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How China
Views America:
The
Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009
Full Text
by China's Information Office of the State Council
Global
Research, March 14, 2010
Xihnua
- 2010-03-12
BEIJING -- China's Information Office of the State Council published a
report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009"
Following is the full text:
The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing as "the
world judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the reports
are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190
countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge
and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory. The
Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is prepared to help
people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in
the United States.
I. On Life, Property and Personal Security
Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the
lives, properties and personal security of its people.
In 2008, U.S. residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3
million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent
crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over,
according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice in
September 2009 (Criminal Victimization 2008, U.S. Department of Justice,
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov). In 2008, over 14 million arrests
occurred for all offenses (except traffic violations) in the country,
and the arrest rate for violent crime was 198.2 per 100,000 inhabitants
(Crime in the United States, 2008,
http://www.fbi.gov). In 2009, a
total of 35 domestic homicides occurred in Philadelphia, a 67 percent
increase from 2008 (The New York Times, December 30, 2009). In New York
City, 461 murders were reported in 2009, and the crime rate was 1,151
cases per 100,000 people. San Antonio in Texas was deemed as the most
dangerous among 25 U.S. large cities with 2,538 crimes recorded per
100,000 people (The China Press, December 30, 2009). The murder rate
rose 5.5 percent in towns with a population of 10,000 or fewer in 2008 (http://www.usatoday.com,
June 1, 2009). Most of the United States' 15,000 annual murders occur in
cities where they are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods (http://www.reuters.com,
October 7, 2009).
The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of
privately-owned guns. According to the data from the FBI and the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), American gun owners,
out of 309 million in total population, have more than 250 million guns,
while a substantial proportion of U.S. gun owners had more than one
weapon. Americans usually buy 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, but
in 2008 the figure jumped to about 9 billion (The China Press, September
25, 2009). In the United States, airline passengers are allowed to take
unloaded weapons after declaration.
In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun-related incidents
each year (The China Press, April 6, 2009). According to a FBI report,
there had been 14,180 murder victims in 2008 (USA Today, September 15,
2009). Firearms were used in 66.9 percent of murders, 43.5 percent of
robberies and 21.4 percent of aggravated assaults (http://www.thefreelibrary.com). USA
Today reported that a man named Michael McLendon killed 10 people in two
rural towns of Alabama before turning a gun on himself on March 11,
2009. On March 29, a man named Robert Stewart shot and killed eight
people and injured three others in a nursing home in North Carolina (USA
Today, March 11, 2009). On April 3, an immigrant called Jiverly Wong
shot 13 people dead and wounded four others in an immigration services
center in downtown Binghamton, New York (The New York Times, April 4,
2009). In the year 2009, a string of attacks on police shocked the
country. On March 21, a 26-year-old jobless man shot and killed four
police officers in Oakland, California, before he was killed by police
gunfire (http://cbs5.com).
On April 4, a man called Richard Poplawski shot three police officers to
death in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On November 29, an ex-convict named
Maurice Clemmons shot four police officers to death inside a coffee shop
in Parkland, Washington (The New York Times, December 1, 2 and 3, 2009).
Campuses became an area worst hit by violent crimes as shootings spread
there and kept escalating. The U.S. Heritage Foundation reported that
11.3 percent of high school students in Washington D.C. reported being "threatened
or injured" with a weapon while on school property during the 2007-2008
school year. In the same period, police responded to more than 900 calls
to 911 reporting violent incidents at the addresses of Washington D.C.
public schools (A Report of The Heritage Center for Data Analysis,
School Safety in Washington, D.C.: New Data for the 2007-2008 School
Year,
http://www.heritage.org). In New Jersey public schools, a
total of 17,666 violent incidents were reported in 2007-2008 (Annual
Report on Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse in New Jersey Public
Schools by New Jersey Department of Education, October 2009,
http://www.state.nj.us). In the City University of New York,
a total of 107 major crimes occurred in five of its campuses during 2006
and 2007(The New York Post, September 22, 2009).
II. On Civil and Political Rights
In the United States, civil and political rights of citizens are
severely restricted and violated by the government.
The country's police frequently impose violence on the people. Chicago
Defender reported on July 8, 2009 that a total of 315 police officers in
New York were subject to internal supervision due to unrestrained use of
violence during law enforcement. The figure was only 210 in 2007. Over
the past two years, the number of New York police officers under review
for garnering too many complaints was up 50 percent (http://www.chicagodefender.com).
According to a New York Police Department firearms discharge report
released on Nov. 17, 2009, the city' s police fired 588 bullets in 2007,
killing 10 people, and 354 bullets in 2008, killing 13 people (http://gothamist.com, November
17, 2009). On September 3, 2009, a student of the San Jose State
University was hit repeatedly by four San Jose police officers with
batons and a Taser gun for more than ten times (http://www.mercurynews.com,
October 27, 2009). On September 22, 2009, a Chinese student in Eugene,
Oregon was beaten by a local police officer for no reason (The Oregonian,
October 23, 2009,
http://blog.oregonlive.com).
According to the Amnesty International, in the first ten months of 2009,
police officers in the U.S. killed 45 people due to unrestrained use of
Taser guns. The youngest of the victims was only 15. From 2001 to
October, 2009, 389 people died of Taser guns used by police officers (http://theduckshoot.com).
Abuse of power is common among U.S. law enforcers. In July 2009, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation put four police officers in the
Washington area under investigation for taking money to protect a
gambling ring frequented by some of the region's most powerful drug
dealers over the past two years (The Washington Post, July, 19, 2009).
In September 2009, an off-duty police officer in Chicago attacked a bus
driver for "cutting him off in traffic" as he rode a bicycle (Chicago
Tribune, September 2009,
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com).
In the same month, four former police officers in Chicago were charged
with extorting close to 500,000 U.S. dollars from a Hispanic driving an
expensive car with out-of-state plates and suspected drug dealers in the
name of law enforcement, and offering bribes to their superiors (Chicago
Tribune, September 19, 2009). In November 2009, a former police chief of
the Prince George's County's town of Morningside was charged with
selling a stolen gun to a civilian (The Washington Post, November 18,
2009). In major U.S. cities, police stop, question and frisk more than a
million people each year - a sharply higher number than just a few years
ago (http://huffingtonpost.com, October
8, 2009).
Prisons in the United State are packed with inmates. According to a
report released by the U.S. Justice Department on Dec. 8, 2009, more
than 7.3 million people were under the authority of the U.S. corrections
system at the end of 2008. The correctional system population increased
by 0.5 percent in 2008 compared with the previous year (http://www.wsws.org).
About 2.3 million were held in custody of prisons and jails, the
equivalent of about one in every 198 persons in the country. From 2000
to 2008, the U.S. prison population increased an average of 1.8 percent
annually (http://mensnewsdaily.com,
January 18, 2010). The California government even suggested sending tens
of thousands of illegal immigrants held in the state to Mexico, in order
to ease its overcrowded prison system (http://news.yahoo.com,
January 26, 2010).
The basic rights of prisoners in the United States are not well-protected.
Raping cases of inmates by prison staff members are widely reported.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, reports of sexual misconduct
by prison staff members with inmates in the country's 93 federal prison
sites doubled over the past eight years. Of the 90 staff members
prosecuted for sexual abuse of inmates, nearly 40 percent were also
convicted of other crimes (The Washington Post, September11, 2009). The
New York Times reported on June 24, 2009 that according to a federal
survey of more than 63,000 federal and state inmates, 4.5 percent
reported being sexually abused at least once during the previous 12
months. It was estimated that there were at least 60,000 rapes of
prisoners across the United States during the same period (The New York
Times, June 24, 2009).
Chaotic management of prisons in the United State also led to wide
spread of diseases among the inmates. According to a report from the
U.S. Justice Department, a total of 20,231 male inmates and 1,913 female
inmates had been confirmed as HIV carriers in the U.S. federal and state
prisons at yearend 2008. The percentage of male and female inmates with
HIV/AIDS amounted to 1.5 and 1.9 percent respectively (http://www.news-medical.net, December
2, 2009). From 2007 to 2008, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in prisons in
California, Missouri and Florida increased by 246, 169, and 166
respectively. More than 130 federal and state inmates in the U.S. died
of AIDS-related causes in 2007 (http://thecrimereport.org, December 2,
2009). A report by the Human Rights Watch released in March 2009 said
although the New York State prison registered the highest number of
prisoners living with HIV in the country, it did not provide the inmates
with adequate access to treatment, and even locked the inmates up
separately, refusing to provide them with treatment of any kind. (www.hrw.org,
March 24, 2009).
While advocating "freedom of speech," "freedom of the press" and
"Internet freedom," the U.S. government unscrupulously monitors and
restricts the citizens' rights to freedom when it comes to its own
interests and needs.
The U.S. citizens' freedom to access and distribute information is under
strict supervision. According to media reports, the U.S. National
Security Agency (NSA) started installing specialized eavesdropping
equipment around the country to wiretap calls, faxes, and emails and
collect domestic communications as early as 2001. The wiretapping
programs was originally targeted at Arab-Americans, but soon grew to
include other Americans. The NSA installed over 25 eavesdropping
facilities in San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago
among other cities. The NSA also announced recently it was building a
huge one million square feet data warehouse at a cost of 1.5 billion
U.S. dollars at Camp Williams in Utah, as well as another massive data
warehouse in San Antonio, as part of the NSA's new Cyber Command
responsibilities. The report said a man named Nacchio was convicted on
19 counts of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison after
he refused to participate in NSA's surveillance program (http://www.onelinejournal.com,
November 23, 2009).
After the September 11 attack, the U.S. government, in the name of
anti-terrorism, authorized its intelligence authorities to hack into its
citizens' mail communications, and to monitor and erase any information
that might threaten the U.S. national interests on the Internet through
technical means. The country's Patriot Act allowed law enforcement
agencies to search telephone, email communications, medical, financial
and other records, and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and
immigration authorities in detaining and deporting foreign persons
suspected of terrorism-related acts. The Act expanded the definition of
terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which law
enforcement powers could be applied. On July 9, 2008, the U.S. Senate
passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008,
granting legal immunity to telecommunication companies that take part in
wiretapping programs and authorizing the government to wiretap
international communications between the United States and people
overseas for anti-terrorism purposes without court approval (The New
York Times, July 10, 2008). Statistic showed that from 2002 to 2006, the
FBI collected thousands of phones records of U.S. citizens through
mails, notes and phone calls. In September 2009, the country set up an
Internet security supervision body, further worrying U.S. citizens that
the U.S. government might use Internet security as an excuse to monitor
and interfere with personal systems. A U.S. government official told the
New York Times in an interview in April 2009 that NSA had intercepted
private email messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on
a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by U.S.
Congress the year before. In addition, the NSA was also eavesdropping on
phones of foreign political figures, officials of international
organizations and renowned journalists (The New York Times, April, 15,
2009). The U.S. military also participated in the eavesdropping
programs. According to CNN reports, a Virginia-based U.S. military
Internet risk evaluation organization was in charge of monitoring
official and unofficial private blogs, official documents, personal
contact information, photos of weapons, entrances of military camps, as
well as other websites that "might threaten its national security."
The so-called "freedom of the press" of the United States was in fact
completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated by
the U.S. government. According to media reports, the U.S. government and
the Pentagon had recruited a number of former military officers to
become TV and radio news commentators to give "positive comments" and
analysis as "military experts" for the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
in order to guide public opinions, glorify the wars, and gain public
support of its anti-terrorism ideology (The New York Times, April 20,
2009). At yearend 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a bill which imposed
sanctions on several Arab satellite channels for broadcasting contents
hostile to the U.S. and instigating violence (http://blogs.rnw.nl). In
September 2009, protesters using the social-networking site Twitter and
text messages to coordinate demonstrations clashed with the police
several times in Pittsburgh, where the Group of 20 summit was held.
Elliot Madison, 41, was later charged with hindering apprehension of the
protesters through the Internet. The police also searched his home (http://www.nytimes.com,
October 5, 2009). Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said the same conduct in other
countries would be called human rights violations whereas in the United
States it was called necessary crime control.
III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Poverty, unemployment and the homeless are serious problems in the
United States, where workers' economic, social and cultural rights
cannot be guaranteed.
Unemployment rate in the U.S. in 2009 was the highest in 26 years. The
number of bankrupt businesses and individuals kept rising due to the
financial crisis. The Associated Press reported in April 2009 that
nearly 1.2 million businesses and individuals filed for bankruptcy in
the previous 12 months - about four in every 1,000 people, a rate twice
as high as that in 2006 (http://www.floridabankruptcyblog.com).
By December 4, 2009, a total of 130 U.S. banks had been forced to close
in the year due to the financial crisis (Chicago Tribune, December 4,
2009). Statistics released by the U.S. Labor Department on Nov. 6, 2009
showed unemployment rate in October 2009 reached 10.2 percent, the
highest since 1983 (The New York Times, November 7, 2009). Nearly 16
million people were jobless, with 5.6 million, or 35.6 percent of the
unemployed, being out of work for more than half a year (The New York
Times, November 13, 2009). In September, about 1.6 million young workers,
or 25 percent of the total, were jobless, the highest since 1948 when
records were kept (The Washington Post, September 7, 2009). In the week
ending on March 7, 2009, the continuing jobless claims in the U.S. were
5.47 million, higher than the previous week's 5.29 million (http://247wallst.com,
March 19, 2009).
The population in poverty was the largest in 11 years. The Washington
Post reported on September 10, 2009, that altogether 39.8 million
Americans were living in poverty by the end of 2008, an increase of 2.6
million from that in 2007. The poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent,
the highest since 1998. The number of people aged between 18 to 64
living in poverty in 2008 had risen to 22.1 million, 170,000 more than
in 2007. Up to 8.1 million families were under poverty, accounting for
10.3 percent of the total families (The Washington Post, September 11,
2009). According to a report of the New York Times on Sept. 29, 2009,
the poverty rate in New York City in 2008 was 18.2 percent and nearly 28
percent of the Bronx borough's residents were living in poverty (The New
York Times, September 29, 2009). From August 2008 to August 2009, more
than 90,000 poor households in California suffered power and gas cuts. A
93-year-old man was frozen to death at his home (http://www.msnbc.msn.com).
Poverty led to a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the United
States. It is reported that there are roughly 32,000 suicides in the
U.S. every year, nearly double the cases of murder, which numbered
18,000 (http://www.time.com).
The Los Angeles County coroner's office said the poor economy was taking
a toll even on the dead as more bodies in the county went unclaimed by
families who could not afford funeral expenses. A total of 712 bodies in
Los Angles County were cremated with taxpayers' money in 2008, an
increase of 36 percent over the previous year (The Los Angeles Times,
July 21, 2009).
The population in hunger was the highest in 14 years. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture reported on Nov. 16, 2009, that 49.1 million
Americans living in 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of all
American families, lacked consistent access to adequate food in 2008, up
31 percent from the 13 million households, or 11.1 percent of all
American families, that lacked stable and adequate supply of food in
2007, which was the highest since the government began tracking "food
insecurity" in 1995 (The New York Times, November 17, 2009; 14.6% of
Americans Could Not Afford Enough Food in 2008,
http://business.theatlantic.com). The number of people who
lacked "food security," rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million in
2008 (http://www.livescience.com, November
26, 2009). About 15 percent of families were still working for adequate
food and clothing (The Associated Press, November 27, 2009). Statistics
showed 36.5 million Americans, or about one eighth of the U.S. total
population, took part in the food stamp program in August 2009, up 7.1
million from that of 2008. However, only two thirds of those eligible
for food stamps actually received them (http://www.associatedcontent.com).
Workers' rights were seriously violated. The New York Times reported on
Sept. 2, 2009 that 68 percent of the 4,387 low-wage workers in a survey
said they had experienced reduction of wages. And 76 percent of those
who had worked overtime were not paid accordingly, and 57 percent of
those interviewed had not received pay documents to make sure pay was
legal and accurate. Only eight percent of those who suffered serious
injuries on the job filed for compensation. Up to 26 percent of those
surveyed were paid less than the national minimum wage. Among those who
complained about wages or treatment, 43 percent had experienced
retaliation or dismissal (The New York Times, September 2, 2009).
According to a report by the USA Today on July 20, 2009, a total of
5,657 people died at workplaces across the U.S. in 2007, about 17 deaths
each day. About 200,000 workers in New York State were injured or
sickened at workplaces each year (USA Today, July 20, 2009).
The number of people without medical insurance has kept rising for eight
consecutive years. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Sept. 10,
2009, showed 46.3 million people were without medical insurance in 2008,
accounting for 15.4 percent of the total population, comparing 45.7
million people who were without medical insurance in 2007, which was a
rise for the eighth year in a row. About 20.3 percent of Americans
between 18 to 64 years old were not covered by medical insurance in
2008, higher than the 19.6 percent in 2007 (http://www.census.gov). A
study released by the Commonwealth Fund showed health insurance coverage
of adults aged 18 to 64 declined in 31 U.S. states from 2007 to 2009
(Reuters, October 8, 2009). The number of states with extremely high
number of adults who were not covered by medical insurance increased
from two in 1999 to nine in 2009. More than one in every four people in
Texas were uninsured, the highest percentage among all states (http://www.ncpa.org). Houston
had 40.1 percent of its residents uninsured (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). In
2008, altogether 2,266 U.S. veterans under the age of 65 died for lack
of health insurance coverage or medical care, 14 times higher than the
U.S. military death toll in Afghanistan that year (AFP, November 11,
2009). A report by the Consumer International showed 34 percent of U.S.
families with annual income below 50,000 U.S. dollars and 21 percent of
homes with annual income exceeding 100,000 U.S. dollars lost medical
insurance or suffered reduction in medical insurance in 2009. In
addition, two thirds of households with annual income below 50,000 U.S.
dollars and one third of homes earning more than 100,000 U.S. dollars a
year cut their medical expenses last year. About 28 percent Americans
chose not to see a doctor when they fell ill; a quarter of them could
not afford medical bills; 22 percent postponed medical treatment; a
fifth of them did not buy medicine prescribed by doctors or undergo
medical checkups; 15 percent took expired drugs or did not follow
medical instructions to take medicine on time in order to save money (http://www.oregonlive.com).
According to a report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) on December 8, 2009, average life expectancy of
Americans was 78.1 years in 2007, ranking the fourth from bottom among
all member states of OECD. The average life expectancy of OECD member
states was 79.1 that year (http://www.msnbc.msn.com).
The number of homeless has been on the rise. Statistics show that by
September 2008, an upward of 1.6 million homeless people in the U.S. had
been receiving shelter, and the number of those in families rose from
473,000 in 2007 to 517,000 in 2008 (USA Today, July 9, 2009). Since
2009, homeless enrollments in the six counties of Chicago area had
climbed, with McHenry County seeing the biggest hike - an increase of
125 percent over the previous year (Chicago Tribune, November 28, 2009).
These families could only live in shabby places such as wagons. In March
2009, a sprawling tent city was seen in Sacramento of California where
hundreds of homeless gathered. Police in Santa Monica of southern
California even regularly used force to drive the homeless out of the
city (www.truthalyzer.com).
In October, several thousand homeless in Detroit got into a fight,
worrying they might not receive the government's housing subsidies (USA
Today, October 8, 2009). In December, there were 6,975 homeless single
adults in shelters in New York City, not including military veterans,
chronically homeless people, and the 30,698 people living in short-term
housing for homeless families (The New York Times, December 10, 2009).
The Houston Chronicle reported on March 16, 2009 that large numbers of
houses in Galveston were destroyed by Hurricane Ike in September 2008,
leaving thousands homeless. About 1,700 households did not receive any
aid and most of them do not have fixed residences (Houston Chronicle,
March 16, 2009).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination is still a chronic problem of the United States.
Black people and other minorities are the most impoverished groups in
the United States. According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of
Census, the real median income for American households in 2008 was
50,303 U.S. dollars. That of the non-Hispanic white households was
55,530 U.S. dollars, Hispanic households 37,913 U.S. dollars, black
households only 34,218 U.S. dollars. The median incomes of Hispanic and
black households were roughly 68 percent and 61.6 percent of that of the
non-Hispanic white households. Median income of minority groups was
about 60 to 80 percent of that of majority groups under the same
conditions of education and skill background (The Wall Street Journal,
September 11, 2009; USA Today, September 11, 2009). According to the
U.S. Bureau of Census, the poverty proportion of the non-Hispanic white
was 8.6 percent in 2008, those of African-Americans and Hispanic were
24.7 percent and 23.2 percent respectively, almost three times of that
of the white (The New York Times, September 29, 2009). About one quarter
of American Indians lived below the poverty line. In 2008, 30.7 percent
of Hispanic, 19.1 percent of African-Americans and 14.5 percent of non-Hispanic
white lived without health insurance (Income, Poverty, and Health
Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008,
www.census.gov).
According to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, a record 10,552 fair housing discrimination complaints were
filed in fiscal 2008, 35 percent of which were alleged race
discrimination (The Washington Post, June 10, 2009). The U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention reported that while African-Americans
make up 12 percent of the US population, they represent nearly half of
new HIV infections and AIDS deaths every year (The Wall Street Journal,
April 8, 2009; revised statistics released by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention).
Employment and occupational discrimination against minority groups is
very serious. Minority groups bear the brunt of the U.S. unemployment.
According to news reports, the U.S. unemployment rate in October 2009
was 10.2 percent. The jobless rate of the U.S. African-Americans jumped
to 15.7 percent, that of the Hispanic rose to 13.1 percent and that of
the white was 9.5 percent (USA Today, November 6, 2009). Unemployment
rate of the black aged between 16 and 24 saw a record high of 34.5
percent, more than three times the average rate. Unemployment rates for
the black in cities such as Detroit and Milwaukee had reached 20 percent
(The Washington Post, December 10, 2009). In some American Indians
communities, unemployment rate was as high as 80 percent (The China
Press, November 6, 2009). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the unemployment rate for black male college graduates aged
25 and older in 2009 has been twice that of white male college graduates,
8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent (The New York Times, December 1,
2009). In 2008, a record number of workers filed federal job
discrimination complaints, with allegations of race discrimination
making up the greatest portion at more than one-third of the 95,000
total claims (AP, April 27, 2009). According to an investigation by the
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Houston-based oil and
gas drilling company faced five complaints of racial harassment and
discrimination (AP, November 18, 2009). According to a news report, by
the end of May 2009, the black and Hispanic groups each accounted for
roughly 27 percent of New York City's population, but only 3 percent of
the 11,529 firefighters were black, and about 6 percent were Hispanic
since the city's fire department unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified
people of color from the opportunity to serve (The New York Times, July
23, 2009).
The U.S. minority groups face discriminations in education. According to
a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, 33 percent of the non-Hispanic
white has college degrees, proportion of the black was only 20 percent
and Hispanic was 13 percent (US Bureau of Census, April 27, 2009,
www.census.gov).
According to a report, from 2003 to 2008, 61 percent of black applicants
and 46 percent of Mexican-American applicants were denied acceptance at
all of the law schools to which they applied, compared with 34 percent
of white applicants (The New York Times, January 7, 2010). African-American
children accounted for only 17 percent of the U.S. public school
students, but accounted for 32 percent of the total number which were
expelled from the schools. According to a research by the University of
North Carolina and Michigan State University, most of the black juvenile
believed that they were victims of racial discrimination (Science Daily,
April 29, 2009). According to another study conducted among 5,000
children in Birmingham, Ala., Houston and Los Angeles, prejudice was
reported by 20 percent of blacks and 15 percent of Hispanics. The study
showed that racial discrimination was an important cause to mental
health problems for children of varied races. Hispanic children who
reported racism were more than three times as likely as other children
to have symptoms of depression, blacks were more than twice as likely
(USA Today, May 5, 2009).
Racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial system is very
distinct. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, by the end of
2008, 3,161 men and 149 women per 100,000 persons in the U.S. black
population were under imprisonment (www.ojp.usdoj.gov).
The number of life imprisonment without parole given to African-American
young people was ten times of that given to white young people in 25
states. The figure in California was 18 times. In major U.S. cities,
there are more than one million people who were stopped and questioned
by police in streets, nearly 90 percent of them were minority males.
Among those questioned, 50 percent were African-Americans and 30 percent
were Hispanics. Only 10 percent were white people (The China Press,
October 9, 2009). A report released by New York City Police Department,
of the people involved in police shootings whose ethnicity could be
determined in 2008, 75 percent were black, 22 percent were Hispanic; and
3 percent were white (The New York Times, November 17, 2009). According
to a report by Human Rights Watch, from 1980 to 2007, the ratio of the
African-Americans being arrested for dealing drugs across the U.S. was
2.8 to 5.5 times of that of the white (www.hrw.org, March
2, 2009).
Since the Sept. 11 event, discrimination against Muslims is increasing.
Nearly 58 percent of Americans think Muslims are subject to "a lot" of
discrimination, according to two combined surveys released by the Pew
Research Center. About 73 percent of young people aged 18 to 29 are more
likely to say Muslims are the most discriminated against (http://www.washingtontimes.com,
September 10, 2009).
Immigrants live in misery. According to a report by the U.S. branch of
Amnesty International, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants were
detained by U.S. immigration authorities each year, and the illegal
immigrants under custody exceeded 30,000 for each single day (World
Journal, March 26, 2009). At the same time, hundreds of legal immigrants
were put under arrest, denied entry or even sent back under escort every
year (Sing Tao Daily, April 13, 2009). A report released by the
Constitution Project and Human Rights Watch revealed that from 1999 to
2008, about 1.4 million detained immigrants were transferred. Tens of
thousands of longtime residents of cities like Los Angeles and
Philadelphia were sent, by force, to remote immigrant jails in Texas or
Louisiana (The New York Times, November 2, 2009). The New York City Bar
Association received a startling petition in October 2008 which was
signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the Varick
Street Detention Facility in the middle of Manhattan. The letter
described their cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were
ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for 1 dollar a day (The
New York Times, November 2, 2009). Some detained women who were still in
lactation period were denied breast pumps in the facilities, resulting
in fever, pain, mastitis, and the inability to continue breastfeeding
upon release (www.hrw.org,
March 16, 2009). A total of 104 people have died while in custody of the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency since October, 2003 (The Wall
Street Journal, August 18, 2009).
Ethnic hatred crimes are frequent. According to statistics released by
the U.S. Federal Investigation Bureau on November 23, 2009, a total of
7,783 hate crimes occurred in 2008 in the United States, 51.3 percent of
which were originated by racial discrimination and 19.5 percent were for
religious bias and 11.5 percent were for national origins (www.fbi.gov).
Among those hate crimes, more than 70 percent were against black people.
In 2008, anti-black offenses accounted for 26 persons per 1,000 people,
and anti-white crimes accounted for 18 persons per 1,000 people (victim
characteristics, October 21, 2009,
www.fbi.gov). On June 10, 2009, a
white supremacist gunned down a black guard of the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum with another two wounded (The Washington Post, June 11,
2009, The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2009). According to a report
issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an environment of racial
intolerance and ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and
some public officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in
Suffolk County of New York State during the past decade (The New York
Times, September 3, 2009).
V. On the Rights of Women and Children
The living conditions of women and children in the United States are
deteriorating and their rights are not properly guaranteed.
Women do not enjoy equal social and political status as men. Women
account for 51 percent of the U.S. population, but only 92 women, or 17
percent of the seats, serve in the current 111th U.S. Congress.
Seventeen women serve in the Senate and 75 women serve in the House (Members
of the 111th United States Congress,
http://en.wikipedia.org). A study
shows minorities and women are unlikely to hold top positions at big
U.S. charities and nonprofits. The study reveals that women make up 18.8
percent of nonprofit CEOs compared to just 3 percent at Fortune 500
companies. Among the 400 biggest charities in the U.S., no cultural
organization, hospital, public affairs group, Jewish federation or other
religious organization is headed by a woman (The Washington Times,
September 20, 2009).
Women have difficulties in finding a job and suffer from low income and
poor financial situations. According to statistics from the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), workplace discrimination
charge filings with the federal agency nationwide rose to 95,402 during
Fiscal Year 2008, a 15 percent increase from the previous fiscal year.
Charge of workplace discrimination because of a job applicant's sex
maintained a high proportion (www.eeoc.gov,
November 3, 2009). According to statistics released by the U.S. Census
Bureau in September 2009, the median incomes of full-time female workers
in 2008 were 35,745 U.S. dollars, 77 percent of those of corresponding
men whose median earnings were 46,367 U.S. dollars, which is lower than
the 78 percent in 2007 (The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2009;
www.census.gov,
September 10, 2009). According to the Associated Press, a female
pharmacist who had been working for Walmart for ten years was fired in
2004 for demanding the same income as her male counterparts (The
Associated Press, October 5, 2009). By the end of 2008, 4.2 million, or
28.7 percent of families with a female householder where no husband is
present were poor (www.census.gov,
September 10, 2009). About 64 million, or 70 percent of working-age
American women have no health insurance coverage, or have inadequate
coverage, high medical bills or debt problems, or problems in accessing
care because of cost (The China Press, May 12, 2009).
Women are frequent victims of violence and sexual assault. It is
reported that the United States has the highest rape rate among
countries which report such statistics. It is 13 times higher than that
of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan (Occurrence of rape,
http://www.sa.rochester.edu). In San Diego, a string of
similar attacks happened to five women who have been sexually assaulted
by a home invader in March 2009 (Sing Tao Daily, March 14, 2009).
According to a report released by the Pentagon, more than 2,900 sexual
assaults in the military were reported in 2008, up nearly 9 percent from
the year before. And of those, only 292 cases resulted in a military
trial. The report said the actual numbers of such cases could be five to
ten times of the reported figure (The evening news of the Columbia
Broadcasting System, March 17, 2009). Reuters reported that based on in-depth
interviews on 40 servicewomen, 10 said they had been raped, five said
they were sexually assaulted including attempted rape, and 13 reported
sexual harassment (Reuters, April 16, 2009).
American children suffer from hunger and cold. A report from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture showed that 16.7 million children, or one
fourth of the U.S. total, had not enough food in 2008 (The Washington
Post, USA Today, November 17, 2009). The food relief institution Feeding
America said in a report that more than 3.5 million children under the
age of five face hunger or malnutrition. This figure accounts for 17
percent of American children aged five and under. In 11 states, more
than 20 percent of young children were at risk for hunger. Louisiana,
with 24.2 percent, had the highest rate of child food insecurity (www.feedingamerica.org,
May 7, 2009). Children at or below 18 account for more than one third of
the U.S. people in poverty. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau showed
that the number of children younger than 18 who live in poverty
increased from 13.3 million in 2007 to 14.1 million in 2008 (http://www.census.gov, The
Washington Post, September 11, 2009). According to statistics from the
U.S-based National Center on Family Homelessness, from 2005 to 2006,
more than 1.5 million children, or one in every 50 children, were
homeless in the U.S. every year. Among the homeless children, 42 percent
were younger than 6 and the majority were African-Americans and Indians
(CNN.com, MSNBUC.com, March 10, 2009). In 2008, nearly one tenth of the
children in the United States were not covered by health insurance. It
was reported that about 7.3 million children, or 9.9 percent of the
American total, were without health insurance in 2008. In Nevada, 20.2
percent of the children were uncovered by insurance (http://www.census.gov,
the Washington Post, September 21). On August 13, 2009, a state board
voted that California will begin terminating health insurance for more
than 60,000 children on October 1. The program could ultimately drop
nearly 670,000 children by the end of June 2010 (The Los Angeles Times,
The China Press, August 14, 2009). A research led by the Johns Hopkins
Children's Center showed that lack of health insurance might have led or
contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the
U.S. in the span of less than two decades (Journal of Public Health,
October 30, 2009). The A/H1N1 flu has infected about 8 million children
under 18 from April to October 2009, killing 540 of them, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (USA
Today, The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2009).
Children are exposed to violence and living in fear. It is reported that
1,494 children younger than 18 nationwide were murdered in 2008 (USA
Today, October 8, 2009). A report released by the Health Department of
the New York City on June 16, 2009 showed that between 2001 and 2007,
the national average rate of child deaths was 20 per 100,000 children
aged 1 to 12 years. Homicide rates were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 among the
group (http://www.nyc.gov).
A survey conducted by the U.S. Justice Department on 4,549 kids and
adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008 showed,
more than 60 percent of children surveyed were exposed to violence
within the past year, either directly or indirectly. Nearly half of all
children surveyed were assaulted at least once in the past year, about 6
percent were victimized sexually, and 13 percent reported having been
physically bullied in the past year (The Associated Press, October 7,
2009). There have been at least 1,227 children died from abuse or
neglect in Texas since 2002 (The Houston Chronicle, October 22, 2009).
According to research of U.S.-based institution and public health media
reports, in the U.S., one third of children who run away or were
expelled from home performed sexual acts in exchange for food, drugs and
a place to stay every year. The justice system no longer considers them
as young victims, but as juvenile offenders (The China Press, October
28, 2009).
Child farmworkers are prevalent. An organization devoted to protecting
children's rights disclosed that as many as 400,000 children are
estimated to work on U.S. farms. Davis Strauss, executive director of
the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, noted that for
decades, children, some as young as eight years old, have labored in the
fields using sharp tools and toiling amongst dangerous pesticides. The
association's president Ernie Flores said children account for about 20
percent of all farm fatalities in the United States (Spain's Uprising
newspaper, October 14, 2009). A labor standards act permits a child
beyond 13 to work in heat for long time in a farm, but does not permit
that child to work in an air-conditioned office and even forbids them
working in a fast food restaurant.
The U.S. is the only country in the world that does not apply parole
system to minors. Detentions of juveniles have increased 44 percent from
1985 to 2002. Many children only committed only minor crimes but could
not get assistance from lawyers. Many procurators and judges turned a
blind eye on abuse in juvenile prisons.
VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations
The United States with its strong military power has pursued hegemony in
the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and
trespassing their human rights.
As the world's biggest arms seller, its deals have greatly fueled
instability across the world. The United States also expanded its
military spending, already the largest in the world, by 10 percent in
2008 to 607 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 42 percent of the world
total (The AP, June 9, 2009).
According to a report by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. foreign arms sales
in 2008 soared to 37.8 billion U.S. dollars from 25.4 billion a year
earlier, up by nearly 50 percent, accounting for 68.4 percent of the
global arms sales that were at its four-year low (Reuters, September 6,
2009). At the beginning of 2010, the U.S. government announced a
6.4-billion-U.S. dollar arms sales package to Taiwan despite strong
protest from the Chinese government and people, which seriously damaged
China's national security interests and aroused strong indignation among
the Chinese people.
The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan have placed heavy burden on American
people and brought tremendous casualties and property losses to the
people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has led to the death of
more than 1million Iraqi civilians, rendered an equal number of people
homeless and incurred huge economic losses. In Afghanistan, incidents of
the U.S. army killing innocent people still keep occurring. Five Afghan
farmers were killed in a U.S. air strike when they were loading
cucumbers into a van on August 5, 2009 (http://www.rawa.org).
On June 8, the U.S. Department of Defense admitted that the U.S. raid
on Taliban on May 5 caused death of Afghan civilians as the military
failed to abide by due procedures. The Afghan authorities have
identified 147 civilian victims, including women and children, while a
U.S. officer put the death toll under 30 (The Philadelphia Inquirer,
June 9, 2009).
Prisoner abuse is one of the biggest human rights scandals of the United
States. A report presented to the 10th meeting of Human Rights Council
of the United Nations in 2009 by its Special Rapporteur on the promotion
and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering
terrorism showed that the United States has pursued a comprehensive set
of practices including special deportation, long-term and secret
detentions and acts violating the United Nations Convention against
Torture. The rapporteur also said, in a report submitted to the 64th
General Assembly of the United Nations, that the United States and its
private contractors tortured male Muslims detained in Iraq and other
places by stacking the naked prisoners in pyramid formation, coercing
the homosexual sexual behaviors and stripping them in stark nakedness
(The Washington Post, April 7, 2009). The U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) has begun interrogation by torture since 2002. The U.S.
government lawyers disclosed that since 2001, CIA has destroyed 92
videotapes relating to the interrogation to suspected terrorists, 12 of
them including the use of torture (The Washington Post, March 3, 2009).
The CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to frighten a
captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information (The Washington
Post, August 22, 2009). The U.S. Justice Department memos revealed the
CIA kept prisoners shackled in a standing position for as long as 180
hours, more than a dozen of them deprived of sleep for at least 48 hours,
three for more than 96 hours, and one for the nearly eight-day maximum.
Another seemed to endorse sleep deprivation for 11 days, stated on one
memo (http://www.chron.com). The
CIA interrogators used waterboarding 183 times against the accused 9/11
major plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and 83 times against suspected
Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). A
freed Guantanamo prisoner said he experienced the "medieval" torture at
Guantanamo Bay and in a secret CIA prison in Kabul (AFP, London, March
7, 2009). In June 2006, three Guantanamo Bay inmates could have been
suffocated to death during interrogation on the same evening and their
deaths passed off as suicides by hanging, revealed by a six-month joint
investigation for Harpers Magazine and NBC News in 2009 (www.guardian.co.uk,
January 18, 2010). A Somali named Mohamed Saleban Bare, jailed at
Guantanamo Bay for eight years, told AFP the prison was "hell on earth"
and some of his colleagues lost sight and limbs and others ended up
mentally disturbed (AFP, Hargisa, Somali, December 21, 2009). A 31-year-old
Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay who had been on a long hunger strike
apparently committed suicide in 2009 after four prior suicide deaths
beginning at 2002 (The New York Times, June 3, 2009). The U.S.
government held more than 600 prisoners at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.
A United Nations report singled out the Bagram detention facility for
criticism, saying some ex-detainees allege being subjected to severe
torture, even sexual abuse, and some prisoners put under detention for
as long as five years. It also reported that some were held in cages
containing 15 to 20 men and that two detainees died in questionable
circumstances while in custody (IPS, New York, February 25, 2009). An
investigation by U.S. Justice Department showed 2,000 Taliban
surrendered combatants were suffocated to death by the U.S. army-controlled
Afghan armed forces (http://www.yourpolicicsusa.com, July
16, 2009).
The United States has been building its military bases around the world,
and cases of violation of local people's human rights are often seen.
The United States is now maintaining 900 bases worldwide, with more than
190,000 military personnel and 115,000 relevant staff stationed. These
bases are bringing serious damage and environmental contamination to the
localities. Toxic substances caused by bomb explosions are taking their
tolls on the local children. It has been reported that toward the end of
the U.S. military bases' presence in Subic and Clark, as many as 3,000
cases of raping the local women had been filed against the U.S.
servicemen, but all were dismissed (http://www.lexisnexis.com, May
17, 2009).
The United States has been maintaining its economic, commercial and
financial embargo against Cuba for almost 50 years. The blockade has
caused an accumulated direct economic loss of more than 93 billion U.S.
dollars to Cuba. On October 28, 2009, the 64th session of the United
Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on the "Necessity of
ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the
United States of America against Cuba," with a recorded vote of 187 in
favor to three against, and two abstentions. This marked the 18th
consecutive year the assembly had overwhelmingly called on the United
States to lift the blockade without delay (Overwhelming International
Rejection of US Blockade of Cuba at UN,
www.cubanews.ain.cu).
The United States is pushing its hegemony under the pretence of
"Internet freedom." The United States monopolizes the strategic
resources of the global Internet, and has been retaining a tight grip
over the Internet ever since its first appearance. There are currently
13 root servers of Internet worldwide, and the United States is the
place where the only main root server and nine out of the rest 12 root
servers are located. All the root servers are managed by the ICANN
(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is, by the
authority of the U.S. government, responsible for the management of the
global root server system, the domain name system and the Internet
Protocol address. The United States has declined all the requests from
other countries as well as international organizations including the
United Nations to break the U.S. monopoly over the root servers and to
decentralize its management power over the Internet. The United States
has been intervening in other countries' domestic affairs in various
ways taking advantage of its control over Internet resources. The United
States has a special troop of hackers, which is made up of hacker
proficients recruited from all over the world. When post-election unrest
broke out in Iran in the summer of 2009, the defeated reformist camp and
its advocators used Internet tools such as Twitter to spread their
messages. The U.S. State Department asked the operator of Twitter to
delay its scheduled maintenance to assist with the opposition in
creating a favorable momentum of public opinion. In May 2009, one web
company, prompted by the U.S. authorities, blocked its Messenger instant
messaging service in five countries including Cuba.
The United States is using a global interception system named "ECHELON"
to eavesdrop on communications worldwide. A report of the European
Parliament pointed out that the "ECHELON" system is a network controlled
by the United States for intelligence gathering and analyzing. The
system is able to intercept and monitor the content of telephone calls,
fax, e-mail and other digital information transmitted via public
telephone networks, satellites and microwave links. The European
Parliament has criticized the United States for using its “ECHELON”
system to commit crimes such as civilian's privacy infringement or
state-conducted industrial espionage, among which was the most striking
case of Saudi Arabia's 6-billion-dollar aircraft contract (see Wikipedia).
Telephone calls of British Princess Diana had been intercepted and
eavesdropped because her global campaign against land-mines was in
conflict with the U.S. policies. The Washington Post once reported that
such spying activities conducted by the U.S. authorities were
reminiscent of the Vietnam War when the United States imposed
wiretapping and surveillance upon domestic anti-war activists.
The United States ignores international human rights conventions, and
takes a passive attitude toward international human rights obligations.
It signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights 32 years ago and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women 29 years ago, but has ratified neither
of them yet. It has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities either. On Sept. 13, 2007, the 61st UN General
Assembly voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, which has been the UN's most authoritative and comprehensive
document to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The United States
also refused to recognize the declaration.
The above-mentioned facts show that the United States not only has a bad
domestic human rights record, but also is a major source of many human
rights disasters around the world. For a long time, it has placed itself
above other countries, considered itself "world human rights police" and
ignored its own serious human rights problems. It releases Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse other
countries and takes human rights as a political instrument to interfere
in other countries' internal affairs, defame other nations' image and
seek its own strategic interests. This fully exposes its double
standards on the human rights issue, and has inevitably drawn resolute
opposition and strong denouncement from world people. At a time when the
world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the U.S.
subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the U.S. government
still ignores its own serious human rights problems but revels in
accusing other countries. It is really a pity.
We hereby advise the U.S. government to draw lessons from the history,
put itself in a correct position, strive to improve its own human rights
conditions and rectify its acts in the human rights field.
Global
Research Articles by China's Information Office of the State Council
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