US has the worst human rights record

Monday, April 11, 2011
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Human rights American-style
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The view from China Town: US human rights pronouncements are a cynical joke. Question: Why are we not surprised? Answer: Because the US has the worst human rights record of any nation on the planet.
The US official Human Rights reports are full of distortions and accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. But the United States turns a blind eye to its own execrable human rights situation.

The US uses human rights propaganda in the corporate-controlled Western media as a political instrument to defame other nations' images and to secure its own strategic interests. These actions expose the United States' hypocrisy by exercising double standards on human rights. The US has a malicious design to pursue hegemony under the pretext of human rights.

US citizens' privacy has been undermined. More than 6,600 travelers were subjected to electronic device searches between the 1st October 2008 and the 2nd June 2010, nearly half of them American citizens. US abuse of violence and torturing suspects to get confessions is widespread within the official US law enforcement community. Wrongful convictions are knowingly obtained on a regular basis.

While publicly advocating internet freedom, in actuality the US imposes unlawful and draconian restrictions on cyberspace. The United States applies double standards on internet freedom by requesting unrestricted internet freedom in other countries. This has become a central diplomatic tool which the US employs to impose pressure and seek hegemony. Meanwhile, down home, the US increasingly restricts and disrupts its own citizens' free access to the internet.

The US tries to present itself as the beacon of democracy. However, its democracy is a fiat-paper, money-driven scam. One out of every five people in the US is a victim of a crime every year. The United States is a broken society with the world's highest incidence of violent crimes. Its people's lives, properties and personal security are not appropriately or diligently protected by the US governing power.

In 2009, an estimated 4.3 million violent crimes, 15.6 million property crimes and 133,000 personal thefts were committed against US residents aged 12 or older. The violent crime rate was 17.1 victimisations per 1,000 persons. The United States also ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns and has a very high incidence of gun-related crimes. In the US, 90 million people own an estimated 200 million guns. There are 12,000 gun murders a year in the beacon of democracy called the United States.

Racial discrimination is deep-seated in the US and has permeated every aspect of social life. Minority groups confront discrimination in their employment and occupation. Blacks are treated unfairly or excluded in promotion, welfare and employment. By the end of September 2009, Muslim workers had filed a record 803 claims of complaints over employment discrimination, up 20 percent from the previous year. In the US, minority groups have a high unemployment rate and do not enjoy the same political status as white people.

The poverty statistics for US minorities are a disgrace. In 2009, 25.8 percent of Blacks, 25.3 percent of Hispanics and 12.5 percent of Asians were living below the official poverty line. These figures compared with 9.4 percent for non-Hispanic Whites. US minority groups face institutionalised inequalities in education and health care. Racial discrimination is manifest in the US law enforcement and judicial systems, racial hate crimes are frequent, and immigrants' rights and interests are not safeguarded by the state.

The overall proportion of American citizens living in poverty has risen to a record high. A total of 44 million Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, four million more than in 2008. The share of residents in poverty climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level recorded since 1994. Homelessness is increasing sharply in the United States and the number of American people without health insurance is also increasing every year.

Gender discrimination against women is widely reported in the US, and women in this "beacon of democracy" often experience sexual assault and violence. 20 million American women are rape victims. One fifth of female students on US university campuses are victims of sexual assault. Nearly 3,000 female US soldiers were sexually assaulted in 2008, a figure which was nine percent higher than recorded in 2007. 1.3 million people fall victim to domestic violence in the United States every year, with women accounting for 92 percent of the total.

Many children in the US live in poverty and their physical and mental health is not safeguarded by the state. One in four American children go hungry regularly. In the United States violence against children is commonplace and severe. Nine million American children are victims of tacit violence. More than 93,000 children are incarcerated in the US, and between 75 and 93 percent of American children have experienced at least one traumatic experience. Pornographic content is rampant on the internet and severely harms American children. One in seven US minors has accidentally accessed internet pornography, and one in three has done so intentionally.

The United States has a notorious record of international human rights violations. The US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused huge civilian casualties. Between March 2003 and December 2009, there were 285,000 war casualties in Iraq, 63 percent being civilians. In Afghanistan, an American "kill team" formed by five soldiers from the US 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, committed at least three recreational murders, where they randomly targeted and killed Afghan civilians, dismembered the corpses and hoarded the human remains as trophies. US-led NATO troops caused 535 Afghan civilian deaths and injuries in 2009. Among those, 113 civilians were shot and killed, an increase of 43 percent over 2008.

The United States government has been unlawfully holding individuals captive under the pretext of the "war on terror" and has been abusing detainees with various interrogation methods including torture. The US CIA has established secret detention facilities to interrogate so-called "high-value detainees." The CIA has taken custody of at least 94 detainees of this description and has employed "enhanced techniques", including stress positions, extreme temperature changes, sleep deprivation and waterboarding in the interrogation of at least 28 of those detainees.

The United States government has refused to join several key international human rights conventions and has failed to fulfill its international obligations towards lawful human rights initiatives. The US has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The United States has also not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This latter Convention has been ratified by 96 other countries across the globe. A total of 193 countries have joined the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has not.

Before the United States government presumes to criticise human rights in China and elsewhere, it might be wise to address its own domestic human rights violations. These are demonstrably among the worst, if not the actual worst, in the world.