- Full text of Human Rights Record of the US in 2003
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- China issued the Human Rights Record of the United States
in 2003 Monday, March 1, in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices for 2003 issued by the US on Feb. 25. The Human Rights Record
is the fifth Chinese report in response to the annual country reports on
human rights by the United States.
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- The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003
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- By the Information Office of the State Council of the
People's Republic of China
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- On February 25, 2004, the State Department of the United
States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003
(called the "reports" thereafter). As in previous years, the
United States once again acted as "the world human rights police"
by distorting and censuring in the "reports" the human rights
situations in more than 190 countries and regions across the world, including
China. And just as usual, the United States once again "omitted"
its own long-standing malpractice and problems of human rights in the "reports".
Therefore, we have to, as before, help the United States keep its human
rights record.
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- I. On Life, Freedom and Personal Safety
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- The United States has long been in a violent, crime-ridden
society with a severe infringement of the people's rights by law enforcement
departments and with a lack of guarantee for the life of people, their
freedom and personal safety.
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- The United States is a country plagued most seriously
by violence and crimes. According to the statistical figures released in
June 2003 by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a total of 11.9
million criminal cases were reported in 2002 in the United States, including
homicides, rapes, robbery and theft. Of these cases, 19,940 cases were
reported in Detroit, where 2,073 people committed crimes in every 100,000
people. In Baltimore, where 2,055 people committed crimes in every 100,000
people. With regard to personal offenses, cases of murders and rapes rose
by 0.8 percent, and 4.0 percent, respectively, over 2002(see The Sun, USA
on June 18, 2003).
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- On Sept. 15, 2003, US Surgeon General Richard Carmona
admitted at a workshop that the United States has always ranked first in
the world in terms of homicide incidence. In August 2003, the US Department
of Justice acknowledged in a report that a total of 15,586 homicide cases
occurred around the country in 2000, as against 15,980 in 2001, and 16,110
in 2002, indicating a rising trend yearby year (see the edition of USA
Today on Aug. 25, 2003).
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- In a report released by the FBI in December 2003, the
FBI said the overall incidence of offenses in the U.S. somewhat dropped,
whereas the number of people murdered across the country grew by 1.1 percent
during the first half of 2003 (see the edition of USA Today published on
Dec. 16, 2003).
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- From January to August of 2003, 166 homicides were reported
in Washington D.C., up 5.1 percent year on year. In Chicago, which is known
as America's "homicide capital", there were 648 homicides in2002,
compared with 599 in 2003, or an average of 22.2 people victimized in every
100,000 residents (AP dispatch from Chicago on Jan. 1, 2004). In New York,
the number of people murdered in 2003 amounted to 596 (AP dispatch from
Chicago on Jan. 2, 2004)). In California, the number of murder cases for
2002 went up 11 percent. The US Justice Policy Institute held that the
existing legal system could not ensure the safety and health of community
residents.
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- The United States ranked first in private ownership of
guns, resulting in drastic rise in gun-related crimes. According to a survey
of crime victims, 350,000 criminal cases involving the use of guns were
reported in the United States in 2002, and guns were used in 63 percent
of the 15,980 killings in 2001. On Aug. 27, 2003, a jobless man carrying
a gun broke into a car part supplying company, killing seven of his former
colleagues. Statistical figures from US National Center for Health Statistics
showed that 56.5 percent of Americans who committed suicides in 2000 with
the use of guns, involving 16,586 people (see Gun Violence, Related Facts.
www.jointogether.org).
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- Improper management of firearms led to the frequent occurrence
of juvenile offenses involving the use of guns. At least 18 people in American
public schools were reportedly killed in violence with50 others wounded
in mid Aug. of 2003. According to data from US Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, more than 50 percent of the murderers in campus shootings
in the United States used guns owned by their families or friends, while
over 80 percent of the guns used by students for suicides came from their
families or friends (Most Guns Used in School Shootings from Family, Friends,
www. jointogether.org).
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- Unrestrained evil social forces and widespread drug abuse
endangered the people's life and safety. According to a report released
by US National Youth Gang Center, there were altogether 21,500 sinister
gangs in the United States in 2002 with a combined membership of 731,000.
In April 2003, an innocent woman was killed in a gang shootout in New York.
Police had to impose a state of citywide emergency in the summer of 2003
due to frequent gang-related violence (see the edition of USA Today on
Dec. 16, 2003).
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- Drug-related crimes have been on the rise, with new characteristics
involving a growing number of gangs, intensified violence and trans-national
smuggling and collaboration with terrorist groups. The rate of crimes induced
by drug abuse has risen year by year. Relevant data released by the US
Department of Justice showed that over half of the inmates in federal jails
have something to do with drug-related crimes (see Washington Post on July
28, 2003).
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- According to the outcome of a survey released by Washington
D.C.Mayor Anthony A. Williams, 60,000 people out of the 600,000 population
in Washington used drugs and indulged in excessive drinking, causing an
annual economic loss of 1.2 billion US dollars. Half of those people arrested
on charge of violence in Washington D.C. took drugs (see Washington Post
on Dec. 2, 2003).
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- In recent years, the number of AIDS patients has also
increased partly due to the widespread drug abuse. Statistical figures
released by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicated
that the number of people diagnosed as AIDS carriers across the United
States in 2002 rose by 2.2 percent over the previous year to reach 42,136
(see Washington Post on July 28, 2003).
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- The infringement of lawful rights constitutes a malignant
obstinate disease of American society. Random assaults committed by the
police resulted in the frequent occurrence of tragedies with heavy casualties.
The New York City Police was reported for several willful shooting cases
when chasing suspects in January 2003. Four people were killed by the police
in the city from Jan. 1 to 5 last year. In Dec. 2003, a black man named
Nathaniel Jones was beaten to death by six policemen in Cincinnati, causing
a great uproar against police brutality across the country.
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- According to an AP report, a woman in the city of Detroit
had one of her fingers cut off and another finger injured by the police
simply for a dispute with them in a parking lot. The report said the police
also boxed her ears and tore her hair.
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- The United States issued the Patriot Act in name of land
security and anti-terrorism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, and many
substantial contents of this act encroached upon rights and freedom of
citizens, especially the people of ethnic minorities. Under the authority
of the Patriot Act, the government departments are empowered to wiretap
phone calls of citizens, trace their online records, read their private
mails and e-mails. The FBI is even allowed to keep a watch on people's
reading habits. They check the booklists of what people borrow from libraries,
so as to judge whether they have been influenced by terrorism. A resolution
passed by Cambridge, Massachusetts, explicitly noted that the civil rights
of the American people are being jeopardized by the Patriot Act and, therefore,
the Sun in Aug. 2003 set forth an appeal for "freedom to read"
(see the Sun on Aug. 18, 2003).
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- The United States claim itself as a paradise for free
people but the ratio of inmates in the United States has remained the highest
in the world. The number of inmates in the country exceeded 2.1 million
in 2002, a year-on-year rise of 2.6 percent, according to the statistical
figures released by the Department of Justice in July 2003. The jails nationwide
receive 700 new inmates every week in the U.S. where 701 out of every 100,000
people are in prison (see Washington Post on July 28, 2003).
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- Inmates have received inhumane treatment in the overloaded
jails. An International Herald Tribune story said the states of Virginia,
North Carolina, Minnesota, Iowa, Texas and Arizona had lowered the food
supply standards of inmates so as to curb the huge government budget deficit.
They reduced the calorie of each meal in jail and cut three meals a day
to two on weekends and holidays. According to a report by Amnesty International,
more than 700,000 inmates were held in high security prisons and there
they are compelled to stay in wards for 23 hours a day and even longer,
subjected to ruthless and inhuman treatment and humiliation. Last year,
at least three inmates were hit to death by prison guards with guns of
high voltage electric prods (2003 Report: United States of America, Amnesty
International, www.amnestyusa.org).
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- Sexual harassment and encroachment are common in jails
in the United States. A report issued by Human Rights Watch in Sept. 2003said
that one in five male inmates in the country had faced forced sexual contact
in custody and one in 10 has been raped. For women inmates, they are objects
of sexual assault of jail guards, and one fourth of the women inmates are
sexually assaulted in a few jails (see Editorial, Doing Something about
Prison Rape, http:// www.hrw.org, 26/09/2003).
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- Nine girls in a juvenile delinquent center of the state
of Alabama accused the guards of assaulting and raping them and compelling
them to have forced abortion. They also said male guards watched girls
take bath and unclothe themselves for so-called frisk. They had to have
sex with male guards in the hope for better treatment, for instance, to
get a can of cola or food.
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- According to another Human Rights Watch report, one in
six US inmates suffer various kinds of mental illnesses. Many of them suffer
from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and serious depression. The proportion
of inmates with mental illness in the prison population is over three times
higher than in the general population (see United States: Mentally Ill
Mistreated in Prison, www.hrw.org/2003/10/US102203.htm). The total population
of these patients has reached as high as 200,000 to 300,000. "Prisons
have become the nation's primary mental health facilities," said Human
Rights Watch. The prisoners with mental illness are likely to be picked
on, physically or sexually abused and manipulated by other inmates. For
example, a female inmate named Georgia, who is both mentally ill and retarded,
has been raped repeatedly in an exchange for small items such as cigarettes
and coffee.
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- II. On Political Rights and Freedom
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- The presidential election, often symbolized as US democracy,
infact is the game and competition for the rich people. Presidential candidates
have to raise money far and wide for their expensive campaign cost and
most of the donors are big companies and millionaires. President George
W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had raised as high as 113 million
US dollars in their 2000 presidential campaign, a record in US history,
and the fund raising is expected to reach 200 million US dollars for this
year's re-election campaign (see Britain's Independent newspaper on Jan.20,
2004).
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- Statistical figures from the Center for Responsive Politics
showed that Lockheed Martin Corp., the country's biggest arms dealer, has
been the biggest political donor. The company had donated 10.6 billion
US dollars for political campaigns in the United States from 1999 to 2000
and has been the main donor to the Committee on Armed Services of the House
of Representatives as well as one of the top ten donors to the Committee
on Appropriations of the House.
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- The so-called "freedom of press" in the United
States has also been brought under intensive criticism. According to an
investigative report of the Sonoma State University in the United States,
freedom of press, speech and expression of opinion in the United States
is amid a crisis. An increasing number of US media organizations are getting
involved in false reporting or cheating scandals. On June 5, 2003, two
chief editors of the New York Times resigned after their role in a plagiarism
scandal was exposed. John Barrie, head of Plagiarism.org in Oakland, California,
claimed that "every newspaper in this country is not doing due diligence"
and "everybody's got this problem".
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- Meanwhile, the US government has exercised an extremely
tight control over news media, which went to the extreme during the 2003U.S.-led
war against Iraq <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/iraq.html>
. During the war, the US government had tried every means to prevent the
press from getting timely and true information and had wielded its hegemony
to override the journalistic principle of "faithful and unbiased reporting".
PeterArnett, a veteran reporter with the US National Broadcasting Company
(NBC), was fired simply because he voiced some of his personal views on
the Iraq war. News coverage by international media in Iraq also often fell
prey to US restrictions and crackdown. Media watchdog Reporters Without
Borders (RSF) has accused US troops in Iraq of frequent "obstruction
of journalists trying to do their jobs in Iraq" and described the
number of attacks on press freedom there as "alarming" (see Reuters
story on Oct. 20, 2003).
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- In January 2004, the U.S.-installed Iraqi Interim Governing
Council issued an order to ban the Al-Qaida-based Al-Jazeera TV station
from covering any activity of the Council's members between January 28
and February 27. A book named "Black List", co-written by 15
American reporters, has warned that America's press freedom is facing danger.
In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Kristina Borjesson,
one of the book's authors and a former reporter with the CBS (Columbia
Broadcasting System) and CNN (Cable News Network), said that US authorities
had controlled all information to be spread by the media while journalists
had degenerated into the government's stenographers (see French newspaper
Le Figaro on May 8, 2003).
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- The US has also time and again launched attacks on news
media organizations and journalists in Iraq. In one of such attacks on
April 8, 2003, the US troops bombed the Baghdad branch of an Arab TV station
and killed one cameraman on the spot.
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- III. On Living Conditions of US Laborers
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- Although the United States is the world's No. one developed
nation, the US government has to date refused to ratify the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Itis apathetic to the
rights and interests of ordinary workers in economic, social and cultural
aspects, leading to serious problemssuch as poverty, hunger and homelessness.
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- The disparity between the rich and the poor keep widening
in the United States. A 2003 report by the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) under the US Congress acknowledged that the gap between the rich
and the poor in the country today is wider than anytime in nearly 70 years,
with the wealth of the country's richest one percent population exceeding
the overall possessions of the needy, who account for 40 percent of the
total population. In 2000, the rich people's wealth makes up 15.5 percent
of the country's overall national income, as against 7.5 percent in 1979
(according to BBC report on Sept. 25, 2003).
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- A report by the US Federal Reserve also showed that between
1998 and 2001, the wealth gap between the country's richest and poorest
had widened by 70 percent (see Britain's Guardian report on Jan. 24, 2003).
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- Certain policies of the US government, instead of helping
narrowing the country's wealth gap, have aggravated the rich-poor disparity
and led to an unfair distribution of wealth. According to a report by the
US Environmental Working Group in 2003, the agricultural policy of the
US government has ensured 70 percent ofthe government subsidies go to ranch
owners, resulting in a yawning income gap between ranch owners and ordinary
farmers and pushing many farmers to the verge of bankruptcy (ABC report
on Oct.9, 2003).
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- The population living in need and hunger in the United
States has been on a steady rise. According to statistics from the 2003
economic report of the US Census Bureau, the impoverished population in
the United States had been increasing for two consecutive years, reaching
34.6 million, or 12.1 percent of the total population, in 2002, up 1.7
million over the previous year. The country's poverty ratio in 2002 had
risen by 0.4 percentage points over the previous year. Among the impoverished
population, the number of extremely needy people had risen to 14.1 million
from the previous 13.4 million, and the proportion of children in need
had gone up to 16.7 percent in 2002 from 16.3 percent in 2001.Since 2001,
the number of needy families in the United States has been growing at 6
percent a year, and there are now 7.3 million impoverished families in
the country, which means 31 million people are facing the threat of hunger.
In the 25 leading metropolises of the United States, the number of people
who need emergency food aid has increased by 19 percent on average, while
the number of people who live on charity food coupons, or those who have
to queue up for free food distributions, has surged to 22million (see Spain
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/spain.html> 's El Mundo on
May 19, 2003).
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- In October 2003, the US Department of Agriculture released
a report, which showed that in 2002 there were 12 million American families
worrying about their food expenditures and 3.8 million families with members
who actually suffered from hunger. On December 18, 2003, an annual survey
report released at the US Conference of Mayors showed that in the 25 cities
surveyed, the number of people seeking emergency food aid in 2003 had increased
by 17 percent on average over 2002. Moreover, 87 percent of the surveyed
cities believed that the number of such people would continue to rise in
2004.
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- The homeless population continues to rise. According
to information released by the US National Law Center on Homelessness and
Poverty, more than 3 million people were homeless in the United States
in 2002 (Homeless and Poverty in America, www.nlchp.org). Washington D.C.
has the highest rate of homelessness of any city in the United States,
with an estimated 20,000 people having experienced homelessness and nearly
400 families having applied for emergency shelters in 2002 (A snapshot
of Homelessness in the Metropolitan, www.naeh.org). In April of 2002 alone,
38,476 people in New York spent their night in aid centers, including 16,685
children. According to a survey released by the US Conference of Mayors
in December 2003, requests for emergency shelter assistance rose by an
average of 13 percent in the past year; 88 percent of the cities surveyed
predicted that the situation would be even worse in 2004.
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- Recently, the US Christian Science Monitor reminded the
United States that it should regard "a home for every American"
as the most rudimentary human right. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
said the government was unable to provide the basic subsistence guarantee
for people, and that the local government had violated international human
rights law by forcibly taking over 8,000 local residential houses in five
years.
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- There is a lack of work safety. According to US laws,
only the accidents of industrial injuries resulting from "intended"
violation of safety rules by the employers are eligible to be submitted
to the judicial authorities. Even when alarming cases occur, the employers
are seldom confirmed as "intended" and rarely face public prosecution.
The New York Times quoted a surveyed report of the US Occupational Safety
& Health Administration as saying that in 20 years from 1982 to 2002,
there were 1,242 cases involving the death of workers caused by the employers'
"intended" violation of safety rules, yet 93 percent of the cases
were not brought to the court. In these two decades, there were a total
of 2,197 accidents caused by employers' violation of safety rules and resulted
in death of the workers in the United States, and the combined prison terms
for employers involved were less than 30 years.
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- The situation of health insurance worsened. According
to a report released by the US Census Bureau in September 2003, the number
of Americans without health insurance climbed by 5.7 percent over 2001,
to reach 43.6 million in 2002, the largest single increase in a decade.
Overall, 15.2 percent of the Americans were uninsured in 2002 (see Washington
Post on Sept. 30,2003).
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- Based on a survey, the ratio of employees uninsured in
big US companies rose from seven percent to 11 percent during the 1987-2001
period (see Wall Street Journal on Oct. 22, 2003). More and more people
cannot afford medical treatment. In Nebraska,250,000 single mothers lost
free medical care they previously enjoyed, and in Arizona, approximately
60,000 children were no longer covered by free medical care (see Spain's
El Mundo on May 19, 2003).
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- IV. On Racial Discrimination
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- Forty years have elapsed since late civil rights leader
Martin Luther King made the famous speech "I Have a Dream", yet
the equal rights pursued by the American blacks and minority ethnic groups
remained an unattainable dream today.
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- Racial discrimination in the United States has a long
history with age-old malpractice. It has been permeated into every aspects
of society. According to an investigative report released by the United
Nations, the blacks and colored people received twice or three times more
severe penalties than the whites for the crimes of the same kind; the number
of black people who received death penalty for killing white people was
four times that of the white people for killing black people. In state
prisons nationwide, about 47 percent of the inmates were black people,
and the 16 percent were people of Latin American ancestry. The blacks accounted
for 13 percent of the total US population, yet 35 percent of the people
arrested for drug abuse crimes were blacks and 53 percent of the people
that were convicted for drug abuse crimes were blacks.
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- At present, more than 750,000 black inmates were in US
jails, or over 35 percent of the total number of inmates in the country;
approximately 2 million black people were disciplined or put under various
forms of surveillance; 22 percent of black males in the 30-34 age group
had jail records, while the white inmates only make up three percent; 36
of 1,000 black females have possibilities of being jailed in their lives,
while only five of 1,000 white females have such a possibility.
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- The poverty rate and joblessness rate of the US blacks
remained high. According to statistics of the US Department of Labor, the
white people's unemployment rate in the U.S. was 5.2 percent in November
2003, while the rate was as high as 10.2 percent for the blacks, almost
twice that of the whites (Employment Status of the Civilian Population
by Race, Sex, and Age, www.bls.gov/news.release/empgit.to2.htm, 05/12/2003).
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- According to statistics of the US Census Bureau, poverty
rate among the blacks reached 24.1 percent in 2002, up 1.4 percentage points
over the 22.7 percent rate in the previous year; 20.2 percent of the blacks
were without health insurance; average annual income of median black families
was 40 percent less than the ordinary median US families (see USA Today
on Oct. 3, 2003).
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- Racial discrimination exists on the US real estate market,
too. In 2002, the US federal government received a total of 25,246 discrimination
accusations on housing market, 72 percent of which were from the families
of black people, disabled people or those families with children, according
to a report released by the National Fair Housing Alliance in April 2003.
Discrimination over the birth place nationality of house purchasers rose
from 10 percent in 2001 to 12 percent in 2002 (see the Sun newspaper, USA
on Aug. 17, 2003). Black people usually spend more money than white people
on housing purchase, but their houses are not as good as those of white
people and they have to accept loans with higher interests. The market
value of houses bought by black people with same amount of money is only
82 percent of those of white people, and houses with high mortgage interest
rate in black people communities are five times more than those in white
people communities, the Sun newspaper quoted the US Department of Housing
and Urban Development as saying in on July 3, 2003.
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- Apartheid recurs at school. More than one third of American
students of the African origin are studying in schools where over 90 percent
of students are non-white people, according to an investigation made by
Harvard University in 2004. Since 1988, many schools abandoned the compulsory
racial integration in class due to a series of court verdicts and changes
in federal policies. According to a verdict passed in 1991 by the Supreme
Court, the resumption of community schools was allowed and it was no longer
mandatory to carry black students from other communities by school bus,
which led to the disappearance of black students in white people's schools.
Meanwhile, wealthy white people in some southern areas withdrew from publicly-owned
school systems and sent their kids to private schools where most students
were white. Racial differentiation in US middle and elementary schools
is serious, noted a commentary of the New York Times on Jan. 21, 2003.
Those black students in schools where most are white students often feel
unwelcome, discriminated or even scared (The New York Times on Jan.21,
2003).
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- Less proportion of colored races can go to universities
than white people. According to a report issued by the America Council
on Education in Oct. 2003, 40 percent of black people and 34 percent of
Hispanic-Americans of the age group from 18 to 24 can go to university,
while 46 percent of white people can go to university www.accnet.edu/news/press_release/2003/10october/minority_report.
cfm).
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- According to the census result in March 2003, the income
of black people with bachelor degree was 24.5 percent lower than white
people with same degree, that of black people with master degree 21.2 percent
lower than white people with same degree, and that of black people with
doctoral degree 28.1 percent lower than white people (see USA Today on
Sept. 9, 2003).
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- The US discrimination toward immigrants tends to become
serious. After the Sept. 11 incident, the US congress adopted anti-terrorism
act containing items infringing on human rights. The act permits the arrest
of immigrants with indefinite duration, checks on all secret files, inspection
in public and private occasions, wiretapping of phone conversations and
secret investigations. In June 2003, US Procurator-General Glenn Fine revealed
in his investigative report that after the Sept. 11 incident, US authorities
detained 762 foreign immigrants for an average of about three months in
excuse of violation of immigrant law, but later investigation showed they
had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 incident (see Washington Post on June
3, 2003).
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- In the Operation Landmark launched in Chicago from Dec.
2002 toMay 2003, the backgrounds of some staff working in public places
such as airports and high-rises were surveyed secretly, with some immigrants
being detained and deported without criminal acts, and the government refused
to publicize any details of this special policy toward immigrants and information
about the detainment and deportation of immigrants. According to the report,
this kind of "secret policing" activity in excuse of national
security infringedon the civil rights and freedom of millions of immigrants
in the United States (see Los Angeles Times on May 29, 2003).
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- Another report shows that 1,200 immigrants were detained
in the United States with no indictment, and at least 484 people are still
in custody. To date, the US government still refuses to reveal the identity
of these people (see a report by Britain's Independent newspaper on June
26, 2003).
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- Immigrant children are maltreated. According to a report
from the Amnesty International, at least 5,000 children going to the United
States to find relatives, or avoid abuses and mistreatment, wars and recruiting
by domestic rebels were put into custody in the United States. These children
were jailed together with adult inmates, and were abused in ways of frisk
by being unclothed, handcuffed and flogged. These children aged one to
ten years from all over the world were often imprisoned for months, or
even for years. A kid jailed in a detention center in Pennsylvania was
beaten up for minor faults such as saying "Can I use the toilet"
instead of "May I use the toilet." Staffs in a detention house
in Texas will take back blankets and mattress and switch off air-conditioners
just because children make faults (Reuters dispatch from Miami on June
18, 2003). The United States reportedly jailed a number of prisoners regarded
as illegal fighters, three of whom were 13 to 15 years of age (see Britain's
Guardian newspaper on April 24, 2003).
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- V. On Conditions of Women, Children and Elderly People
-
- Little can be spoken of the human rights record in the
US in view of protecting the rights of women, children, elderly people
and other special disadvantageous social groups.
-
- American women cannot enjoy the equal rights with men
to take part in government and political affairs. Statistics from the Center
for American Women in Politics indicated that in 2003, women hold 59, or
13.6 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, and 14, or 14
percent of the seats in the Senate. Despite an increase in the number of
women seated in state legislatures in 2003, they made up only 22.3 percent
of the total 7,382 state legislators in the US. (Women in Elected Office
2003 Fact Sheet Summaries, www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/Officeholds/cawpfs.html).
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- Women are not entitled to equal treatment with regard
to employment and income. American women are still largely pigeonholed
in "pink collar" jobs, such as secretaries, saleswomen and restaurant
attendants, according to a report released by the American Association
of University of Women in May, 2003 (www.aauw.org/about/newspress_releases/230505.cfm).
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- Statistics from the US Department of Labor indicated
that in 2002, the average weekly income for women aged 16 and above were
530 US dollars, or 77.9 percent of the 680 dollars for their male counterparts.
Analysis by the department noted that there were twice as many as women
whose earnings were below the Federal minimum wage, compared with men.
Among the whites and Hispanics, women are more likely than men to become
low income earners (Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of
Labor, www.bls.gov)
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- There has been serious domestic and sexual violence against
women. According to figures released by the White House in October2003,
a total of 700,000 incidents of domestic violence were reported in the
U.S. in 2001. One-third of women murdered each year are murdered by their
current or former husbands or partners (National Domestic Violence Awareness
Month, 2003, by George W. Bush, www.whitehouse.gov).
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- According to a survey conducted by the US National Coalition
Against Domestic Violence, 92 percent of American women cite domestic and
sexual violence as one of their top worries. One out of every three women
experiences at least one physical assault during adulthood, and only one
out of every seven cases of domestic violence, however, drew the attention
of the police. A report by the US military on sexual harassment scandals
in the US Air Force Academy showed that 109 out of the 579 female cadets,
or almost 20 percent, that were interviewed said they had been sexually
harassed and assaulted in different ways and to varying extent.
-
- The protection of children provided in the U.S. is far
below the international standards. The United States is one of the only
two countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. Since 1980s, all the states in the U.S. have lowered
the age of criminal culpability against juvenile offenders, and in some
states, juvenile offenders aged 10 even stood on trial in courts for adults.
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- According to the Department of Justice, 27 out of the
50 US states have set minimum age of criminal culpability. Most states
such as California set the age at 14, states like Colorado at 12 and two
states including Kansas at 10. In states where there is no minimum age
of criminal culpability, judges can decide to try juvenile offenders in
juvenile courts or transfer them to ordinary criminal courts according
to the seriousness of the crimes. In 2002, a 15-year-old student, who killed
two of his classmates in a shooting rampage, was sentenced to 50 years
in prison. In the same year, Brian Robertson, an 18-year-old student in
a high school in Oklahoma was arrested for his writing a novel with "extraordinary
violent" plots on a school computer and if convicted, he faces upto
10 years in prison.
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- The US is the country that has handed most of the death
penalties to juvenile offenders and carried out the executions in the world.
According to a report released by the Amnesty International on Jan. 21,
two-thirds of the documented executions of juvenile offenders in the world
occurred in the US in the past decade and more. Since 1990, there have
been a total of 34 documented executions of juvenile offenders worldwide,
and 19 of them happened in the US (an AP dispatch from London on Jan. 2,
2004).
-
- While many countries around the world are abolishing
executions of minors, some politicians in the U.S. are asking to lower
the minimum age for death penalty, and the Federal Supreme Court has even
set the age at 16. Up to date, there are 80 such juvenile inmates on the
death row waiting to be executed (a Prensa Latina from Havana on Aug. 4,
2003).
-
- Among the developed nations, the United States ranks
the first in terms of the number of children living under the poverty line
and the last in the life expectancy of its children (Britain's Guardian
newspaper on Nov. 3, 2003). According to statistics released by the US
Census Bureau in September 2003, 10.4 percent of all US minors lived in
poverty by the definition of income in 2002 (Poverty: 2002 Highlights,
www.census.gov), up to 13 million people (Britain's Guardian newspaper
on Nov. 3, 2003).
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- Of all the children, 11.6 percent could not afford health
insurance. Of the millions of homeless population in the United States,
kids account for a considerable proportion. The US Conference of Mayors
said in its 2003 annual report that of all homeless families, 40 percent
were families with children, and among all the families applying for food
subsidies, 59 percent of them had at least one kid. And according to the
United Nations Children's Fund, of the 27 well-off nations in the world,
the United States ranks the first in the number of deaths of its children
as a result of violence and negligence (see Reuters dispatch from Geneva
on Sept. 18, 2003).
-
- The under-aged population are under threat in terms of
physical and mental health. According to statistics from the US Federal
Government, of all the kids under the age of 18, 10 percent suffer from
psychological illness to varying extent, some to the point of committing
crimes. But only one fifth of them have been provided with medical treatment
(see the edition of USA Today on Oct. 26, 2003). Violent acts plaguing
the US public media are bringing adverse impact to the minors. Statistics
show that before coming of age at 18, kids and youngsters could be exposed
to at least 40,000 murder scenes and 200,000 other acts of violence in
various public media (an AP dispatch on Feb. 5, 2004). They are so accustomed
to fist fights, bloody killings that some have been worshipping for violence,
which gives rise to more malignant acts of violence in the country accordingly.
-
- Children are often the victims of sexual assault. In
recent years, more and more scandals have come to light that children were
harassed, molested and raped by priests in the U.S.. In June 2003, USA
Today reported that in the past 18 months, of all the 46,000 clergymen
in the United States, around 425 were dismissed by churches for crime allegations
involved, including the crime of sexual assault against children (edition
of USA Today on June 17, 2003). According to other reports, at least 1,000
people were arrested in the United States for accused acts of eroticism
targeting at kids since June 2003. Of all the arrested, 400 were charged
with the crime of making and spreading erotic materials relating to children
via the Internet.
-
- The senior citizens are prejudiced against and mistreated,
which led to a higher rate of suicides among them. In the United States,
people aged over 65 account for 13 percent of the national population,
and of all the people who committed suicide, the senior population make
up 19 percent. According to a report of the Christian Science Monitor,
of every 100,000 people between the ageof 15 to 24, 10.3 such people killed
themselves in 1999, and the number rose to 15.9 for the elderly people
above the age of 65, which was nearly 50 percent higher than the national
average level.All the numbers boiled down to the fact that more than 6,000
senior citizens committed suicide in the United States in 1999.
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- VI. On Infringement upon Human Rights of Other Nations
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- In recent years, the United States has been practicing
unilateralism in the international arena, indulging itself in military
aggression around the world, brutal violation of sovereign rights of other
nations. Its image has been tarnished by numerous misdeeds of human rights
infringement in other countries.
-
- The United States tops the world in terms of military
expenditure, and is the largest exporter of arms. Its military spendings
for the 2004 fiscal year reaches 400.5 billion US dollars, exceeding the
total amount of defense budgets of all other countries in the world in
summation. The New York Times reported on September 25, 2003, that the
United States export of conventional arms accounted for 45.5 percent of
the world's arms trade volume in 2002, ranking the first in the world.
And according to a Capitol report, the United States sold 8.6 billion US
dollars worth of conventional arms to the developing nations, or 48.6 percent
of all the arms procured by the developing world in 2002.
-
- The United States has been active in sabre-rattling and
launching wars. It is the No. One in terms of gross violation of other
countries' sovereign rights and other people's human rights.The United
States has resorted to the use of force against other countries 40 times
since 1990s. Well-known US journalist and writer William Blum said in his
recent book "Rouge State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower"
that since 1945, the United States has attempted to overthrow more than
40 foreign governments, suppressed over 30 national movements, in which
millions of people have lost their precious lives and many more people
been plunged into misery and despair.
-
- In March 2003, without authorization by the United Nations,
the United States unilaterally waged a large-scale war on Iraq based on
its claim that the Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In
its wanton and indiscriminate bombing of Iraq, many bombs of the US army
were dropped on residential areas, shopping malls and civilian vehicles.
-
- According to an article carried by Britain's Independent
newspaper in January 2004 titled "George W. Bush and the real state
of the Union," in the war on Iraq by then, more than 16,000 Iraqis
had been killed, of which 10,000 were civilians (see the edition of Britain's
Independent on Jan. 20, 2004). On April 2, 2003, the US armed forces attacked
a Baghdad maternity hospital installed by the Red Crescent, a local market
and other adjacent buildings for civilian use, claiming a lot of human
lives and injured at least 25 people. Five cars were bombed and drivers
were burned to death inside their cars (see the edition of San Diego Union-Tribune,
U.S. on Aug. 5, 2003).
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- Based on a report by Britain's Independent newspaper
on Feb. 8,2004, more than 13,000 civilians, many of them women and children,
have been killed so far by the US army and its allied forces in the Afghanistan
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/afghanistan.html> and Iraq
wars in the wake of Sept. 11 incident in 2001, "making the continuing
conflicts the most deadly wars for non-combatants waged by the West since
the Vietnam <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/vietnam.html>
War more than 30 years ago." Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security
adviser to former US President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, said "it
is a serious matter when the world's Number One superpower undertakes a
war claiming a causus belli that turns out to have been false." (Washington
Post on Feb. 2, 2004).
-
- Depleted uranium (DU) shells and cluster bombs were used
recklessly during wars in violation of international laws. In December
2003, the Human Rights Watch disclosed in a report that the 13,000 cluster
bombs US troops used in Iraq contained nearly 2 million bomblets, which
have caused causalities of over 1,000 people. The "dud" cluster
bombs that did not blast on the spot continued to menace the lives of innocent
people. The US troops also used large quantities of depleted uranium shells
during their military operations in Iraq. The quantity and residue of pollutants
from these bombs far exceeded those of the Gulf War in 1991. Through a
spokesman for the Central Command, the Pentagon acknowledged that ammunition
containing depleted uranium was used during the Iraq war. Indeed, Doug
Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, former professor
of environmental science and onetime US army colonel, said after the Iraq
War that the willful use of DU bombs to contaminate any other nation and
bring harm to the people and their environment is a crime against humanity
(see Spain's Uprising newspaper on June 2, 2003).
-
- Another investigation report said that in the Iraqi capital
Baghdad alone, numerous places were found to have the amount of radioactive
materials that exceeded the normal level by 1,000 times. The US troops
also used "Mark-77" napalm, a kind of bomb banned by the United
Nations, in Iraq, which negatively impacted on environment there. On July
7, 2003, Dato'Param Cumaraswamy of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights, openly voiced his shock at the fact that the US Government did
not abide by international human rights rules and humanism in its counter-terrorism
military actions. (United Nations Rights Expert "Alarmed" over
United States Implementation of Military Order, United Nations Press Release,
July 7, 2003, www.un.org)
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- The United States put behind bars 3,000 Taliban and Al-Qaida
inmates in Afghanistan, 680 alleged die-hard Al-Qaida elements from 40-odd
countries in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and an undefined number of prisoners
in the US army base on Diego Garcia island on the India <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/india.html>
Ocean leased from Britain. All these prisoners locked upby the U.S. were
not indicted officially (Britain's Independent newspaper on June 26, 2003).
The New York Times quoted a high-ranking official from the US Department
of Defense on February 13,2003 as saying that the United States planned
to jail most of the prisoners currently in Guantanamo for a long time or
indefinitely. The US Government said the detainees in Guantanamo were not
"prisoners of war" and therefore not subjected to the protection
of the Geneva Conventions.
-
- "The main concern for us is the US authorities ...
have effectively placed them beyond the law," said Amanda Williamson,
spokeswoman for the Washington office of the Geneva-based International
Committee of the Red Cross. (Overseas Chinese newspaper in U.S., Oct. 11,
2003). A report entitled People the Law Forgot, carried on the British
Guardian in Dec. 2003, depictedthe plight of the 600-odd foreigners detained
by the US in Guantanamo Bay. These people had been detained in Guantanamo
Bay since January 2002, where they were tortured both mentally and physically
(Britain's Guardian newspaper on Dec. 3, 2003). The detainees were given
only one minute a week for taking shower and only through a hunger strike
did they win the weekly five-minute shower time and the weekly ten-minute
break for physical exercises. At a clandestine interrogation center of
the US troops in Bagram of Afghanistan, prisoners were even more tortured.
They were forced to stand or kneel down for hours in varied awkward positions
while wearing hoods over their heads or colored glasses. Exposed to strong
light 24 hours a day, they could not go to sleep(Britain's Independent
newspaper on June 26, 2003).
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- The US is the nation with the most troops stationed overseas,
about 364,000 troops in over 130 countries and regions. The violations
of human rights against local people frequently occurred. In 2003, the
US military authority received 88 reports about "misbehavior"
of its overseas troops. On May 25, 2003, a soldier of the US Marine Corps
in Okinawa of Japan <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/japan.html>
wounded and raped a 19-year-old Japanese girl. The soldier was sentenced
to three and a half years in prison. In the past dozen years, such cases
occurred frequently in Okinawa and up to 100 US soldiers have been reported
of committing crimes. On February 7, 2004, Australia <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/australia.html>
n police detained three soldiers of the US Marine Corps suspected of committing
sexual harassment of two Australian women.In September 2003, three officers
and soldiers from the US Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier robbed and seriously
wounded a taxi driver in Kanagawa-Ken of Japan. The three officers and
soldiers were sentenced to four years in prison. In October 2002, a female
engineer in Baghdad of Iraq was handcuffed and made to stand in the scorching
sun for one hour because she refused to be snuffed at by police dogs as
she was taking a copy of Alcoran with her. The case sparked large-scale
protest and demonstration in Iraq.
-
- For a long time, the US State Department has been publishing
"Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" every year. It presumes
to be the "Judge of Human Rights in the World" and, regardless
of the differences and disparities among different countries in politics,
economy, history, culture and social development and strong opposition
from other countries, denounces other countries unreasonably for their
human rights status in compliance with its own ideology, value and human
rights model. Meanwhile, it has turned a blind eye to its own human rights
problems. This fully exposed the dual standards of the U.S. on human rights
and its hegemonism. The human rights record of the U.S. is absolutely not
in accord with its position as a world power, which constitutes a strong
irony against its self-granted title ofa big power in human rights. The
United States should take its own human rights problems seriously, reflect
on its erroneous position and behavior on human rights, and stop its unpopular
interference with other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of
promoting human rights.
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- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200403/01/eng20040301_136190.shtml
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