of indulging itself in publishing the "human rights country report" to censure other countries unreasonably. Enditem