China issues human rights record of United States in 2007
The U.S. administration manipulated the press. On October 23, 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staged a news conference on California wildfires.
A half-dozen questions were asked within 15 minutes at the event by FEMA staff members posing as reporters.
The news was aired by U.S-based television stations. After the Washington Post disclosed the farce, FEMA tried to defend itself for staging the fake briefing.
The report says that the deserved economic, social and cultural rights of U.S. citizens have not been properly protected.
Poor population in the United States is constantly increasing.
According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2007, the official poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent.
There were 36.5 million people, or 7.7 million families living in poverty in 2006. In another word, almost one out of eight U.S. citizens lives in poverty.
The wealth of the richest group in the United States has rapidly expanded in recent years, widening the earning gap between the rich and poor. The earnings of the highest one percent of the population accounted for 21.2 percent of U.S. total national income in 2005, compared with 19 percent in 2004.
The earnings of the lowest 50 percent of the population accounted for 12.8 percent of the total national income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent in 2004, according to Reuters.
Hungry and homeless people have increased significantly in U.S. cities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report released on November 14, 2007 that at least 35.5 million people in the United States, including 12.63 million children, went hungry in 2006, an increase of 390,000 from 2005.
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China issued on Thursday the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007. The Chinese report listed U.S. violation of human rights in other countries. The report reviewed the U.S. human rights record in 2007 from seven perspectives.
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- China issued on Thursday the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007 in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007 issued by the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday.
Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show the human rights situation in the United States and its violation of human rights in other countries.
The report says the United States attacks more than 190 countries and regions including China on their human rights issues, but mentions nothing about its own human rights problems.
By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007, the report says it aims to "help the people have a better understanding of the real situation in the United States and as a reminder for the United States to reflect upon its own issues".
The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2007 from seven perspectives: on life and personal security, on human rights violations by law enforcement and judicial departments, on civil and political rights, on economic, social and cultural rights, on racial discrimination, on rights of women and children and on the United States' violation of human rights in other countries.
The report says the increase of violent crimes in the United States poses a serious threat to its people's lives, liberty and personal security.
According to a FBI report on crime statistics released in September 2007, 1.41 million violent crimes were reported nationwide in 2006, an increase of 1.9 percent over 2005.
Of the violent crimes, the estimated number of murders and no negligent manslaughters increased 1.8 percent, and that of robberies increased 7.2 percent
Throughout 2006, U.S. residents age 12 or above experienced an estimated 25 million crimes of violence and theft, according to the FBI report.
In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun wounds every year, according to a Reuters story on December 19, 2007.
The USA Today reported on December 5, 2007 gun killings have climbed 13 percent overall since 2002.
On April 16, 2007, the Virginia Tech University witnessed the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history with 33 killed and more than 30 others injured, according to AFP.
Two separate gun killings in the Salt Lake City and Philadelphia claimed eight lives and injured several other people on February 12, 2007, according to the Associated Press.
The report points out that law enforcement and judicial departments in the United States have abused their power and seriously violated the freedom and rights of its citizens.
Cases in which U.S. law enforcement authorities allegedly violated victims' civil rights increased by 25 percent from fiscal year 2001 to 2007 over the previous seven years, according to statistics from U.S. Department of Justice.
However, the majority of law enforcement officers accused of brutality were not prosecuted in the end.
From May 2001 to June 2006, 2,451 police officers in Chicago received 4 to 10 complaints each, 662 of them received more than 10 complaints each, but only 22 were punished. Furthermore, there were officers who had amassed more than 50 abuse complaints but were never disciplined in any fashion, according to statistics released by University of Chicago.
The United States of America is the world's largest prison and has the highest inmates/population ratio in the world. A December 5, 2007 report by EFE news agency quoted statistics of U.S. Department of Justice as saying that the number of inmates in U.S. prisons have increased by 500 percent over the last 30 years.
The freedom and rights of individual citizens are being increasingly marginalized in the United States, the report says.
Workers' right to unionize has been restricted in the United States. It was reported that union membership fell by 326,000 in 2006, bringing the percentage of employees in unions to 12 percent, down from 20 percent in 1983.
Employer resistance stopped 53 percent of nonunion workers from joining a union, The New York Times reported on January 26, 2007.
According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, when Wal-Mart stores faced unionization drives, the company often broke the law by, for example, eavesdropping on workers, training surveillance cameras on them and firing those who favored unions.
In the United States, money is "mother's milk" for politics while elections are "games" for the wealthy, highlighting the hypocrisy of the U.S. democracy, which has been fully borne out by the 2008 presidential election.
The "financial threshold" for participating in the U.S. presidential election is becoming higher and higher. At least 10 of the 20-strong major party candidates who are seeking the U.S. presidency in general elections in 2008 are millionaires, according to a report by Spanish news agency EFE on May 18, 2007.
The French news agency AFP reported on January 15, 2007 that the 2008 presidential election will be the most expensive race in history. The cost of the last presidential campaign in 2004, considered a peak for its time, was 693 million U.S. dollars. Common estimates of this year's total outlay have tended to come in at around 1 billion U.S dollars, and Fortune magazine recently upped its overall cost projection to 3 billion U.S. dollars.
The U.S. administration manipulated the press. On October 23, 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staged a news conference on California wildfires.
A half-dozen questions were asked within 15 minutes at the event by FEMA staff members posing as reporters.
The news was aired by U.S-based television stations. After the Washington Post disclosed the farce, FEMA tried to defend itself for staging the fake briefing.
The report says that the deserved economic, social and cultural rights of U.S. citizens have not been properly protected.
Poor population in the United States is constantly increasing.
According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2007, the official poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent.
There were 36.5 million people, or 7.7 million families living in poverty in 2006. In another word, almost one out of eight U.S. citizens lives in poverty.
The wealth of the richest group in the United States has rapidly expanded in recent years, widening the earning gap between the rich and poor. The earnings of the highest one percent of the population accounted for 21.2 percent of U.S. total national income in 2005, compared with 19 percent in 2004.
The earnings of the lowest 50 percent of the population accounted for 12.8 percent of the total national income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent in 2004, according to Reuters.
Hungry and homeless people have increased significantly in U.S. cities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report released on November 14, 2007 that at least 35.5 million people in the United States, including 12.63 million children, went hungry in 2006, an increase of 390,000 from 2005.
About 11 million people lived in "very low food security", according to Reuters.
People without health insurance have been increasing in the United States. A Reuters report on September 20, 2007 quoted the U.S. Census Bureau as saying that 47 million people in the United States were not covered by health insurance.
Racial discrimination is a deep-rooted social illness in the United States, the report says.
Black people and other minor ethnic groups live in the bottom of the U.S. society.
According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2007, median income of black households was 31,969 U.S. dollars in 2006, or 61 percent of that for non-Hispanic white households. Median income for Hispanic households stood at 37,781 U.S. dollars, 72 percent of that for non-Hispanic white households.
The rates of blacks and Hispanics living in poverty and without health insurance are much higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to Washington Observer Weekly.
Ethnic minorities have been subject to racial discrimination in employment and workplace. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in November 2007, the unemployment rate for Black Americans was 8.4 percent, twice that of non-Hispanic Whites (4.2 percent).
The unemployment rate for Hispanics was 5.7 percent. The jobless rates among blacks and Hispanics were much higher than that for non-Hispanic Whites.
Racial discrimination in the U.S. judicial system is shocking. According to the 2007 annual report on the state of black Americans issued by the National Urban League (NUL), African Americans (especially males) are more likely than whites to be convicted and sentenced to longer terms. Blacks are seven times more likely than Whites to be incarcerated.
The report says the conditions of women and children in the United States are worrisome.
Women account for 51 percent of the U.S. population, but there are only 86 women serving in the 110th U.S. Congress. Women hold 16, or 16.0 percent of the 100 seats in the Senate and 70, or 16.1percent of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
In December 2007, there were 76 women serving in statewide elective executive offices, accounting for 24.1 percent of the total. The proportion of women in state legislature is 23.5 percent.
Discrimination against women is pervasive in U.S. job market and workplaces. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it received 23,247 charges on sex-based discrimination in 2006, accounting for 30.7 percent of the total discrimination charges.
The living conditions of U.S. children are of great concern. Houston Chronicle reported that a survey by the United Nations on 21 rich countries showed that though the United States was among the world's richest nations, it's ranked only the 20th in the overall well-being of children.
U.S. juveniles often fall victims of abuses and crimes. According to a report on school crimes in the United States released by the Department of Justice in December 2007, 57 out of one thousand U.S. students above the age of 12 were victims of violence and property crimes in 2005.
Millions of underage girls become sex slaves in the United States. Statistics from the Department of Justice show some 100,000 to three million U.S. children under the age of 18 are involved in prostitution. A FBI report says as high as 40 percent of forced prostitutes are minors.
The report says the United States has a notorious record of trampling on the sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries.
The invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops has produced the biggest human rights tragedy and the greatest humanitarian disaster in modern world. It was reported that since the invasion in 2003, 660,000 Iraqis have died, of which 99 percent were civilians. That translates into a daily toll of 450.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of civilian deaths in Iraq has exceeded one million. A report from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that about one million Iraqis were homeless, half of whom were children.
U.S. troops have killed many innocent civilians in the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported on May 3, 2007 that as many as 51 civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers in one week (Karzai Says Civilian Toll is No Longer Acceptable, The Washington Post, May 3, 2007).
An Afghan human rights group said in a report that U.S. marine unit fired indiscriminately at pedestrians, people in cars, buses and taxis along a 10-mile stretch of road in Nangahar province on March 4, 2007, killing 12 civilians, including one infant and three elders (New York Times, April 15, 2007).
It is high time for the U.S. government to face its own human rights problems with courage and give up the unwise practices of applying double standards on human rights issues, according to the report.
This is the ninth consecutive year that the Information Office of the State Council has issued human rights record of the United States to answer the U.S. State Department annual report.
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