China issues report on human rights in US
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E-mail Xinhua, May 25, 2012
China on Friday responded to a recent U.S. government report on China's human rights practices by issuing its own report on human rights issues in the United States.
The "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" was released by the Information Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet, in response to the "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011" issued by the U.S. State Department on May 24.
It was the 13th annual report published by China in response to U.S. attacks.
The U.S. report is "full of overly critical remarks on human rights conditions in nearly 200 countries and regions, as well as distortions and accusations concerning human rights causes in China. However, the United States has turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and remained silent about it," China's report said.
The "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" is intended to reveal the "true human rights situation" of the United States to the world and "urge the United States to confront its own actions," the report said.
The Chinese report covers human rights issues related to six topics: life, property and personal security; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; the rights of women and children; and U.S. violations of human rights in other countries.
The facts contained in the report are a small yet illustrative fraction of the United States' dismal record on its own human rights situation, it said.
The United States' tarnished human rights record has left it in no state -- whether on a moral, political or legal basis -- to act as the world's "human rights justice," to place itself above other countries and release the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other countries, according to the report.
China, in the report, advised the U.S. government to look squarely at its own grave human rights problems, to stop the "unpopular practices" of taking human rights as a political instrument for interfering in other countries' internal affairs, tarnishing the images of other nations and seeking its own strategic interests, and to cease using double standards on human rights and pursuing hegemony under the pretext of human rights.
Severe civil rights violations
The report states that civil and political rights violations have been "severe" in the United States, adding that the country is "lying to itself" when proclaiming that Americans live in the "land of the free."
It cited the treatment of protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, stating that their arrests can provide a "glimpse of the truth regarding the United States' so-called freedom and democracy."
Almost 1,000 people were reportedly arrested in the first two weeks of the movement, the report said.
Many protesters accused police of brutality and, as a U.S. opinion article put it, the United States could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian, it said.
Internet freedom, excuse for hegemony
The report held that the U.S. imposes fairly strict restrictions on the Internet, and its approach "remains full of problems and contradictions."
"Internet freedom" is just an excuse for the United States to impose diplomatic pressure and seek hegemony, it said.
To support this argument, the report noted that the U.S. Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act both have clauses about monitoring the Internet, giving the government or law enforcement organizations power to monitor and block any Internet content "harmful to national security."
Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 also stipulates that the federal government has "absolute power" to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency, according to the report.
It also cited a report by British newspaper the Guardian which said that the U.S. military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas.
The project aims to control and restrict free speech on the Internet, the report said.
International troublemaker
The United States has been pursuing hegemony in the world, grossly trampling upon other countries' sovereignty and capriciously committing human rights violations against other nations, the report said.
It appears to be increasingly contributing to international disorder, it added.
The Chinese report referred to a recently-exposed scandal of human experiments conducted by the United States in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, in which a U.S. government-funded medical program subjected nearly 5,500 people to diagnostic testing and researchers deliberately exposed more than 1,300 people to syphilis and other venereal diseases.
The report also denounced such experimentation, including government radiation experiments, human mind control (also known as MKULTRA) experiments and experiments conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense on so-called "enemy combatants in the war on terror."
Moreover, U.S.-led wars have created humanitarian disasters, although the wars were allegedly waged as "humanitarian intervention" efforts and for "the rise of a new democratic nation," the report said, citing the death toll for the U.S.-initiated war in Iraq, which currently stands at 655,000.
