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.
I. On Life, Freedom and Personal Safety
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.
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).
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).
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).
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.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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.
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.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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.
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.
II. On Political Rights and Freedom
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 ***** 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).
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.
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".
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. 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).
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).
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.
III. On Living Conditions of US Laborers
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.
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).
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).
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).
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's El Mundo on May 19,
2003).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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)
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).
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.
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.
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).
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.
VI. On Infringement upon Human Rights of Other Nations
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).
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
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 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 "dub" 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 b ring harms 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)
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 Ocean
leased from Britain. All these prisoners locked upby the U.S. were not
indicted officially (Britain's Independent newspaper on June 26, 2004).
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).
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 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,
Australian 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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