BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China issued on Thursday
the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006 in response to the Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006 issued by the U.S. Department of
State on Tuesday.
Released by the Information Office of China's State
Council, the Chinese report lists a multitude of cases to show the human rights
situation in the United States 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
United States," the document says.
By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United
States in 2006, the document says it aims to "help people have a better
understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the
international cause of human rights".
Relying on its strong military power, the United
States has trespassed on the sovereignty of other countries and violated human
rights in other countries, the document says.
A large number of innocent Iraqi civilians have died
in the war launched by the United States in 2003.
A survey of Bloomberg School of Public Health under
Johns Hopkins University estimated that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in
Iraq since war started in March 2003, meaning about 500 unexpected violent
deaths per day throughout the country, according to a Washington Post report on
Oct. 11, 2006.
On Nov. 19, 2005, a U.S. 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.
Those who were killed included a 76-year-old disabled
man, a three-year-old child, and seven women, the BBC News reported on Nov. 19,
2006.
The document says the United States has a flagrant
record of violating the Geneva Convention in systematically abusing prisoners
during the Iraqi War and the War in Afghanistan.
On February 15, 2006, Australia's SBS TV aired more
than 10 pictures and video clips taken at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison; the images
included: a man's throat was cut off, left forearm of a man was left with burns
and shrapnel wounds, a blood-stained interrogation room, and a seemingly insane
man's body covered with his own feces.
Even in the United States, people's life, property
and personal security are not secured, the document says.
The document quotes a report by the U.S. Justice
Department on Sept. 10, 2006 as saying that there were 5.2 million violent
crimes in the United States in 2005, up 2.5 percent from the previous year, the
highest rate in 15 years.
Statistics released by the department in 2006 showed
that in 2005 American residents age 12 or above experienced 23 million crimes;
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 United States, human rights violations
committed by law enforcement and judicial departments are also common.
Following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies have referred 6,472
individuals to prosecutors on terrorism-related charges.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at
Syracuse University says nearly three-quarters of terrorism suspects seized by
the United States in the five years following the September 11 attacks have not
even made it to trial because of lack of evidence against them.
In 64 percent of the cases, federal prosecutors
decided that they were not worth prosecuting, while an additional nine percent
were either dismissed by judges or the individuals 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 U.S. government has put average
Americans under intense surveillance as part of terrorism investigations since
the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to a survey released in December 2006,
two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are
intruding on their privacy rights, according to a Washington Post report on Dec.
13, 2006.
The United States touts itself as the "beacon of
democracy", but the U.S. mode of democracy is in essence one in which money
talks, the Chinese document says.
In 2004, candidates for the House of Representatives
who raised less than one million U.S. dollars had almost no chance of winning,
the USA TODAY quoted a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics as
saying in a report on Oct. 29, 2006.
The average successful Senate campaign cost 7 million
dollars, the USA Today says. In 2006, all state campaigns in the United States
were predicted to cost about 2.4 billion dollars.
Seventy-four percent of respondents to a new Opinion
Research poll say the U.S. Congress is generally out of touch with average
Americans, as CNN reported on Oct. 18, 2006, and 79 percent of the surveyed say
they feel big business does have too much influence over the administration's
decisions.
The Chinese document also slams the United States for
its lack of proper guarantee for people's economic, social and cultural rights.
A report released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Aug.
29, 2006 says there were 37 million people living in poverty in 2005, accounting
for 12.6 percent of total U.S. population. The report also says there were 7.7
million families in poverty and one out of eight Americans was living in poverty
in 2005.
"The ethnic minorities are at the bottom of American
society," the Chinese report says.
Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in
November 2006 indicated that according to the 2005 data, the average yearly
household income was 50,622 U.S. dollars for whites, compared with 36,278 for
Hispanics and 30,940 for blacks. White people's income was 64 percent more than
the blacks and 40 percent more than the Hispanics.
Racial discrimination is also deep-rooted in
America's law enforcement and judicial systems.
According to statistics of the National Urban League,
of the sentences issued in 12 crime categories in the State Courts, sentences
for black males were longer than white males in all of them.
Researchers pointed to poverty, a lack of
opportunities, racism in the criminal justice system for the black-white prison
gap.
The document says the United States has lorded it
over other countries by condemning their human rights practices while ignoring
its own problems, which exposes double standard and hegemonism in the field 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 United States and promote the
international cause of human rights".
This is the eighth consecutive year that China has
issued human rights record of the United States in answer to the U.S. State
Department annual report.
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