March 2004
Hello:
Before we pontificate about human rights in other countries we may do
well in taking note of how other countries view us as to the
the situation in dear old USA.
It has been an irritant to me for some time that the police in the USA
automatically handcuffs people under arrest, whether they are guilty or not.
Does the police believe that this is the best way to get arrestees
to cooperate or to alienate? I know of no democratic country where
arrestees are automatically handcuffed. Is it not time to legislate
that automatic handscuffing be abolished? If violence is not to be
expected, why then is handcuffing necessary?
Automatic handcuffing also violates the old motto "In dubio pro reo".
(When in doubt, treat the accused as being innocent)
Automatic handcuffing is a disgrace and an abuse of authority.
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003
By the Information Office of the State Council of the People's
Republic of China
March 1, 2004
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, as usual, the United States once again "omitted" its own
long-standing malpractices and problems concerning human rights in the
"reports". Therefore, we have to, as before, help the United
States maintain 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 people's rights by law enforcement
departments and with a lack of guarantee for the life of people, their
freedoms and personal safety.
The United States is a country plagued most seriously by violence and
crime. According to statistical figures released in June 2003 by the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a total 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 out of every 100,000 people committed
crimes. In Baltimore, 2,055 people committed crimes out of every
100,000 people. With regard to personal offenses, cases of murder and
rape rose 0.8 percent and 4 percent respectively over 2002 (see The
Sun, USA on June 18, 2003).
On September 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 15,586 homicide cases
occurred around the country in 2000 against 15,980 in 2001, and 16,110
in 2002, indicating a rising trend year by year (see the edition of
USA Today on Aug. 25, 2003).
In a report released by the FBI in December 2003, it said the overall
incidence of offenses in the US dropped somewhat, whereas the number
of people murdered across the country grew 1.1 percent during the
first half of 2003 (see the edition of USA Today published on Dec. 16,
2003).
From January to August 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 to 599 in 2003, or an average of 22.2 people victimized out
of 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 the private ownership of guns,
resulting in a 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 August 27, 2003, a
jobless man carrying a gun broke into a car parts supplying company,
killing seven of his former colleagues. Statistical figures from the
US National Center for Health Statistics showed that 56.5 percent of
Americans who committed suicides in 2000 was with 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 with 50 others wounded
in mid August 2003. According to data from the 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
people's lives and safety. According to a report released by the 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
one-half of the inmates in federal jails had 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 a population of 600,000 in
Washington used drugs and indulged in excessive drinking, causing an
annual economic loss of US$1.2 billion. One-half of those people
arrested on charges 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 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 2.2 percent over the previous year to 42,136 (see Washington Post
on July 28, 2003).
The infringement of lawful rights constitutes a malignant obstinate
disease in American society. Random assaults committed by the police
resulted in frequent tragedies with heavy casualties. The New York
City Police was reported several willful shooting cases when chasing
suspects in January 2003. Four people were killed by police in the
city from January 1-5 last year. In December 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 police due to a
dispute with them in a parking lot. The report said the police also
"boxed her ears" and "tore out her hair."
The United States issued the Patriot Act in name of land security and
anti-terrorism after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and many
substantial contents of this act encroached upon the rights and
freedoms of its citizens, especially people of ethnic minorities.
Under the Patriot Act government departments are empowered to tap
phones of citizens, trace their online records, and read their private
mail and e-mails. The FBI is even allowed to keep a watch on people's
reading habits. It can check the booklists of what people borrowed
from libraries to decide 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 August 2003
set forth an appeal for the "freedom to read" (see the Sun on Aug. 18,
2003).
The United States claims it is a paradise for free people but the
ratio of inmates in the United States remains 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. Jails
nationwide receive 700 new inmates every week in the US where 701 out
of every 100,000 people are in prison (see Washington Post on July 28,
2003).
Inmates have been subjected to inhumane treatment in overloaded jails.
An International Herald Tribune story said the states of Virginia,
North Carolina, Minnesota, Iowa, Texas and Arizona had lowered their
food supply standards for inmates to curb the huge government budget
deficit. They reduced the number of calories in each meal 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 where they were forced to stay in wards for
23 hours a day or longer, subjected to ruthless and inhumane treatment
and humiliation. Last year, at least three inmates were shot to death
by prison guards using guns with 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 the Human Rights Watch in September 2003
said one in five male inmates in the country faced forced sexual
contact in custody and one in 10 were been raped. Female inmates are
objects of sexual assault by jail guards, and one-fourth of female
inmates are sexually assaulted in some jails (see Editorial, Doing
Something about Prison Rape, http:// www.hrw.org, 26/09/2003).
Nine girls in a juvenile delinquent center in Alabama accused guards
of assaulting and raping them and forcing them to have abortions. They
also said male guards watched girls take baths and undress themselves
for so-called security reasons. Reportedly, they had sex with male
guards in hopes of better treatment, for instance, to obtain a can of
cola or food.
According to another Human Rights Watch report, one in six US inmates
suffer from various mental illnesses. Many of them suffer from
schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and clinical depression. The
proportion of inmates with mental illness in prisons is over three
times higher than among the general population (see United States:
Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison, www.hrw.org/2003/10/US102203.htm).
The total number of such patients has reached 200,000-300,000.
"Prisons have become the nation's primary mental health facilities,"
said Human Rights Watch. Prisoners with mental illnesses are likely to
be picked on, physically or sexually abused and manipulated by other
inmates. For example, a female inmate named Georgia, who is mentally
ill, has been raped repeatedly in exchange for small items such as
cigarettes and coffee.
II. On Political Rights and Freedoms !!
The presidential election, often symbolized as US democracy, in fact
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).
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 "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". Peter Arnett, 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 Qatar-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 U.S. 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. It is apathetic to
the rights and interests of ordinary workers in economic, social and
cultural aspects, leading to serious problems such 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 of the 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 birthplace
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 schoolbus, which led to the
disappearance of black students in white people's schools. Meanwhile,
wealthy white people in some southern areas withdrew from public
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 feelunwelcome, 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_r eport.
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 to May
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 infringed on 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 U.S. 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 U.S.
(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 up to 10 years in prison.
The U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. (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 spending 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). (More)
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 awar 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 up by 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, depicted the 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 U.S. 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
of a 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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