|
|
Human Rights Record of United States in 2010
Updated: 2011-04-11 08:02
(China Daily)
Demonstrators in orange jumpsuits and hoods file in for a
rally to urge US President Barack Obama to close the
US-controlled detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on
its 9th anniversary in Washington on Jan 11. File photo |
Editor's note: China's Information Office of the State Council, or
cabinet, published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the
United States in 2010" on Sunday. Following is the full text:
The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices for 2010 on April 8, 2011. As in previous
years, the reports are full of distortions and accusations of the human
rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China.
However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own terrible human
rights situation and seldom mentioned it. The Human Rights Record of the
United States in 2010 is prepared to urge the United States to face up
to its own human rights issues.
I. On Life, Property and Personal Security
The United States reports the world's highest incidence of violent
crimes, and its people's lives, properties and personal security are not
duly protected.
Every year, one out of every five people is a victim of a crime in the
United States. No other nation on earth has a rate that is higher (10
Facts About Crime in the United States that Will Blow Your Mind,
Beforitsnews.com). In 2009, an estimated 4.3 million violent crimes,
15.6 million property crimes and 133,000 personal thefts were committed
against US residents aged 12 or older, and the violent crime rate was
17.1 victimizations per 1,000 persons, according to a report published
by the US Department of Justice on Oct 13, 2010 (Criminal Victimization
2009, US Department of Justice,
www.ojp.usdoj.gov ). The crime rate surged in many cities in the US.
St. Louis in Missouri reported more than 2,070 violent crimes per
100,000 residents, making it the nation's most dangerous city (The
Associated Press, Nov 22, 2010). Detroit residents experienced more than
15,000 violent crimes each year, which means the city has 1,600 violent
crimes per 100,000 residents. The United States' four big cities -
Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York - reported increases in
murders in 2010 from the previous year (USA Today, December 5, 2010).
Twenty-five murder cases occurred in Los Angeles County in a week from
March 29 to April 4, 2010; and in the first half of 2010, 373 people
were killed in murders in Los Angeles County (
www.lapdonline.org ). As of Nov
11, New York City saw 464 homicide cases, up 16 percent from the 400
reported at the same time last year (The Washington Post, Nov 12, 2010).
The US exercised lax control on the already rampant gun ownership.
Reuters reported on Nov 10, 2010 that the United States ranks first in
the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns. Some 90
million people own an estimated 200 million guns in the United States,
which has a population of about 300 million. The Supreme Court of the
United States ruled on June 28, 2010 that the second amendment of the US
Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms that can not be
violated by state and local governments, thus extending the Americans'
rights to own a gun for self-defense purposes to the entire country (The
Washington Post, June 29, 2010). Four US states - Tennessee, Arizona,
Georgia and Virginia - allow loaded guns in bars. And 18 other states
allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol (The New York Times, Oct
3, 2010). Tennessee has nearly 300,000 handgun permit holders. The
Washington Times reported on June 7, 2010 that in November 2008, a total
of 450,000 more people in the United States purchased firearms than had
bought them in November 2007. This was a more than 10-fold increase,
compared with the change in sales from November 2007 over November 2006.
From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people
bought guns than had done so in the preceding 12 months (The Washington
Times, June 7, 2010). The frequent campus shootings in colleges in the
United States came to the spotlight in recent years. The United
Kingdom's Daily Telegraph reported on Feb 21, 2011 that a new law that
looks certain to pass through the legislature in Texas, the United
States, would allow half a million students and teachers in its 38
public colleges to carry guns on campus. It would become only the second
state, after Utah, to enforce such a rule.
The United States had high incidence of gun-related blood-shed crimes.
Statistics showed there were 12,000 gun murders a year in the United
States (The New York Times, Sept 26, 2010). Figures released by the US
Department of Justice on Oct 13, 2010 showed weapons were used in 22
percent of all violent crimes in the United States in 2009, and about 47
percent of robberies were committed with arms (www.ojp.usdoj.gov
, Oct 13, 2010). On March 30, 2010, five men killed four people and
seriously injured five others in a deadly drive-by shooting (The
Washington Post, April 27, 2010). In April, six separate shootings
occurred overnight, leaving 16 total people shot, two fatally (www.myfoxchicago.com).
On April 3, a deadly shooting at a restaurant in North Hollywood, Los
Angeles, left four people dead and two others wounded (www.nbclosangeles.com,
April 4, 2010). One person was killed and 21 others wounded in separate
shootings around Chicago roughly between May 29 and 30 (www.chicagobreakingnews.com,
May 30, 2010). In June, 52 people were shot at a weekend in Chicago (www.huffingtonpost.com,
June 21, 2010). Three police officers were shot dead by assailants in
the three months from May to July (Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2010).
A total of 303 people were shot and 33 of them were killed in Chicago in
the 31 days of July in 2010. Between Nov 5 and 8, four people were
killed and at least five others injured in separate shootings in Oakland
(World Journal, Nov 11, 2010). On Nov 30, a 15-year-old boy in Marinette
County, Wisconsin, took his teacher and 24 classmates hostage at
gunpoint (abcNews, Nov 30, 2010). On Jan 8, 2011, a deadly rampage
critically wounded US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Six people were killed
and 12 others injured in the attack (Los Angeles Times, Jan 9, 2011).
II. On Civil and Political Rights
In the United States, the violation of citizens' civil and political
rights by the government is severe.
Citizen' s privacy has been undermined. According to figures released by
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in September 2010, more than
6,600 travelers had been subject to electronic device searches between
Oct 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, nearly half of them American citizens. A
report on The Wall Street Journal on Sept 7, 2010, said the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) was sued over its policies that allegedly
authorize the search and seizure of laptops, cellphones and other
electronic devices without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The
policies were claimed to leave no limit on how long the DHS can keep a
traveler' s devices or on the scope of private information that can be
searched, copied or detained. There is no provision for judicial
approval or supervision. When Colombian journalist Hollman Morris sought
a US student visa so he could take a fellowship for journalists at
Harvard University, his application was denied on July 17, 2010, as he
was ineligible under the "terrorist activities" section of the USA
Patriot Act. An Arab American named Yasir Afifi, living in California,
found the FBI attached an electronic GPS tracking device near the right
rear wheel of his car. In August, ACLU, joined by the Asian Law Caucus
and the San Francisco Bay Guardian weekly, had filed a lawsuit to
expedite the release of FBI records on the investigation and
surveillance of Muslim communities in the Bay Area. The San Francisco
FBI office has declined to comment on the matter "because it' s still an
ongoing investigation." (The Washington Post, Oct 13, 2010). In October
2010, the Transportation Security Administration raised the security
level at US airports requiring passengers to go through a full-body
scanner machine or pat-downs. It also claimed that passengers can not
refuse the security check based on their religious beliefs. Civil rights
groups contended the more intensive screening violates civil liberties
including freedom of religion, the right to privacy and the
constitutional protection against unreasonable searches (AP, Nov 16,
2010). The ACLU and the U.S. Travel Association have been getting
thousands of complaints about airport security measures (The Christian
Science Monitor, Nov 20, 2010).
Abuse of violence and torturing suspects to get confession is serious in
the US law enforcement. According to a report of Associated Press on Oct
14, 2010, the New York Police Department (NYPD) paid about $964 million
to resolve claims against its officers over the past decade. Among them
was a case that an unarmed man was killed in a 50-bullet police shooting
on his wedding day. The three police officers were acquitted of
manslaughter and the NYDP simply settled the case with money (China
Press, Oct 15, 2010). In a country that boasts "judicial justice," what
justice did the above-mentioned victims get? In June 2010, a federal
jury found former Chicago police lieutenant Jon Burge guilty of perjury
and obstruction of justice. Burge and officers under his command
shocked, suffocated and burned suspects into giving confessions in the
1970s and 1980s (The Boston Globe, Nov 5, 2010). According to a report
on Chicago Tribune on May 12, 2010, Chicago Police was charged with
arresting people without warrants, shackling them to the wall or metal
benches, feeding them infrequently and holding them without bathroom
breaks and giving them no bedding, which were deemed consistent with
tactics of "soft torture" used to extract involuntary confessions. On
March 22, a distraught homeless man was shot dead in Potland, Oregon, by
four shots from a police officer (China Press, April 1, 2010). An
off-duty Westminster police officer was arrested on suspicion of
kidnapping and raping a woman on April 3 while a corrections officer was
accused of being an accessory (Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2010). On
April 17 in Seattle, Washington, a gang detective and patrol officer
kicked a suspect and verbally assaulted him (Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
May 10, 2010). On March 24, Chad Holley, 15, was brutally beaten by
eight police officers in Houston. The teen claimed he was face down on
the ground while officers punched him in the face and kneed him in the
back. After a two-month-long investigation, four officers were indicted
and fired (Houston Chronicle, May 4, June 23, 2010).
On Aug 11, three people were injured by police shooting when police
officers chased a stolen van in Prince George' s County. Family members
of the three injured argued why the police fired into the van when
nobody on the van fired at them (The Washington Post, Aug 14, 2010). On
September 5, 2010, a Los Angeles police officer killed a Guatemalan
immigrant by two shots and triggered a large scale protest. Police
clashed with protesters and arrested 22 of them (The New York Times,
Sept 8, 2010). On Nov 5, 2010, a large demonstration took place in
Oakland against a Los Angeles court verdict which put Johannes Mehserle,
a police officer, to two years in prison as he shot and killed unarmed
African American Oscar Grant two years ago. Police arrested more than
150 people in the protest (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov 9, 2010).
The United States has always called itself "land of freedom," but the
number of inmates in the country is the world' s largest. According to a
report released by the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety
Performance Project in 2008, one in every 100 adults in the US are in
jail and the figure was one in every 400 in 1970. By 2011, America will
have more than 1.7 million men and women in prison, an increase of 13
percent over that of 2006. The sharp increase will lead to overcrowding
prisons. California prisons now hold 164,000 inmates, double their
intended capacity (The Wall Street Journal, Dec 1, 2010). In a New
Beginnings facility for the worst juvenile offenders in Washington DC,
only 60 beds are for 550 youths who in 2009 were charged with the most
violent crimes. Many of them would violate the laws again without proper
care or be subject to violent crimes (The Washington Post, Aug 28,
2010). Due to poor management and conditions, unrest frequently occurred
in prisons. According to a report on Chicago Tribune on July 18, 2010,
more than 20 former Cook County inmates filed suit saying they were
handcuffed or shackled during labor while in the custody, leaving
serious physical and psychological damage. On Oct 19, 2010, at least 129
inmates took part in a riot at Calipatria State Prison, leaving two dead
and a dozen injured (China Press, Oct 20, 2010). In November, AP
released a video showing an inmate, being beaten by a fellow inmate in
an Idaho prison, managed to plead for help through a prison guard
station window but officers looked on and no one intervened until he was
knocked unconscious. The prison was dubbed "gladiator school" (China
Press, Nov 2, 2010).
Wrongful conviction occurred quite often in the United States. In the
past two decades, a total of 266 people were exonerated through DNA
tests, among them 17 were on death row (Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2010).
A report from The Washington Post on April 23, 2010, said Washington DC
Police admitted 41 charges they raised against a 14-year-old boy,
including four first-degree murders, were false and the teen never
confessed to any charge. Police of Will County, Illinois, had tortured
Kevin Fox to confess the killing of his three-year-old daughter and he
had served eight months in prison before a DNA test exonerated him.
Similar case happened in Zion, Illinois, that Jerry Hobbs were forced by
the police to confess the killing of his eight-year-old daughter and had
been in prison for five years before DNA tests proved his innocence.
Barry Gibbs had served 19 years in prison when his conviction of killing
a prostitute in 1986 was overturned in 2005 and received $9.9 million
from New York City government in June 2010 (The New York Times, June 4,
2010).
The US regards itself as "the beacon of democracy." However, its
democracy is largely based on money. According to a report from The
Washington Post on Oct 26, 2010, US House and Senate candidates
shattered fundraising records for a midterm election, taking in more
than $1.5 billion as of Oct 24. The midterm election, held in November
2010, finally cost $3.98 billion, the most expensive in the US history.
Interest groups have actively spent on the election. As of Oct 6, 2010,
the $80 million spent by groups outside the Democratic and Republican
parties dwarfed the $16 million for the 2006 midterms. One of the
biggest spenders nationwide was the American Future Fund from Iowa,
which spent $7 million on behalf of Republicans in more than two dozen
House and Senate races. One major player the 60 Plus Association spent
$7 million on election related ads. The American Federation of States,
County and Municipal Employees spent $103.9 million on the campaigns
from Oct 22 to 27 (The New York Times, Nov 1, 2010). US citizens have
expressed discontent at the huge cost in the elections. A New York
Times/CBS poll showed nearly 8 in 10 US citizens said it was important
to limit the campaign expense (The New York Times, Oct 22, 2010).
While advocating Internet freedom, the US in fact imposes fairly strict
restriction on cyberspace. On June 24, 2010, the US Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved the Protecting
Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which will give the federal
government "absolute power" to shut down the Internet under a declared
national emergency. Handing government the power to control the Internet
will only be the first step towards a greatly restricted Internet
system, whereby individual IDs and government permission would be
required to operate a website (Prison Planet.com, June 25, 2010). The
United States applies double standards on Internet freedom by requesting
unrestricted "Internet freedom" in other countries, which becomes an
important diplomatic tool for the United States to impose pressure and
seek hegemony, and imposing strict restriction within its territory. An
article on BBC on Feb 16, 2011 noted the US government wants to boost
Internet freedom to give voices to citizens living in societies regarded
as "closed" and questions those governments' control over information
flow, although within its borders the US government tries to create a
legal frame to fight the challenge posed by Wikileaks. The US government
might be sensitive to the impact of the free flow of electronic
information on its territory for which it advocates, but it wants to
practice diplomacy by other means, including the Internet, particularly
the social networks.
An article on the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Magazine admitted that the
US government's approach to the Internet remains "full of problems and
contradictions" (Foreign Policy Magazine website, Feb 17, 2011)
III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The United States is the world's richest country, but Americans'
economic, social and cultural rights protection is going from bad to
worse.
Unemployment rate in the United States has been stubbornly high. From
December 2007 to October 2010, a total of 7.5 million jobs were lost in
the country (The New York Times, Nov 19, 2010). According to statistics
released by the US Department of Labor on Dec 3, 2010, the US
unemployment rate edged up to 9.8 percent in November 2010, and the
number of unemployed persons was 15 million in November, among whom,
41.9 percent were jobless for 27 weeks and more (data.bls.gov). The
jobless rate of California in January 2010 was 12.5 percent, its worst
on record. Unemployment topped 20 percent in eight California counties
(The Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2010). Unemployment rate of New York
State was 8.3 percent in October 2010. There were nearly 800,000 people
unemployed statewide, and about 527,000 people were collecting
unemployment benefits from the state (The New York Times, Nov 19, 2010).
Employment situation for the disabled was worse. According to statistics
released by the US Department of Labor on Aug 25, 2010, the average
unemployment rate for disabled workers was 14.5 percent in 2009, and
nearly a third of workers with disabilities worked only part-time. The
jobless rate for workers with disabilities who had at least a bachelor's
degree was 8.3 percent, which was higher than the 4.5 percent rate for
college-educated workers without disabilities (The Wall Street Journal,
Aug 26, 2010). The unemployment rate for those with disabilities had
risen to 16.4 percent as of July 2010 (The Wall Street Journal, Aug 26,
2010). In 2009, more than 21,000 disabled people complained to Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) about their experience of
employment discrimination, an increase of 10 percent and 20 percent over
the numbers of 2008 and 2007 (The World Journal, Sept 25, 2010).
Proportion of American people living in poverty has risen to a record
high. The US Census Bureau reported on Sept 16, 2010 that a total of 44
million Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, four million more
than that of 2008. The share of residents in poverty climbed to 14.3
percent in 2009, the highest level recorded since 1994 (The New York
Times, Sept 17, 2010). In 2009, Mississippi's poverty rate was 23.1
percent (www.census.gov). Florida had a total of 27 million people
living in poverty (The Washington Post, Sept 19, 2010). In New York
City, 18.7 percent of the population lived in poverty in 2009, as an
additional 45,000 people fell below the poverty line that year (New York
Daily News, Sept 29, 2010).
People in hunger increased sharply. A report issued by the US Department
of Agriculture in November 2010 showed that 14.7 percent of US
households were food insecure in 2009 (www.ers.usda.gov), an increase of
almost 30 percent since 2006 (The Washington Post, Nov 21, 2010). About
50 million Americans experienced food shortage that year. The number of
households collecting emergency food aid had increased from 3.9 million
in 2007 to 5.6 million in 2009 (The China Press, Nov 16, 2010). The
number of Americans participating in the food-stamp program increased
from 26 million in May 2007 to 42 million in September 2010,
approximately one in eight people was using food stamps (The Associated
Press, Oct 22, 2010). In the past four years, 31.6 percent of American
families tasted poverty for at least a couple of months (The Globe and
Mail, Sept 17, 2010).
Number of homeless Americans increased sharply. According to a report by
USA Today on June 16, 2010, the number of families in homeless shelters
increased 7 percent to 170,129 from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year
2009. Homeless families also were staying longer in shelters, from 30
days in 2008 to 36 in 2009, and about 800,000 American families were
living with extended family, friends, or other people because of the
economy. The number of homeless students in the US increased 41 percent
over that in the previous two years to one million (The Washington Post,
Sept 23, 2010; USA Today, July 31, 2010). In New York City, 30 percent
of homeless families in 2009 were first-time homeless (www.usatoday.com).
The city's homeless people increased to 3,111, with another 38,000
people living in shelters (The New York Times, March 19, 2010). New
Orleans had 12,000 homeless people (News Week, Aug 23, 2010). An
estimated 254,000 men, women and children experienced homelessness in
Los Angeles County during some part of the year. Approximately 82,000
people were homeless on any given night. African Americans made up
approximately half of the Los Angeles County homeless population, 33
percent were Latino, and a high percentage, as high as 20 percent, were
veterans (www.laalmanac.com). American veterans served in the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars could become homeless one year and a half after they
retired, and about 130,000 retired veterans become homeless each year in
the US (homepost.kpbs.org). Statistics from the National Coalition for
the Homeless showed that more than 1,000 violent offences against
homeless people have occurred in the U.S. which caused 291 deaths since
1999. (The New York Times, Aug18, 2010)
The number of American people without health insurance increased
progressively every year. According to a report by USA Today on Sept 17,
2010, the number of Americans without health insurance increased from
46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009, the ninth consecutive
annual rise, which accounted for 16.7 percent of the total US
population. Sixty-eight adults under 65 years old died due to lack of
health insurance each day on average in the US. A report from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in November 2010 showed
that 22 percent of American adults between 16 and 64 had no health
insurance (Reuters, Nov 10, 2010). A report issued by the Center for
Health Policy Research, University of California, Los Angeles indicated
that 24.3 percent of adults under 65 in California State in 2009 had no
health insurance, representing a population of 8.2 million, up from the
6.4 million in 2007. Proportion of children without health insurance in
the state rose from 10.2 percent in 2007 to 13.4 percent in 2009 (The
China Press, March 17, 2010, citing the Los Angeles Times).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination, deep-seated in the United States, has permeated
every aspect of social life.
An Associated Press-Univision Poll, reported by the Associated Press on
May 20, 2010, found that 61 percent of people overall said Hispanics
face significant discrimination, compared with 52 percent who said
blacks do. The New York Times reported on Oct 28, 2010 that more than 6
in 10 Latinos in the United States say discrimination is a "major
problem" for them, a significant increase in the last three years.
Minorities do not enjoy the same political status as white people. The
New York city's non-Hispanic white population is 35 percent, while more
than 70 percent of the senior jobs are held by whites. Since winning a
third term in November 2009, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has announced a
parade of major appointments: bringing aboard three new deputy mayors
and six commissioners. All nine are white. Of the 80 current city
officials identified by the Bloomberg administration as "key members" on
its website, 79 percent are white. Of 321 people who advise the mayor or
hold one of three top titles at agencies that report directly to him -
commissioners, deputy commissioners and general counsels, and their
equivalents - 78 percent are white. And of the 1,114 employees who must
live in the city, under an executive order, because they wield the most
influence over policies and day-to-day operations, 74 percent are white
(The New York Times, June 29, 2010).
Minority groups have high unemployment rate. According to the US Bureau
of Labor Statistics, in July 2010, among the population 16 to 24 years
of age, 2,987,000 unemployed people were white, with unemployment rate
reaching 16.2 percent; 992,000 were black or African-American people,
with unemployment rate of 33.4 percent; 165,000 were Asians, with
unemployment rate of 21.6 percent; 884,000 belonged to Hispanic or
Latino ethnicity, with unemployment rate of 22.1 percent (bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf).
According to a report of the working group of experts on people of
African descent to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in
August 2010, unemployment was a very serious issue for the
Afro-descendant community in the United States, with levels of
unemployment being, proportionately, four times higher among this
population than in the white community. Reference was made to a case
where the New York City Fire Department was found to have discriminated
against people of African descent who had applied for employment as
firemen. Of the 11,000 firemen employed by the New York City Fire
Department, only about 300 were of African descent, despite their being
about 27 percent of the population of New York (UN document A/HRC/15/18).
Nearly one-sixth of black residents in the city were unemployed in the
third quarter of 2010. About 140,000 of the city's 384,000 unemployed
residents, or 36 percent, were black (The New York Times, Oct 28, 2010).
Poverty proportion for minorities is also high in the United States. The
US Census Bureau announced in Sept, 2010 that the poverty proportion of
the black was 25.8 percent in 2009, and those of Hispanic origin and
Asian were 25.3 percent and 12.5 percent respectively, much higher than
that of the non-Hispanic white at 9.4 percent. The median household
income for the black, Hispanic origin and non-Hispanic white were
$32,584, $38,039 and $54,461 respectively (The USA Today, September 17,
2010). A survey released by the America Association of Retired Persons
on February 23, 2010 found that over the previous 12 months, a third (33
percent) of African-Americans age 45+ had problems paying rent or
mortgage, 44 percent had problems paying for essential items, such as
food and utilities, almost one in four (23 percent) lost their
employer-sponsored health insurance, more than three in 10 (31 percent)
had cut back on their medications, and a quarter (26 percent)
prematurely withdrew funds from their retirement nest eggs to pay for
living expenses. Even in the tough employment environment, 12 percent of
African-Americans age 65+ returned to the workforce from retirement,
while nearly 20 percent of African-Americans age 45 to 64 increased the
number of hours worked and 12 percent took a second job (The Los Angeles
Times, Feb 23, 2010). In 2009, there were more than 30,000 black
children living in poverty in the nation's capital, almost 7,000 more
than two years before. Among black children in the city, childhood
poverty shot up to 43 percent, from 36 percent in 2008. In contrast, the
poverty rate for Hispanic children was 13 percent, and the rate for
white children was 3 percent (The Washington Post, Sept 29, 2010).
The US minority groups face obvious inequality in education. A latest
report released by America's Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, and
the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University showed that 81
percent of white, 64 percent of Hispanic, and 62 percent of
African-American students graduated from high schools in 2008 (The World
Journal, Dec 2, 2010). As of 2008, among white men aged 55 to 64, the
college completion rate was 43 percent, while 19 percent of Hispanics.
Among white men aged 25 to 34, the completion rate was 39 percent,
compared with 14 percent of Hispanics (The Washington Post, Oct 20,
2010). In New York City, the number of white adults with a master degree
were three times more than Hispanics. According to a report released by
the Sacramento State University, only 22 percent of Latino students and
26 percent African-American students completed their two-year studies in
the university, compared with 37 percent of white students (The San Jose
Mercury News, Oct 20, 2010). A report released from New York City's
Department of Education in January 2010 found that 6,207 or 4.7
percent-out of a total of 130,837 disciplinary incidents reported in the
City's public schools during the 2008-09 school year were bias-related
with gender, race/color, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual
orientation (The China Press, Jan 18, 2010). The USA Today on Oct 14,
2010 reported that African-American boys who were suspended at double
and triple the rates of their white male peers. At the Christina School
District in Delaware, 71 percent of black male students were suspended
in a recent school year, compared to 22 percent of their white male
counterparts. African-American students without disabilities were more
than three times as likely to be expelled as their white peers.
African-American students with disabilities were over twice as likely to
be expelled or suspended as their white counterparts (USA Today, March
8, 2010).
The health care for African-American people is worrisome. Studies showed
that nearly a third of ethnic minority families in the United States did
not have health insurance. Life expectancy was lower and infant
mortality higher than average (BBC, the social and economic position of
minorities). Mortality of African-American children was two to three
times higher than that of their white counterparts. African-American
children represented 71 percent of all pediatric HIV/AIDS cases.
African-American women and men were 17 times and 7 times, respectively,
more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than white people, and twice more
likely to develop cancer.
Racial discrimination is evident in the law enforcement and judicial
systems. The New York Times reported on May 13, 2010, that in 2009,
African-Americans and Latinos were 9 times more likely to be stopped by
the police to receive stop-and-frisk searches than white people.
Overall, 41 percent of the prison population was estimated to be
African-American. The rate of African-Americans serving a life sentence
was more than 10 times higher than that of whites. Males of African
descent who dropped out of school had a 66 percent chance of ending up
in jail or being processed by the criminal justice system (UN document
A/HRC/15/18). A report said 85 percent of the people stopped in New York
to receive stop-and-frisk searches over the past six years had been
black or Latino (The Washington Post, November 4, 2010). According to a
report of the Law School of the Michigan State University, among the 159
death row inmates in North Carolina, 86 were black, 61 were white and 12
were from other ethnic groups. During the trial process of the 159
capital cases, the number of black members taken out from the jury by
prosecutors more than doubled that of non-black members. According to
statistics from the Chicago Police Department, the proportion of black
people being the criminals and the victims of all murder cases is the
highest, reaching 76.3 and 77.6 percent respectively (portal.chicagopolice.org).
The Homicide Report of the Los Angeles Times showed 2,329 homicides in
Los Angeles County from Jan 1, 2007 to Nov 14, 2010, with victims of
1,600 Latinos and 997 black people (projects.latimes.com/homicide/map/).
Racial hate crimes are frequent. The FBI said in an annual report that
out of 6,604 hate crimes committed in the United States in 2009, some
4,000 were racially motivated and nearly 1,600 were driven by hatred for
a particular religion. Overall, some 8,300 people fell victim to hate
crimes in 2009. Blacks made up around three-quarters of victims of the
racially motivated hate crimes and Jews made up the same percentage of
victims of anti-religious hate crimes. Two-thirds of the 6,225 known
perpetrators of all US hate crimes were white (AFP, Nov 22, 2010).
Immigrants' rights and interests are not guaranteed. Lawmakers in the
Arizona Senate in April 2010 passed a bill to curb illegal immigration.
The law requires state and local police to determine the status of
people if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal
immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation
proving they are in the country legally (The Los Angeles Times, April
13, 2010). Another proposed Arizona law, supported by Republicans of the
state, would deny birth certificates to children born in the United
States to illegal immigrant parents (CNN US, June 15, 2010). A group of
UN human rights experts on migrants, racism, minorities, indigenous
people, education and cultural rights expressed serious concern over the
laws enacted by the state of Arizona, saying that "a disturbing pattern
of legislative activity hostile to ethnic minorities and immigrants has
been established". The Arizona immigration law requires state law
enforcement officers to arrest a person, without a warrant. It also
makes it a crime to be in the country illegally, and specifically
targets day laborers, making it a crime for an undocumented migrant to
solicit work, and for any person to hire or seek to hire an undocumented
migrant. The law may lead to detaining and subjecting to interrogation
persons primarily on the basis of their perceived ethnic
characteristics. In Arizona, persons who appear to be of Mexican, Latin
American, or indigenous origin are especially at risk of being targeted
under the law. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Nov 19, 2010
that a large group of human rights organizations prepared to hold a
vigil in South Georgia in support of suspected illegal immigrants being
held in a prison in Lumpkin. As of Sept 17, 2010, the prison was holding
1,890 inmates. Court cases for inmates at the prison were pending for 63
days on average. With regard to immigration detainees, the Special
Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants said, in a report to the
Human Rights Council in April 2010, that he received reports of
detainees being willfully and maliciously denied proper medical
treatment, to which they are entitled by legislation, while they are in
the custody of the national authorities. The Special Rapporteur observed
during his country missions that irregular migrant workers are often
homeless or living in crowded, unsafe and unsanitary conditions (UN
document A/HRC/14/30).
V. On the rights of women and children
The situation regarding the rights of women and children in the United
States is bothering.
Gender discrimination against women widely exists in the United States.
According to a report released on Aug 11, 2010 by the Daily Mail, 90
percent of women have suffered some form of sexual discrimination in the
workplace. Just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. A report by the
American Association of University Women released on March 22, 2010
showed that women earned only 21 percent of doctorate degrees in
computer science, around one-third of the doctorates in earth,
atmospheric, and ocean sciences, chemistry, and math. Women doing the
same work as men often get less payment in the United States. According
to a report on Sept 17, 2010 by the Washington Post, in nearly 50 years,
the wage gap has narrowed by only 18 US cents. The census report
released on Sept 16, 2010 showed that working women are paid only 77
cents for every dollar earned by a man. The New York Times reported on
April 26, 2010 that Wal-Mart was accused of systematically paying women
less than men, giving them smaller raises and offering women fewer
opportunities for promotion in the biggest employment discrimination
case in the nation's history. The plaintiffs stressed that while 65
percent of Wal-Mart's hourly employees were women, only 33 percent of
the company's managers were (The New York Times, April 26, 2010).
Women in the United States often experience sexual assault and violence.
Statistics released in October 2010 by the National Institute of Justice
show that some 20 million women are rape victims in the country (justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/october/10-ag-1220.html).
About 60,000 female prisoners fall victims to sexual assault or violence
every year. Some one fifth female students on campus are victims of
sexual assault, and 60 percent of campus rape cases occurred in female
students' dorms (World Journal, Aug 26, 2010).
According to the Human Rights Watch report released in August last year,
50 detainees in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention
centers have been alleged victims of sexual assault since 2003. Most of
these victims were women, and some of the alleged assailants, including
prison guards, were not prosecuted. In one case, a guard in a Texas
detention center pretended to be a doctor and sexually assaulted five
women in the center's infirmary (World Journal, Aug 26, 2010). According
to figures from Pentagon, cited by the Time magazine on March 8, 2010,
nearly 3,000 female soldiers were sexually assaulted in fiscal year
2008, up 9 percent from the year before. Close to one-third of the
retired female soldiers said they were victims of rape or assault while
they were serving.
Women are also victims of domestic violence. In the United States, some
1.3 million people fall victim to domestic violence every year, and
women account for 92 percent. One in four women is a victim of domestic
violence at some point during her life, and the violence kills three
women each day in the United States by a current or former intimate
partner (CNN, Oct 21, 2010). In 2008, police in the New York City
received reports of more than 230,000 domestic violence cases, which
equals to 600 cases per day (China Press, April 3, 2010). In all
homicide cases in 2009, of the female murder victims for whom their
relationships to the offenders were known, 34.6 percent were murdered by
their husbands or boyfriends (www2.fbi.gov). In the Santa Clara County
in California, police receive more than 4,500 domestic violence related
calls every year, and more than 700 women and children live in shelters
to avoid domestic violence (World Journal, October 15, 2010; China
Press, Oct 9, 2010).
Women's health rights are not properly protected in the United States.
According to the Amnesty International, more than two women die every
day in the United States from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die of
pregnancy-related complications than white women in the past 20 years.
Native American and Alaska Native women are 3.6 times, African-American
women 2.6 times and Latina women 2.5 times more likely than white women
to receive no or late pre-natal care (UN document A/HRC/14/NGO/13).
Children in the US live in poverty. The Washington Post reported on Nov
21, 2010, that nearly one in four children struggles with hunger, citing
the US Department of Agriculture. More than 60 percent of public school
teachers identify hunger as a problem in the classroom. Roughly the same
percentage go into their own pockets to buy food for their hungry
students (The Washington Post, Nov 21, 2010). According to figures
released on Sept 16, 2010 by the US Census Bureau, the poverty rate
increased for children younger than 18 to 20.7 percent in 2009, up 1.7
percentage points from that in 2008 (census.gov). Poverty among black
children in the Washington D.C. is as high as 43 percent (The Washington
Post, Sept 29, 2010), and some 2.7 million children in California live
in impoverished families. The number of poor children in six counties in
the San Francisco Bay Area has increased by 15 to 16 percent. Statistics
show that at least 17 million children in the United States lived in
food insecure households in 2009 (World Journal, May 8, 2010).
Violence against children is very severe. Figures from the official
website of Love Our Children USA show that every year over 3 million
children are victims of violence reportedly and the actual number is 3
times greater. Almost 1.8 million are abducted and nearly 600,000
children live in foster care. Every day one out of seven kids and teens
are approached online by predators, and one out of four kids are bullied
and 43 percent of teens and 97 percent of middle schoolers are
cyberbullied. Nine out of 10 LGBT students experienced harassment at
school. As many as 160,000 students stay home on any given day because
they' re afraid of being bullied (loveourchildrenusa.org). According to
a report released on Oct 20, 2010 by the Washington Post, 17 percent of
American students report being bullied two to three times a month or
more within a school semester. Bullying is most prevalent in third
grade, when almost 25 percent of students reported being bullied two,
three or more times a month. According to a UN report of the Special
Rapporteur on the right to education, 20 states and hundreds of school
districts in the United States still permit schools to administer
corporal punishment in some form, and students with mental or physical
disabilities are more likely to suffer physical punishment (UN document
A/HRC/14/25/ADD.1).
Children's physical and mental health is not ensured. More than 93,000
children are currently incarcerated in the United States, and between 75
and 93 percent of children have experienced at least one traumatic
experience, including sexual abuse and neglect (The Washington Post,
July 9, 2010). According to a report made by the Child Fatality Review
Team from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,
between 2001 and 2008, injury-related deaths among children aged one to
12 years old in the United States was 8.9 deaths per 100,000. The figure
for those in the New York City was 4.2 deaths per 100,000 (China Press,
July 3, 2010). Thirteen children and young adults have died at a Chicago
care facility for children with severe disabilities since 2000 due to
failure to take basic steps to care for them (Chicago Tribune, Oct 10,
2010). According to a study published on Oct 14, 2010 in the Journal of
the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, about half of
American teens aged between 13 and 19 met the criteria for a mental
disorder. Fifty-one percent of boys and 49 percent of girls aged 13 to
19 had a mood, behavior, anxiety or substance use disorder, and the
disorder in 22.2 percent of teens was so severe it impaired their daily
activities (World Journal, Oct 15, 2010). Pornographic content is
rampant on the Internet and severely harms American children. Statistics
show that seven in 10 children have accidentally accessed pornography on
the Internet and one in three has done so intentionally. And the average
age of exposure is 11 years old - some start at eight years old (The
Washington Times, June 16, 2010). According to a survey commissioned by
the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 20
percent of American teens have sent or posted nude or seminude pictures
or videos of themselves. (co.jefferson.co.us, March 23, 2010). At least
500 profit-oriented nude chat websites were set up by teens in the
United States, involving tens of thousands of pornographic pictures.
VI. On US Violations of Human Rights against Other
Nations
The United States has a notorious record of international human rights
violations.
The US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused huge civilian
casualties. A trove, released by the WikiLeaks website on Oct 22, 2010,
reported up to 285,000 war casualties in Iraq from March 2003 through
the end of 2009. The documents revealed that at least 109,000 people
were killed in the Iraq War, and 63 percent of them were civilians
(World Journal, Oct 23, 2010). In an attack in Baghdad in July 2007, an
American helicopter shot and killed 12 people, among whom were a Reuters
photographer and his driver (The New York Times, April 5, 2010). On Feb
20, 2011, a US military operation in northeastern Afghanistan killed 65
innocent people, including 22 women and more than 30 children, causing
the most serious civilian casualties in months (The Washington Post, Feb
20, 2011). According to a report in the Washington Post on Oct 15, 2010,
Iraq's Human Rights Ministry reported in 2009 that 85,694 Iraqis were
killed from January 2004 to Oct 31, 2008. Iraq Body Count, an
organization based in Britain, said that a total of 122,000 civilians
had been killed since the US invasion of Iraq (Newsday, Oct 24, 2010).
The US military actions in Afghanistan and other regions have also
brought tremendous casualties to local people. According to a report by
McClatchy Newspapers on March 2, 2010, the US-led North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) troops had caused 535 Afghan civilian deaths and
injuries in 2009. Among them 113 civilians were shot and killed, an
increase of 43 percent over 2008. Since June 2009, air strikes by the US
military had killed at least 35 Afghan civilians. On Jan 8, 2010, an
American missile strike in the northwestern region of Pakistan killed
four people and injured three others (The San Francisco Chronicle, Jan
9, 2010). During an American Special Operation in Afghanistan on
February 12, five innocent civilians were shot to death, and two of them
were pregnant mothers (The New York Times, April 5, 2010, page A4). On
April 12, American troops raked a passenger bus near Kandahar, killing
five civilians and wounding 18 others (The New York Times, April 13,
2010). The Washington Post reported on Sept 18, 2010, that from Jan
2010, a "kill team" formed by five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Combat
Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division of the US forces in Afghanistan, had
committed at least three murders, where they randomly targeted and
killed Afghan civilians, and dismembered the corpses and hoarded the
human bones (The Washington Post, Sept 18, 2010).
The US counter-terrorism missions have been haunted by prisoner abuse
scandals. The United States held individuals captured during its "war on
terror" indefinitely without charge or trial, according to a joint study
report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in May 2010
by the UN's Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human
rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, the Special
Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The report
said the United States established detention centers in Guantanamo Bay
and many other places in the world, keeping detainees secretly. The US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established secret detention
facilities to interrogate so-called "high-value detainees". The study
said the US Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stephen G.
Bradbury had stated that the CIA had taken custody of 94 detainees, and
had employed "enhanced techniques" to varying degrees, including stress
positions, extreme temperature changes, sleep deprivation, and "waterboarding,"
in the interrogation of 28 of those detainees (UN document A/HRC/13/42).
The United States makes arrests outside its border under the pretext of
the "war on terror." According to a report of the Associated Press on
Dec 9, 2010, documents released by the WikiLeaks website indicated that
in 2003, some US agents were involved in an abduction of a German
citizen mistakenly believed to be a terrorist. The US agents abducted
him in Macedonia, and secretly detained him in a CIA-run prison in
Afghanistan for five months. However, a top diplomat at the US Embassy
in Berlin warned the German government not to issue international arrest
warrants against the involved CIA agents.
The United States has seriously violated the right of subsistence and
right of development of Cuban residents. On Oct 26, 2010, the 65th
session of the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution
entitled "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial
embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," the 19th
such resolution in a row. Only two countries, including the United
States, voted against the resolution. The blockade imposed by the United
States against Cuba qualifies as an act of genocide under Article II of
the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which was adopted in 1948.
The United States refuses to join several key international human rights
conventions, failing to fulfill its international obligations. To date,
the United States has ratified neither the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, nor the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In 2006, the
UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities. Up to now 96 countries have ratified the Convention. The
United States, however, has not ratified it. So far, a total of 193
countries have joined the Convention on the Rights of the Child as
states parties, but the United States is among the very few countries
that have not ratified it.
On Aug 20, 2010, the US government submitted its first report on
domestic human rights situation to the UN Human Rights Council. During
the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the record on Nov 5, the
United States received a record 228 recommendations by about 60 country
delegations for improving its human rights situation. These
recommendations referred to, inter alia, ratifying key international
human rights conventions, rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous
peoples, racial discriminations and Guantanamo prison. The United
States, however, only accepted some 40 of them. On March 18, 2011, the
UN Human Rights Council adopted the outcome of the UPR on the United
States, and many countries condemned the United States for rejecting
most of the recommendations. In the discussion on the United States,
speakers from some country delegations expressed their regret and
disappointment over the United States' refusal of a large number of the
recommendations. They noted that the United States' commitment to the
human rights area was far from satisfying, and they urged the United
States to face up to its own human rights record and take concrete
actions to tackle the existing human rights problems.
The above-mentioned facts illustrate that the United States has a dismal
record on its own human rights and could not be justified to pose as the
world's "human rights justice". However, it released the Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other
countries for their human rights practices. The United States ignores
its own serious human rights problems, but has been keen on advocating
the so-called "human rights diplomacy", to take human rights as a
political instrument to defame other nations' image and seek its own
strategic interests. These facts fully expose its hypocrisy by
exercising double standards on human rights and its malicious design to
pursue hegemony under the pretext of human rights.
We hereby advise the US government to take concrete actions to improve
its own human rights conditions, check and rectify its acts in the human
rights field, and stop the hegemonistic deeds of using human rights
issues to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.
SOURCE:
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2011-04/11/content_12303177.htm
|
|
|