Human Rights Record of United States in 2011

Human Rights Record of United States in 2011

Updated: 2012-05-26 09:02

(China Daily)

Editor's note: The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China publisheda report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" on Friday. Following isthe full text:

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human RightsPractices for 2011 on May 24, 2012. As in previous years, the reports are full of over-criticalremarks on the human rights situation in nearly 200 countries and regions as well as distortionsand accusations concerning the human rights cause in China. However, the United Statesturned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and kept silent about it. The HumanRights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rightssituation of the United States to people across the world and urge the United States to face upto its own doings.

I.

On life, property and personal security

The United States has mighty strength in human, financial and material resources to exerteffective control over violent crimes. However, its society is chronically suffering from violentcrimes, and its citizens' lives, properties and personal security are in lack of proper protection.

A report published by the US Department of Justice on Sept 15, 2011, revealed that in 2010the US residents aged 12 and above experienced 3.8 million violent victimizations, 1.4 millionserious violent victimizations, 14.8 million property victimizations and 138,000 personal thefts.The violent victimization rate was 15 victimizations per 1,000 residents (www.bjs.gov). The crimerate surged in many cities and regions in the United States. In the southern region of the UnitedStates, there were 452 violent crimes and 3,438.8 property crimes per 100,000 inhabitants (in2010) on average (The Wall Street Journal, Sept 20, 2011). Just four weeks into 2011, SanFrancisco saw eight homicides - compared with five during the same time of the previous year,with Oakland racking up 11, when the previous year in the same period it had four (The SanFrancisco Chronicle, Jan 29, 2011). Grand larcenies in the subway in New York City increasedfrom 852 in 2010 to 1,075 cases in the first nine months of 2011, a 25 percent jump (The ChinaPress, Sept 24, 2011). Homicide cases in Detroit in 2011 saw a 13.5 percent rise over 2010 (www.buzzle.com). Between January and October 2011, a total of 123,924 serious crime casestook place in Chicago (portal.chicagopolice.org). An anti-bullying public service announcementdeclared in January 2011 that more than six million schoolchildren experienced bullying in theprevious six months (CNN, Mar 10, 2011). According to statistics from the Family First Aid,almost 30 percent of teenagers in the United States are estimated to be involved in schoolbullying (www.familyfirstaid.org).

The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens'lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gunownership. The US people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world' s civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns (Online edition of the Foreign Policy, Jan 9, 2011). According to a Gallup poll in October 2011, 47 percent of American adults reported thatthey had a gun. That was an increase of six percentage points from a year ago and the highestGallup had recorded since 1993. Fifty-two percent of middle-aged adults, aged between 35and 54, reported to own guns, and the adults' gun ownership in the south region was 54percent (The China Press, Oct 28, 2011). The New York Times reported on Nov 14, 2011, thatsince 1995, more than 3,300 felons and people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanorshad regained their gun rights in the state of Washington and of that number, more than 400had subsequently committed new crimes, including shooting and other felonies (The New YorkTimes, Nov 14, 2011).

The United States is the leader among the world's developed countries in gun violence and gundeaths. According to a report of the Foreign Policy on Jan 9, 2011, over 30,000 Americans dieevery year from gun violence and another 200,000 Americans are estimated to be injured eachyear due to guns (Online edition of the Foreign Policy, Jan 9, 2011). According to statisticsreleased by the US Department of Justice, among the 480,760 robbery cases and 188,380rape and sexual assault cases in 2010, the rates of victimization involving firearms were 29percent and 7 percent, respectively (www.bjs.gov). On Jun 2, 2011, a shooting rampage inArizona left six people dead and one injured (The China Press, Jun 3, 2011). In Chicago, morethan 10 overnight shooting incidents took place just between the evening of Jun 3 and themorning of Jun 4 (Chicago Tribune, Jun 4, 2011). Another five overnight shootings occurredbetween Aug 12 evening and Aug 13 morning in Chicago. These incidents have caused anumber of deaths and injuries (Chicago Tribune, Aug 13, 2011). Shooting spree casesinvolving one gunman shooting dead over five people also happened in the states of Michigan,Texas, Ohio, Nevada and Southern California (The New York Times, Oct 13, 2011; CNN, Jul 8, 2011; CBS, Jul 23, 2011;USA Today, Aug 9, 2011). High incidence of gun-related crimes haslong ignited complaints of the US people and they stage multiple protests every year,demanding the government strictly control the private possession of arms. The US government,however, fails to pay due attention to this issue.

II.

On civil and political rights

In the United States, the violation of citizens' civil and political rights is severe. It is lying to itselfwhen the United States calls itself the land of the free (The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2012).

Claiming to defend 99 percent of the US population against the wealthiest, the Occupy WallStreet protest movement tested the US political, economic and social systems. Ignited bysevere social and economic inequality, uneven distribution of wealth and high unemployment,the movement expanded to sweep the United States after its inception in September 2011.Whatever the deep reasons for the movement are, the single fact that thousands of protesterswere treated in a rude and violent way, with many of them being arrested - the act of willfullytrampling on people' s freedom of assembly, demonstration and speech - could provide aglimpse to the truth of the so-called US freedom and democracy.

Almost 1,000 people were reportedly arrested in first two weeks of the movement, according toBritish and Australian media (The Guardian, Oct 2, 2011). The New York police arrested morethan 700 protesters for alleged blocking traffic over Brooklyn Bridge on Oct 1, and some ofthem were handcuffed to the bridge before being shipped by police vehicles(uschinapress.com, Oct 3, 2011). On Oct 9, 92 people were arrested in New York (The NewYork Times, Oct 15, 2011). The Occupy Wall Street movement was forced out of itsencampment at Zuccotti Park and more than 200 people were arrested on Nov 15 (TheGuardian, Nov 25, 2011). Chicago police arrested around 300 members of the OccupyChicago protest in two weeks (The Herald Sun, Oct 24, 2011). At least 85 people were arrestedwhen police used teargas and baton rounds to break up an Occupy Wall Street camp inOakland, California on Oct 25. An Iraq war veteran had a fractured skull and brain swellingafter being allegedly hit in the head by a police projectile (The Guardian, Oct 26, 2011). Acouple of hundred people were arrested when demonstrations were staged in different UScities to mark the Occupy Wall Street movement' s two-month anniversary on Nov 17 (USAToday, Nov 18, 2011). Among them, at least 276 were arrested in New York only. Someprotesters were bloodied as they were hauled away. Many protesters accused the police oftreating them in a brutal way (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 18, 2011). As a US opinion articleput it, the United States could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. (The WashingtonPost, Jan 14, 2012).

While advocating press freedom, the United States in fact imposes fairly strict censoring andcontrol over the press and "press freedom" is just a political tool used to beautify itself andattack other nations. The US Congress failed to pass laws on protecting rights of reporters'news sources, according to media reports. An increasing number of American reporters lostjobs for "improper remarks on politics." US reporter Helen Thomas resigned for critical remarksabout Israel in June 2010 ("Report: On the situation with human rights in a host of world states,"the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, Dec 28, 2011). While forcibly evacuatingthe Zuccotti Park, the original Occupy Wall Street encampment, the New York police blockedjournalists from covering the police actions. They set cordon lines to prevent reporters fromgetting close to the park and closed airspace to make aerial photography impossible. Inaddition to using pepper spray against reporters, the police also arrested around 200journalists, including reporters from NPR and the New York Times (uschinapress.com, Nov 15, 2011). By trampling on press freedom and public interests, these actions by the US authoritiescaused a global uproar. US mainstream media' s response to the Occupy Wall Streetmovement revealed the hypocrisy in handling issues of freedom and democracy. Poll by PewResearch Center indicated that in the second week of the movement, reports on the movementonly accounted for 1.68 percent of the total media reports by nationwide media organizations.On Oct 15, 2011, when the Occupy Wall Street movement evolved to be a global action, CNNand Fox News gave no live reports on it, in a sharp contrast to the square protest in Cairo, forwhich both CNN and Fox News broadcast live 24 hours.

The US imposes fairly strict restriction on the Internet, and its approach "remains full ofproblems and contradictions." (The website of the Foreign Policy magazine, Feb 17, 2011) "Internet freedom" is just an excuse for the United States to impose diplomatic pressure andseek hegemony.

The US Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act both have clauses about monitoring the Internet,giving the government or law enforcement organizations power to monitor and block anyInternet content "harmful to national security." Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of2010 stipulates that the federal government has "absolute power" to shut down the Internetunder a declared national emergency. According to a report by British newspaper the Guardiandated Mar 17, 2011, the US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulatesocial media sites by using fake online personas, and will allow the US military to create a falseconsensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentariesor reports that do not correspond with its own objectives. The project aims to control andrestrict free speech on the Internet (The Guardian, Mar 17, 2011). According to a commentaryby the Voice of Russia on Feb 2, 2012, a subsidiary under the US government' s securityagency employed several hundred analysts, who were tasked with monitoring private archivesof foreign Internet users in a secret way, and were able to censor as many as five millionmicroblogging posts. The US Department of Homeland Security routinely searched key wordslike "illegal immigrants," "virus," "death," and "burst out" on Twitter with fake accounts and thensecretly traced the Internet users who forwarded related content. According to a report by theGlobe and Mail on Jan 30, 2012, Leigh Van Bryan, a British, prior to his flight to the US, wrotein a Twitter post, "Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?" As aresult, Bryan along with a friend were handcuffed and put in lockdown with suspected drugsmugglers for 12 hours by armed guards after landing in Los Angeles International Airport, justlike "terrorists". Among many angered by the incident in Britain, an Internet user posted acomment, "What's worse, being arrested for an innocent tweet, or the fact that the AmericanSecret Service monitors every electronic message in the world?"

The US democracy is increasingly being influenced by capitalization and becoming a system for"master of money." Data issued by the US Center for Responsive Politics in November 2011show that 46 percent of the US federal senators and members of the House of Representativeshave personal assets of more than a million dollars. That well explains why US administration' splans to impose higher tax on the rich who earn more than one million dollars annually havebeen blocked in the Congress (www.finance-ol.com). As a commentary put it, money hasemerged as the electoral trump card in the US political system, and corporations have aSupreme Court-recognized right to use their considerable financial muscle to promotecandidates and policies favorable to their business operations and to resist policies and shutout candidates deemed inimical to their business interests (Online edition of Time, Jan 20, 2011). According to a media report, nearly two thirds of all the contributions that the chairmanof the House Financial Services Committee received during the 2010 election cycle came fromindustries regulated by his committee. A ranking Democrat Representative on the AgricultureCommittee, who served as chairman between 2007 and 2010, saw a 711 percent increase incontributions from groups regulated by his committee and a 274 percent increase incontributions over all, in the same period (The New York Times, Nov 16, 2011). According to aWashington Post report on Aug 10, 2011, nearly eight in 10 of Americans polled weredissatisfied with the way the political system is working, with 45 percent saying they are verydissatisfied (The Washington Post, Aug 10, 2011).

The US continued to violate the freedom of its citizens in the name of boosting security levels(The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2012). The Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2011 released areport, "Patterns of Misconduct: FBI intelligence violations from 2001-2008," which reveals thatdomestic political intelligence apparatus spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,continues to systematically violate the rights of American citizens and legal residents. Thereport shows that the actual number of violations that may have occurred from 2001 to 2008could approach 40,000 possible violations of law, Executive Order, or other regulationsgoverning intelligence investigations. The FBI issued some 200,000 requests and that almost60 percent were for investigations of US citizens and legal residents(www.pacificfreepress.com). The New York Times reported on Oct 20, 2011, that the FBI hascollected information about religious, ethnic and national-origin characteristics of Americancommunities (The New York Times, Oct 20, 2011). According to a Washington Postcommentary dated Jan 14, 2012, the US government can use "national security letters" todemand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens' finances,communications and associations, and order searches of everything from business documentsto library records. The US government can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targetedcitizens without securing any court order or review (The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2012).

Abuse of power, brutal enforcement of law and overuse of force by US police have resulted inharassment and hurt to a large number of innocent citizens and have caused loss of freedomof some people or even deaths. According to a report carried by the World Journal on Jun 10, 2011, the past decade saw increasing stop-and-frisks by the New York police, which recordedan annual of 600,000 cases in 2010, almost double of that in 2004. In the first three months of2011, some 180,000 people experienced stop-and-frisks, 88 percent of whom were innocentpeople (World Journal, Jun 10, 2011). In early July of 2011, two police officers beat a mentallyill homeless man to death in Orange County, Southern California (FoxNews.com, Sept 21, 2011). In August 2011, North Miami police shot and killed a man carrying realistic toy gun (TheNY Daily News, Sept 1, 2011). On Jan 8, 2011, a Central California man was shot and killed bythe police, who thought of him as a gang member only because the jacket he was wearing wasred, "the chosen color of a local street gang." (www.kolotv.com, Jan 19, 2011) In May 2011,Arizona' s police officers raided the home of Jose Guerena and shot him dead in what wasdescribed as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking. However, the police later foundnothing illegal in his home (The Huffington Post, May 25, 2011). Misjudged and wrongly-handled cases continued to occur. According to media reports, Anthony Graves, a Texas man,was imprisoned for 18 years for crimes he did not commit (CBS News, Jun 22, 2011). Forty-six-year-old Thomas Haynesworth spent 27 years in prison after being arrested at the age of 18for crimes he didn't commit (Union Press International, Dec 7, 2011). Eric Caine, who wasconvicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after being tortured by police into confessing totwo murders, spent nearly 25 years behind bars.(Chicago Tribune, Jun 13, 2011).

The US lacks basic due lawsuit process protections, and its government continues to claim theright to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion (The Washington Post, Jan14, 2012). The National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec 31, 2011, allows for theindefinite detention of citizens (The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2012). The Act will placedomestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which wouldopen the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so longas the government calls them terrorists (www.forbes.com, Dec 5, 2011).

The US remains the country with the largest "prison population" and the highest per capita levelof imprisonment in the world, and the detention centers' conditions are terrible. According tothe US Department of Justice, the number of prisoners amounted to 2.3 million in 2009 and onein every 132 American citizens is behind bars. Meanwhile, more than 140,000 are serving lifesentences (Report: On the situation with human rights in a host of world states, the website ofthe Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, Dec 28, 2011). According to a Los Angeles Times reporton May 24, 2011, in a California prison, as many as 54 inmates may share a single toilet andas many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium (Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2011).According to data issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the estimated number of prisonand jail inmates experiencing sexual victimization totaled 88,500 in the US between October2008 and December 2009 (www.bjs.gov). Since April 2011, officials stopped serving lunch onthe weekend in some US prisons as a way to cut food-service costs. About 23,000 inmates in36 prisons are eating two meals a day on Saturdays and Sundays instead of three (The NewYork Times, Oct 20, 2011). Harsh conditions and treatment in prisons have caused recurringprotests and suicides of inmates. There were two major hunger strikes in California prisonsstaged by a total of more than 6,000 and 12,000 prisoners in July and October 2011,respectively, to protest against what they call harsh treatment and detention conditions (CNN,Oct 4, 2011; The New York Times, July 7, 2011). According to a Chicago Tribune report on July20, 2011, since 2000, at least 175 youths have attempted to kill themselves inside Departmentof Juvenile Justice lockup facilities in Chicago and seven youths committed suicide. The UNSpecial Rapporteur on Torture in a 2011 report noted that in the US, an estimated 20,000 to25,000 individuals are being held in isolation, and the US government in 2011 for twice turneddown the Special Rapporteur's request for a private and unmonitored meeting with detaineesheld in isolation.

III.

On economic, social and cultural rights

The United States is the world's richest country, but quite a lot of Americans still lack guaranteefor their economic, social and cultural rights, which are necessary for personal dignity and self-development.

The United States has not done enough to protect its citizens from unemployment. At no time inthe last 60 years had the country's long-term unemployment been so high for so long as it wasin 2011. It has been one of the Western developed countries that provide the poorestprotection of laborer's rights. It has not approved any international labor organizationconvention in the last 10 years. Moreover, the US lacks an effective arbitration system to dealwith enterprises that refuse to compromise with employees. The New York Times reported onDec 12, 2011, that at last count, 13.3 million people were officially unemployed and that 5.7million of them had been out of work for more than six months (The New York Times, Dec 12, 2011). The unemployment rate was 8.9 percent for 2011 (www.bls.gov), and the unemploymentrate for American youths between 25 and 34 stood at 26 percent in October of that year (TheWorld Journal, Nov 18, 2011), with more underemployed. A total of 84 metropolitan areasreported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, and El Centro, California, recorded the highestunemployment rate of 29.6 percent in September of 2011 (www.bls.gov). The unemployedpeople suffered from not only financial pressures but also mental pressures including anxietyand depression.

There is a widening of the gap between the extreme top and bottom (The USA Today, Sept 13, 2011), showing apparent unfair wealth distribution. The United States claims to have a largepopulation of middle class, making up 80 percent of its total population, while there is only veryfew impoverished and extremely rich people (The China Press, Oct 13, 2011). However, this isnot the truth. According to the report issued by the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) onOct 25, 2011, the richest one percent of American families have the fastest growth of familyrevenue from 1979 to 2007 with an increase of 275 percent for after-tax income, while theafter-tax income of the poorest 20 percent grew by only 18 percent (The World Journal, Oct 26, 2011). Cable News Network reported on Feb 16, 2011, that in the last 20 years, incomes for 90percent of Americans have been stuck in neutral, while the richest 1 percent of Americans haveseen their incomes grow by 33 percent. Economic Policy Institute published a paper on Oct 26, 2011, saying that in 2009 the ratio of wealth owned by the wealthiest one percent to the wealthowned by median households was 225 to 1 (www.epi.org). Besides, in the United States, thebest-off 10 percent made on average 15 times the incomes of the poorest 10 percent (Reuters,Dec 9, 2011). The wealthiest 400 Americans have $1.5 trillion in assets (The China Press, Oct13, 2011), or the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans - more than 150million people (www.currydemocrats.org). The annual incomes of the richest 10 chief executiveofficers (CEO) were enough to pay the salary of 18,330 employees (The World Journal, Oct 16, 2011). Roughly 11 percent of Congress members had net worth of more than $9 million, and249 members were millionaires. The median net worth: $891,506, was almost nine times thetypical household (The USA Today, Nov 16, 2011). A commentary by the Spiegel said that theUS has developed into an economic entity of "winners take all". American politician LarryBartels said that fundamental shifts in wealth allocation was caused by political decisions ratherthan the consequences of market forces or financial crisis (The Spiegel, Oct 24, 2011).

Contrary to the wealthiest 10 percent, the number of Americans living in poverty as well as thepoverty rate continued to hit record highs, which is a great irony in affluent America. A reportpublished by the Census Bureau on Sept 13, 2011, showed that 46.2 million people lived belowthe official poverty line in 2010, 2.6 million more than 2009, hitting the highest record since1959. The report also said that the percentage of American who lived below the poverty line in2010 was 15.1 percent, the highest level since 1993. An analysis done by the BrookingsInstitution estimated that at the current rate, the recession would have added nearly 10 millionpeople to the ranks of the poor by the middle of the decade. According to the analysis, 22percent of children were in poverty (The New York Times, Sept 13, 2011). Another surveyshowed that 12 states of the US had poverty rates above 17 percent, with Mississippi's povertyrate standing at 22.4 percent (The Huffington Post, Oct 21, 2011). The US has grown into acountry dependent on food stamps (Reuters, Aug 22, 2011). The percentage of Americanswho did not have enough money to buy food grew from 9 percent in 2008 to 19 percent in 2011 (The World Journal, Oct 15, 2011). In 2010, 17.2 million households, or 14.5 percent, werefood insecure (www. Worldhunger. org). In 2011, 46 million Americans lived on food stamps,about 15 percent of the total population, up 74 percent from 2007 (Reuters, Aug 22, 2011).

Millions of homeless people wandered around streets. Reports said that about 2.3 million to 3.5million Americans did not have a place that they call home to sleep in the night(www.homelessnessinamerica.com). Between 2007 and 2010, the number of homeless familiesgrew by 20 percent (The Huffington Post, Aug 26, 2011). Over the past five years, thepercentage of singles arriving at shelters after living with family or elsewhere in the communityhas jumped from 39 percent to 66 percent (The USA Today, Dec 9, 2011). There was an all-time record of more than 41,000 homeless people in New York City, including 17,000 homelesschildren (www.coalitionforthehomeless.org). On any given night in Santa Clara County,California, 7,045 people were homeless according to a 2011 Santa Clara County HomelessCensus and Survey (www.santaclaraweekly.com). And advocates estimated that Chicago hadup to 3,000 homeless youths in need of shelter on any given night(www.chicagonewscoop.org).

The US declared it has the best healthcare service in the world, but quite a lot of Americanscould not enjoy due medication and healthcare. The Cable News Network reported on Sept 13, 2011, that the number of people who lacked health insurance in 2010 climbed to 49.9 million(Cable News Network, Sept 13, 2011). Bloomberg reported on March 16, 2011, that 9 millionAmericans have lost health insurance during the past two years. An additional 73 million adultshad difficulties paying for healthcare and 75 million deferred treatment because they could notafford it (Bloomberg, March 16, 2011).

Death and infection risks caused by AIDS grew. Since the first American patient was diagnosedwith AIDS in 1981, 600,000 people have died from the disease in the US By the end of 2008, 1,178,350 Americans had been infected with AIDS (The China Press, June 3, 2011). AFPreported that nearly three quarters of Americans with HIV do not have their infection undercontrol and one in five people with human immunodeficiency virus are unaware that they havethe disease. Among people who know their HIV status is positive, only 51 percent get ongoingmedical treatment (AFP, Nov 29, 2011). Statistics given by the US Center for Disease Controland Prevention showed that, in the last 10 years, death caused by prescription drugs inAmerica had doubled and that one would die from taking prescription drug every 14 minutes.Prescription drug overdose caused 37,485 deaths in 2009, exceeding traffic fatalities (TheChina Press, Sept 19, 2011).

The US government has significantly cut the expense on education, reduced teaching staff,and shortened school hours with tuition fees soaring. The guarantee for teenagers' rights toeducation is weakening. The New York Times reported on Oct 3, 2011, that since 2007, schoolbudgets in New York city have been cut by 13.7 percent every year on average. Since 2008, 294,000 posts in the American education industry, including schools of higher education, havebeen cut (The China Press, Oct 25, 2011). Four-day per week classes have been practiced in292 school districts, which was only put into use during the financial crisis in the 1930s and theoil crisis in the 1970s (The World Journal, Oct 30, 2011). A report by College Board showedthat the average tuition fee of American four-year public universities in the school year of 2011through 2012 was $8,244, $631 more than the last school year, up 8.3 percent (The ChinaPress, Oct 27, 2011). About 3,000 people gathered on Sproul Plaza to protest tuition increasesat Berkeley on Nov 9, 2011 (The New York Times, Nov 13, 2011). Reuters reported that two-thirds of undergraduate students would graduate with student loans about $25,000 on averageowing to expensive college tuition (Reuters, Feb 1, 2011).

Native American culture in the United States has long been suppressed. The countryassimilated the Native American culture through legislation and mainstream culture. At the endof the 19th century, the United States carried out "white man's education" and implementedcompulsory English-only education. Most of the people who now speak Native Americanlanguages are the seniors living in reservations. It is estimated that only five percent of NativeAmericans will speak their own languages 50 years later if there are no measures from the USgovernment.

The financial crisis was far from being the sole reason for the inadequate guarantee ofAmericans' economic, social and cultural rights. So far, the US has not approved theInternational Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The above problemsconcerning human rights are the reflection of the US ideology and political system that ignorepeople's economic, social and cultural rights.

IV.

On racial discrimination

Ethnic minorities in the United States have long been suffering systemic, widespread andinstitutional discrimination. And racial discrimination has become an indelible characteristic andsymbol of American values.

Ethnic minorities have low political, economic and social positions due to discrimination. Thenumber of ethnic people in civil service is not proportional to their population. New York Timesreported on June 23, 2011, that the number of Asian Americans in New York City has toppedone million, nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers, but only one Asian-American serves in the StateLegislature, two on the City Council and one in a citywide post of the New York City. Accordingto the annual report released by the National Urban League of the US, African-Americans' 2011Equality Index is currently 71.5 percent, compared to 2010's 72.1 percent, among which theeconomic equality index declined from 57.9 percent to 56.9 percent, and the health index, from76.6 percent to 75 percent, and the index in the area of social justice, from 57.9 percent to56.9 percent.

Ethnic Americans are badly discriminated against when it comes to employment. It was reportedthat the unemployment rate of Hispanics rose to 11 percent in 2010 from 5.7 percent in 2007 (The New York Times, Sept 28, 2011). The unemployment rate of African Americans was 16.2percent. For black males, it's at 17.5 percent; and for black youth, it's nearly 41 percent, 4.5times the national average unemployment rate (CBS News, June 19, 2011). Nationally, blackjoblessness stands at 21 percent, rising to as high as 40 percent in major urban centers suchas Detroit (The Wall Street Journal, Aug 31, 2011). In Ziebach County of South Dakota, acommunity mainly composed of Native Americans, more than 60 percent of the residents live ator below the poverty line, and unemployment rate hits 90 percent in the winter (The Daily Mail,Feb 15, 2011). A study shows that of the seven occupations with the highest salaries, six areoverrepresented by whites (Washington Post, Oct 21, 2011).

The poverty rate of African Americans doubles that of whites, and the ethnic minority groupssuffer severe social inequalities. According to a report by the Pew Research Center released inJune 2011, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18times that of Hispanic households (pewresearch.org). In 2010, poverty among blacks rose to27.4 percent, and poverty among Hispanics increased to 26.6 percent, much higher than the9.9-percent poverty rate among whites (www.census.gov). A Pew Research Center report saysthe lopsided wealth ratios among whites, Hispanics and African-Americans in 2009 were thelargest in the past 25 years (pewresearch.org). According to an investigation done by theWashington-based Bread for the World, "black children are suffering from poverty at a rate ofnearly 40 percent, and over a quarter of Blacks reported going hungry in 2010". "The figuresare both startling and very telling," said Rev Derrick Boykin (www.amsterdam.com).

Ethnic minorities are denied equal education opportunities, and ethnic minority kids arediscriminated against and bullied in schools. According to a report by the US Census Bureauon June 8, 2011, in 2008, among 18-to 24-year-olds, 22 percent were not enrolled in highschools for Hispanics, 13 percent for African-Americans, whereas only 6 percent for whites(www.census.gov). US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said on Oct 28, 2011, one-third ofAmerican students are bullied at schools, and Asian-American children bear the brunt. Theteases and insults they get in cyber space are three times more compared with kids from otherethnic groups. A research finds 54 percent of Asian-American students have been bullied inschools, 38.4 percent for African-Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics (World Journal Oct29, 2011).

Ethnic minorities and non-Christians are also badly discriminated against in fields such as lawenforcement, justice and religion, rendering the so-claimed ethnic equality and religiousfreedom nothing but self-glorifying forged labels. A New York Times story (Dec 17, 2011) saysthe New York Police Department recorded more than 600,000 stops in 2010 and 84 percent ofthose stopped were blacks or Latinos. It was reported that black non-Hispanic males areincarcerated at a rate more than six times that of white non-Hispanic males (World Report2011: United States, www.hrw.org). On Dec 1, 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union said that"the FBI is using its extensive community outreach to Muslims and other groups to secretlygather intelligence in violation of federal law". (Washington Post, Dec 2, 2011) A survey by PewResearch Center finds that 52 percent of Muslim-Americans surveyed said their group is undergovernment's surveillance, about 28 percent said they had been treated or viewed withsuspicion and 21 percent said they were singled out by airport security (articles.boston.com).More than half of Muslim-Americans in another poll said government anti-terrorism policiessingled them out for increased surveillance and monitoring, and many reported increasedcases of name-calling, threats and harassment by airport security, law enforcement officersand others (Washington Times, Aug 30, 2011).

Illegal immigrants also live under legal and systematic discrimination. It was reported that afterArizona passed its anti-illegal immigration bill, Alabama began implementing its immigration lawon Sept 28, 2011. The Alabama immigration law provides differentiated treatments to illegalimmigrants in each of its term, rendering their daily lives rather difficult. Critics argued that thelaw runs counter to the US Constitution and to certain terms in relevant international humanrights law regarding granting equal protections to illegal immigrants (www.hrw.org). The NewYork Times reported on May 13, 2011, that Georgia passed an anti-illegal immigration lawwhich outlaws illegal immigrants working in the state and empowers local police officers toquestion certain suspects about their immigration status. Illegal immigrants suffer ferociousmistreatments. Internal reports from the Office of Detention Oversight of the Immigration andCustoms Enforcement (ICE) revealed grave problems in many US detention facilities forimmigrants, including lack of medical care, the use of excessive force and "abusive treatment"of detainees (The Houston Chronicle, Oct 10, 2011). A report released on Sept 21, 2011, byan Arizona-based non-profit organization revealed that thousands of illegal immigrantsdetained across the border between Mexico and Arizona are generally mistreated by US borderpolice, being denied enough food, water, medical care and sleep, even beaten up and confinedin extreme coldness or heat, suffering both psychological abuse and threats of death (TheWorld Journal, Sept 24, 2011).

Native Americans are denied their due rights. From January to February 2011, UN SpecialRapporteur James Anaya lodged two accusations against the United States, including accusingthe Arizona State government of approving the use of recycled wastewater for commercial skioperations on the San Francisco Peaks, a site considered sacred by several Native Americantribes (www.forgottennavajopeople.org), as well as the case of imprisoned indigenous activistLeonard Peltier. Peltier was sentenced to life in prison in 1977 for the alleged murder of two FBIagents. However, Peltier has been claiming he is innocent and persecuted by the USgovernment for participating in the American Indian Movement (www.ohchr.org). On April 26, 2011, Farida Shaheed, independent expert in the field of cultural rights, Heiner Bielefeldt,special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and James Anaya, special rapporteur on therights of indigenous peoples, of the UN Human Rights Council, jointly lodged accusationsagainst the US, claiming that the city of Vallejo, California, is planning to level and pave overthe Sogorea Te, held sacred to indigenous people in northern California, in order to constructa parking lot and public restrooms (www.treatycouncil.org).

Race-motivated hate crimes occur frequently. According to an FBI report, 6,628 hate crimeincidents were reported in 2010, 2,201 of which were against African-Americans, 534 againstHispanics and 575 against whites. And 47.3 percent of all were motivated by racial bias, 20percent by religion and 12.8 percent by an ethnicity/national origin bias (ww.fbi.gov). Accordingto a report released by the Center for American Progress in August 2011, seven Americancharitable groups, over the past decade, had spent 42.6 million US dollars on inciting hatredagainst Muslim communities (The New York Times, Nov 13, 2011). There are three active whitesupremacy groups in the city of San Francisco, which focus on attacking ethnic minorities andimmigrants (www.abclocal.go.com). On Nov 10, 2010, two Mexican nationals were beaten by agroup of whites who were members of these organizations (www.sfappeal.com). According to aninvestigation, black men aged 15 to 29 years old were most likely to be victims of murders. InNew York City, they make up less than 3 percent of the city's population but in 2010represented 33 percent of all homicide victims (The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2011).

The sufferings of civil rights activists who oppose racial discriminations arouse attention. TheHuffington Post reported on May 31, 2011, Catrina Wallace, a civil rights activist in Jena,Louisiana, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by authorities only based on a drug dealer'saccusation. Previously, Wallace had taken part in organizing a 50,000-people protest againstracial discrimination that won freedom for six black high school students. The article deemedthe sentence was revenge taken by authorities on Wallace's human rights activism. "I am afreedom fighter," she says. "I fight for people's rights."

V.

On the rights of women and children

To date, the US has ratified neither the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination against Women, nor the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the USneglects the rights of women and children, their situation deteriorates.

Gender discrimination against women widely exists in the US. According to statistics, women arenot fully represented in governments at all levels in the US, as women hold only 17 percent ofthe seats in Congress (www.wcffoundation.org). Women doing the same work as men often getless payment in the US, and the wage gap has narrowed by only 18 cents in the past halfcentury (www.thedailybeast.com). According to a report released by the American Civil LibertiesUnion, in 2009, women working full-time, year-round were paid 77 cents on average for everydollar paid to men (www.aclu.org). Women in the US widely suffer discrimination in terms ofemployment, promotion and work. A new study confirms that American tech companies arewoefully behind in including women among their board members and highest-paid executives.On average, fewer than one in 28 of the highest-paid tech executives is a woman. AtCalifornia's biggest public companies, only about 10 percent of the board members and topexecutives are women (The New York Times, Dec 9, 2011).

The poverty rate among American women reached a record high. According to data from theUS Census Bureau, over 17 million women lived in poverty in 2010, including more than 7.5million in extreme poverty and 4.7 million single mothers in poverty. The poverty rate amongwomen climbed to 14.5 percent in 2010 from 13.9 percent in 2009, the highest in 17 years; theextreme poverty rate among women climbed to 6.3 percent in 2010 from 5.9 percent in 2009,the highest rate ever recorded (www.merchantcircle.com). According to a report of theAssociated Press on April 12, 2011, a single mother named Lashanda Armstrong drove herfour kids in a minivan into the Hudson river in Newburgh, New York, due to the unbearableburden of raising the kids. Only her 10-year-old boy survived.

Women in the US often experience discrimination, violence and sexual assault. Ethnic minoritywomen face discrimination during pregnancy. According to a report provided by the LAMB (TheLos Angeles Mommy and Baby Project), 32.4 percent of Asian-American mothers feltdiscriminated against during pregnancy, second only to African-American mothers amongwhom the ratio amounts to 47.9 percent, while the ratio among Latin American mothers is 31.1percent (The China Press, June 1, 2011). According to statistics from the website of the LosAngeles Police Department, more than 2 million American women are victims of domesticviolence annually. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey shows nearly onein five women has been raped in her lifetime, and one in four has experienced serious physicalviolence from an intimate partner at some point in her life (Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2011). Throughout the military, sexual assault affects about 19 percent of female troops butmost of them choose to keep silent, according to a survey of sexual assault conducted by theUS military (www.csmonitor.com). From March to October in 2011, a string of 20 sexual assaultshappened in Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Park Slope and the victims were all young women(The New York Times, Oct 19, 2011). Reports say many of the 1 million women in prison in theUS experienced harsh treatment and even had their arms and legs chained when they weregiving birth (www.globalissues.org).

The poverty rate for children in the US reached a record high. According to the report releasedby the US Census Bureau, more than 1 million children were added to the poverty populationbetween 2009 and 2010, making the total number of children living below the poverty line reachmore than 15 million, the greatest since 2001. The poverty rate for children in 2010 climbed to21.6 percent in 2010 from 20 percent in 2009, with 653 counties seeing a significant increasein poverty rate for children aged 5 to 17 and about one-third of counties having school-agepoverty rates above the national poverty rate (www.census.gov). The Daily Mail reported onAug 17, 2011, that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009 and Mississippi isthe state with the highest level of 31 percent. The US Census Bureau said that children living inpoverty, especially small children, are more likely to develop cognitive and behavioraldifficulties and may have a shorter education time and a longer time being unemployed whenthey grow up (The China Press, Nov 21, 2011).

The number of homeless children has surged. In 2010, 1.6 million children in the US were livingon the street, in homeless shelters or motels, up 33 percent from that in 2007, according to theNational Center on Family Homelessness (USA Today, Dec 15, 2011). According to theEducation Department of New York, there are 53,503 homeless students and children of 3 to21 years old in New York, and the Homeless Service Department's count also shows anaverage of 6,902 children of 6 to 17 years old a month are homeless in the city (The New YorkTimes, Nov 14, 2011). Nearly 17,000 children slept in the municipal shelters in New York onHalloween night in 2011. From May 2011 to November 2011, children in shelters rose 10percent (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 9, 2011).

Children are severely exposed to violence and pornography. BBC reported on Oct 17, 2011,that over the past 10 years, more than 20,000 American children were believed to have beenkilled by their family members. More than 1 million children are confirmed each year as victimsof child abuse (www.preventchildabuse.org), and one in every two families in the US is involvedin domestic violence at some time (www. reverepolice.org). The Wall Street Journal reported onNov 14, 2011, that roughly 120,000 calls were made to the state hotline for child abuse callsadministrated by the state Department of Public Welfare in Pennsylvania, but only about24,000 cases were investigated. A 13-year-old boy named Christian Choate was allegedlybeaten to death in 2009 by his father. The report said prosecutors had alleged that the boyendured beating daily and was kept locked in a 3-foot-high dog cage, where he had little to eatand often soiled himself (Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2011). Campus violence and cyberbullying are growing more malicious in the US. According to a report of the US News & WorldReport on June 3, 2011, at least 40 percent of high school students have been bullied by cyberbullies (www.usnews.com). The Women's eNews reported on May 23 last year, the sex-trafficking problem is acute in the state of Georgia, with an estimated 250 to 300 underageteens and girls being sexually exploited each month there (womensenews. org). According to areport published by Stanford University, the number of reports of sexual assaults received in itscampus in 2010 rose by 75 percent over that in 2009 (CBS, Sept 30, 2011).

Infant mortality rate remains high in the US. According to a report of The New York Times onOct 15, 2011, the infant mortality rate in the US is 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. The rateamong African-Americans is 13.3 deaths per thousand, while the rates among whites, Hispanicsand Asian-Americans are respectively 5.6, 5.5 and 4.8 per thousand. In Pittsburgh, the infantmortality rate for black residents of Allegheny County was 20.7 per thousand in 2009, while therate among whites in the county was only 4 per thousand in the same period. Nationally, blackbabies are more than twice as likely as white babies to die before the age of 1.

VI.

On US violations of human rights against other nations

The US has been pursuing hegemony in the world, grossly trampling upon the sovereignty ofother countries and capriciously violating human rights against other nations. It "appears moreand more to be contributing to international disorder" (After the Empire: The Breakdown of theAmerican Order, by Emmanuel Todd).

The revelation of the history of human experiments conducted in the US is yet another scandalsparking public outcry around the world after the prisoner abuse scandal. The Britishnewspaper The Telegraph reported on Aug 30, 2011, that from 1946-1948, a US government-paid medical experiment program had made nearly 5,500 people in Guatemala subjected todiagnostic testing, and the researchers deliberately exposed more than 1,300 people, includingsoldiers, prostitutes, prisoners and mental patients, to syphilis and other venereal diseases.Seven women with epilepsy were injected with syphilis below the back of the skull, and a femalesyphilis patient with a terminal illness was infected with gonorrhea in her eyes and elsewhere.These experiments had caused over 80 deaths. An article on a US-based journalistic websitesaid that "these revelations are only the latest in an ongoing series of scandals regardinggovernment illegal and unethical experimentation" and that "there are plenty of otherunderreported and important stories out there on the terrible scandal that has been US illegalexperimentation. "The article said that the list of such illegal experiments is quite long, includinggovernment radiation experiments, human mind control (also known as MKULTRA) experimentsand the CIA and DoD (Department of Defense) experiments on "enemy combatants" in the "waron terror" (Pubrecord.org). Newspaper The Hindu reported on Aug 30, 2011, that in 1932, theUS public health service agency started a study of untreated syphilis in the human body inAlabama. The researchers told the subjects that they were being treated for some ailments,and nearly 400 African-American men were infected with syphilis without informed consent. Infact, the men infected did not receive proper treatment needed. The study lasted until 1972after media disclosures. Austrian national TV commented that this was a disgraceful event inthe US history and a dark period in US medical ethics.

The US-led wars, albeit alleged to be "humanitarian intervention" efforts and for "the rise of anew democratic nation", created humanitarian disasters instead. For Iraqis, the death toll in theUS-initiated Iraq war stands at 655,000 (Tribune Business News, Dec 15, 2011). According tofigures released by the Iraq Body Count, at least 103,536 civilians were killed in the Iraq war(Reuters, Dec 18, 2011). In 2011, there were an average of 6.5 deaths per day from suicideattacks and vehicle bombs (www.iraqbodycount.org). It is estimated that civilian casualties inthe military campaign in Afghanistan could exceed 31,000 (Tribune Business News, Oct 17, 2011). According to a news report, on May 28, 2011, a US-led NATO airstrike killed 14 civiliansand wounded six others in the southern region of Afghanistan (The New York Times, May 29, 2011). Separately, on May 25, a total of 18 Afghan civilians and 20 police were killed in a NATOairstrike in the province of Nuristan (BBC News, May 29, 2011). The British newspaper TheGuardian reported on March 11, 2012, that an American soldier stationed in Afghanistan burstinto three civilian homes in two villages in the small hours of March 11, shot dead 16 sleepingAfghan villagers, injured five others and burned the dead bodies. The victims included ninechildren and three women. According to a Reuters report, witness accounts said there wereseveral US soldiers involved (Reuters, March 11, 2012). Another Deutsche Presse-Agenturreport quoted a member of the Afghan parliamentary investigative team as saying that therewere 15 to 20 soldiers who had conducted the night raid operation in several areas in thevillage. The source also told DPA that some of the Afghan women who were killed were sexuallyassaulted, according to the findings (DPA, March 18, 2012). Such "American-style massacre"against innocent civilians has once again pierced the veil of the US proclaiming itself "a countryunder the rule of law" and "a human rights defender." Incomplete statistics revealed that the UShas launched more than 60 drone attacks in Pakistan in 2011, killing at least 378 people (USAToday, Jan 11, 2012; Newamerica.net). The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan increased15 percent in the first half of 2011 over the same period of 2010 (The New York Times, Aug 6, 2011). According to media reports, on the night of Feb 20, 2012, some American soldiers ofthe NATO troops at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan transported copies of Koran and otherreligious books to a rubbish pit and burned them (BBC News, Feb 23, 2012). The acts ofdesecration of the Quran have sparked strong protests and large-scale demonstrationactivities among the people across Afghanistan as well as in the countries of Pakistan andBengal (www.pakistantoday.com.pk; www.firstpost.com).

The US does not support the right to development, which is a concern of most of thedeveloping countries. In September 2011, the 18th session of the United Nations Human RightsCouncil adopted a resolution on "the right to development." Except for an abstention vote fromthe US, all the HRC members voted for the resolution.

The US continues its conduct that seriously violates the right of subsistence and right ofdevelopment of Cuban people. On Oct 26, 2011, the 66th session of the UN General Assemblyoverwhelmingly adopted a resolution titled "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial andfinancial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," the 20th suchresolution in a row. A total of 186 countries voted in favor of the resolution, three countriesabstained, and only the US and Israel voted against the resolution. The resolution urged theUS to repeal or invalidate the almost 50-year-long economic, commercial and financial embargoagainst Cuba as soon as possible (www.un.org). The US, however, continues to defy theresolution. The blockade imposed by the US against Cuba qualifies as an act of genocideunder Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,which was adopted in 1948.

The above-mentioned facts are but a small yet illustrative enough fraction of the US' dismalrecord on its human rights situation. The US' own tarnished human rights record has made it inno condition, on a moral, political or legal basis, to act as the world's "human rights justice," toplace itself above other countries and release the Country Reports on Human Rights Practicesyear after year to accuse and blame other countries. We hereby advise the US governmentonce again to look squarely at its own grave human rights problems, to stop the unpopularpractices of taking human rights as a political instrument for interference in other countries'internal affairs, smearing other nations' images and seeking its own strategic interests, and tocease using double standards on human rights and pursuing hegemony under the pretext ofhuman rights.

(China Daily 05/26/2012 page4)