[News] China - The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009

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Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009

<http://www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/>English.news.cn   2010-03-12 16:25:30
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/12/c_13208219.htm

BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- China's Information Office of the State 
Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the 
United States in 2009" here Friday. Following is the full text:

The State Department of the United States released its Country 
Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing 
as "the world judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the 
reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more 
than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye 
to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own 
territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is 
prepared to help people around the world understand the real 
situation of human rights in the United States.

I. On Life, Property and Personal Security

Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the 
lives, properties and personal security of its people.

In 2008, U.S. residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 
million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent 
crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over, 
according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice in 
September 2009 (Criminal Victimization 2008, U.S. Department of 
Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov). In 2008, over 14 million arrests 
occurred for all offenses (except traffic violations) in the country, 
and the arrest rate for violent crime was 198.2 per 100,000 
inhabitants (Crime in the United States, 2008, http://www.fbi.gov). 
In 2009, a total of 35 domestic homicides occurred in Philadelphia, a 
67 percent increase from 2008 (The New York Times, December 30, 
2009). In New York City, 461 murders were reported in 2009, and the 
crime rate was 1,151 cases per 100,000 people. San Antonio in Texas 
was deemed as the most dangerous among 25 U.S. large cities with 
2,538 crimes recorded per 100,000 people (The China Press, December 
30, 2009). The murder rate rose 5.5 percent in towns with a 
population of 10,000 or fewer in 2008 (http://www.usatoday.com, June 
1, 2009). Most of the United States' 15,000 annual murders occur in 
cities where they are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods 
(http://www.reuters.com, October 7, 2009).

The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of 
privately-owned guns. According to the data from the FBI and the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), American 
gun owners, out of 309 million in total population, have more than 
250 million guns, while a substantial proportion of U.S. gun owners 
had more than one weapon. Americans usually buy 7 billion rounds of 
ammunition a year, but in 2008 the figure jumped to about 9 billion 
(The China Press, September 25, 2009). In the United States, airline 
passengers are allowed to take unloaded weapons after declaration.

In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun-related 
incidents each year (The China Press, April 6, 2009). According to a 
FBI report, there had been 14,180 murder victims in 2008 (USA Today, 
September 15, 2009). Firearms were used in 66.9 percent of murders, 
43.5 percent of robberies and 21.4 percent of aggravated assaults 
(http://www.thefreelibrary.com). USA Today reported that a man named 
Michael McLendon killed 10 people in two rural towns of Alabama 
before turning a gun on himself on March 11, 2009. On March 29, a man 
named Robert Stewart shot and killed eight people and injured three 
others in a nursing home in North Carolina (USA Today, March 11, 
2009). On April 3, an immigrant called Jiverly Wong shot 13 people 
dead and wounded four others in an immigration services center in 
downtown Binghamton, New York (The New York Times, April 4, 2009). In 
the year 2009, a string of attacks on police shocked the country. On 
March 21, a 26-year-old jobless man shot and killed four police 
officers in Oakland, California, before he was killed by police 
gunfire (http://cbs5.com). On April 4, a man called Richard Poplawski 
shot three police officers to death in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On 
November 29, an ex-convict named Maurice Clemmons shot four police 
officers to death inside a coffee shop in Parkland, Washington (The 
New York Times, December 1, 2 and 3, 2009).

Campuses became an area worst hit by violent crimes as shootings 
spread there and kept escalating. The U.S. Heritage Foundation 
reported that 11.3 percent of high school students in Washington D.C. 
reported being "threatened or injured" with a weapon while on school 
property during the 2007-2008 school year. In the same period, police 
responded to more than 900 calls to 911 reporting violent incidents 
at the addresses of Washington D.C. public schools (A Report of The 
Heritage Center for Data Analysis, School Safety in Washington, D.C.: 
New Data for the 2007-2008 School Year, http://www.heritage.org). In 
New Jersey public schools, a total of 17,666 violent incidents were 
reported in 2007-2008 (Annual Report on Violence, Vandalism and 
Substance Abuse in New Jersey Public Schools by New Jersey Department 
of Education, October 2009, http://www.state.nj.us). In the City 
University of New York, a total of 107 major crimes occurred in five 
of its campuses during 2006 and 2007(The New York Post, September 22, 2009).

II. On Civil and Political Rights

In the United States, civil and political rights of citizens are 
severely restricted and violated by the government.

The country's police frequently impose violence on the people. 
Chicago Defender reported on July 8, 2009 that a total of 315 police 
officers in New York were subject to internal supervision due to 
unrestrained use of violence during law enforcement. The figure was 
only 210 in 2007. Over the past two years, the number of New York 
police officers under review for garnering too many complaints was up 
50 percent (http://www.chicagodefender.com). According to a New York 
Police Department firearms discharge report released on Nov. 17, 
2009, the city' s police fired 588 bullets in 2007, killing 10 
people, and 354 bullets in 2008, killing 13 people 
(http://gothamist.com, November 17, 2009). On September 3, 2009, a 
student of the San Jose State University was hit repeatedly by four 
San Jose police officers with batons and a Taser gun for more than 
ten times (http://www.mercurynews.com, October 27, 2009). On 
September 22, 2009, a Chinese student in Eugene, Oregon was beaten by 
a local police officer for no reason (The Oregonian, October 23, 
2009, http://blog.oregonlive.com). According to the Amnesty 
International, in the first ten months of 2009, police officers in 
the U.S. killed 45 people due to unrestrained use of Taser guns. The 
youngest of the victims was only 15. From 2001 to October, 2009, 389 
people died of Taser guns used by police officers (http://theduckshoot.com).

Abuse of power is common among U.S. law enforcers. In July 2009, the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation put four police officers in the 
Washington area under investigation for taking money to protect a 
gambling ring frequented by some of the region's most powerful drug 
dealers over the past two years (The Washington Post, July, 19, 
2009). In September 2009, an off-duty police officer in Chicago 
attacked a bus driver for "cutting him off in traffic" as he rode a 
bicycle (Chicago Tribune, September 2009, 
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com). In the same month, four former 
police officers in Chicago were charged with extorting close to 
500,000 U.S. dollars from a Hispanic driving an expensive car with 
out-of-state plates and suspected drug dealers in the name of law 
enforcement, and offering bribes to their superiors (Chicago Tribune, 
September 19, 2009). In November 2009, a former police chief of the 
Prince George's County's town of Morningside was charged with selling 
a stolen gun to a civilian (The Washington Post, November 18, 2009). 
In major U.S. cities, police stop, question and frisk more than a 
million people each year - a sharply higher number than just a few 
years ago (http://huffingtonpost.com, October 8, 2009).

Prisons in the United State are packed with inmates. According to a 
report released by the U.S. Justice Department on Dec. 8, 2009, more 
than 7.3 million people were under the authority of the U.S. 
corrections system at the end of 2008. The correctional system 
population increased by 0.5 percent in 2008 compared with the 
previous year (http://www.wsws.org). About 2.3 million were held in 
custody of prisons and jails, the equivalent of about one in every 
198 persons in the country. From 2000 to 2008, the U.S. prison 
population increased an average of 1.8 percent annually 
(http://mensnewsdaily.com, January 18, 2010). The California 
government even suggested sending tens of thousands of illegal 
immigrants held in the state to Mexico, in order to ease its 
overcrowded prison system (http://news.yahoo.com, January 26, 2010).

The basic rights of prisoners in the United States are not 
well-protected. Raping cases of inmates by prison staff members are 
widely reported. According to the U.S. Justice Department, reports of 
sexual misconduct by prison staff members with inmates in the 
country's 93 federal prison sites doubled over the past eight years. 
Of the 90 staff members prosecuted for sexual abuse of inmates, 
nearly 40 percent were also convicted of other crimes (The Washington 
Post, September11, 2009). The New York Times reported on June 24, 
2009 that according to a federal survey of more than 63,000 federal 
and state inmates, 4.5 percent reported being sexually abused at 
least once during the previous 12 months. It was estimated that there 
were at least 60,000 rapes of prisoners across the United States 
during the same period (The New York Times, June 24, 2009).

Chaotic management of prisons in the United State also led to wide 
spread of diseases among the inmates. According to a report from the 
U.S. Justice Department, a total of 20,231 male inmates and 1,913 
female inmates had been confirmed as HIV carriers in the U.S. federal 
and state prisons at yearend 2008. The percentage of male and female 
inmates with HIV/AIDS amounted to 1.5 and 1.9 percent respectively 
(http://www.news-medical.net, December 2, 2009). From 2007 to 2008, 
the number of HIV/AIDS cases in prisons in California, Missouri and 
Florida increased by 246, 169, and 166 respectively. More than 130 
federal and state inmates in the U.S. died of AIDS-related causes in 
2007 (http://thecrimereport.org, December 2, 2009). A report by the 
Human Rights Watch released in March 2009 said although the New York 
State prison registered the highest number of prisoners living with 
HIV in the country, it did not provide the inmates with adequate 
access to treatment, and even locked the inmates up separately, 
refusing to provide them with treatment of any kind. (www.hrw.org, 
March 24, 2009).

While advocating "freedom of speech," "freedom of the press" and 
"Internet freedom," the U.S. government unscrupulously monitors and 
restricts the citizens' rights to freedom when it comes to its own 
interests and needs.

The U.S. citizens' freedom to access and distribute information is 
under strict supervision. According to media reports, the U.S. 
National Security Agency (NSA) started installing specialized 
eavesdropping equipment around the country to wiretap calls, faxes, 
and emails and collect domestic communications as early as 2001. The 
wiretapping programs was originally targeted at Arab-Americans, but 
soon grew to include other Americans. The NSA installed over 25 
eavesdropping facilities in San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Los 
Angeles, and Chicago among other cities. The NSA also announced 
recently it was building a huge one million square feet data 
warehouse at a cost of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars at Camp Williams in 
Utah, as well as another massive data warehouse in San Antonio, as 
part of the NSA's new Cyber Command responsibilities. The report said 
a man named Nacchio was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading and 
sentenced to six years in prison after he refused to participate in 
NSA's surveillance program (http://www.onelinejournal.com, November 23, 2009).

After the September 11 attack, the U.S. government, in the name of 
anti-terrorism, authorized its intelligence authorities to hack into 
its citizens' mail communications, and to monitor and erase any 
information that might threaten the U.S. national interests on the 
Internet through technical means. The country's Patriot Act allowed 
law enforcement agencies to search telephone, email communications, 
medical, financial and other records, and broadened the discretion of 
law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and 
deporting foreign persons suspected of terrorism-related acts. The 
Act expanded the definition of terrorism, thus enlarging the number 
of activities to which law enforcement powers could be applied. On 
July 9, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008, granting legal immunity to 
telecommunication companies that take part in wiretapping programs 
and authorizing the government to wiretap international 
communications between the United States and people overseas for 
anti-terrorism purposes without court approval (The New York Times, 
July 10, 2008). Statistic showed that from 2002 to 2006, the FBI 
collected thousands of phones records of U.S. citizens through mails, 
notes and phone calls. In September 2009, the country set up an 
Internet security supervision body, further worrying U.S. citizens 
that the U.S. government might use Internet security as an excuse to 
monitor and interfere with personal systems. A U.S. government 
official told the New York Times in an interview in April 2009 that 
NSA had intercepted private email messages and phone calls of 
Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad 
legal limits established by U.S. Congress the year before. In 
addition, the NSA was also eavesdropping on phones of foreign 
political figures, officials of international organizations and 
renowned journalists (The New York Times, April, 15, 2009). The U.S. 
military also participated in the eavesdropping programs. According 
to CNN reports, a Virginia-based U.S. military Internet risk 
evaluation organization was in charge of monitoring official and 
unofficial private blogs, official documents, personal contact 
information, photos of weapons, entrances of military camps, as well 
as other websites that "might threaten its national security."

The so-called "freedom of the press" of the United States was in fact 
completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated 
by the U.S. government. According to media reports, the U.S. 
government and the Pentagon had recruited a number of former military 
officers to become TV and radio news commentators to give "positive 
comments" and analysis as "military experts" for the U.S. war in Iraq 
and Afghanistan, in order to guide public opinions, glorify the wars, 
and gain public support of its anti-terrorism ideology (The New York 
Times, April 20, 2009). At yearend 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a 
bill which imposed sanctions on several Arab satellite channels for 
broadcasting contents hostile to the U.S. and instigating violence 
(http://blogs.rnw.nl). In September 2009, protesters using the 
social-networking site Twitter and text messages to coordinate 
demonstrations clashed with the police several times in Pittsburgh, 
where the Group of 20 summit was held. Elliot Madison, 41, was later 
charged with hindering apprehension of the protesters through the 
Internet. The police also searched his home (http://www.nytimes.com, 
October 5, 2009). Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said the same conduct in other 
countries would be called human rights violations whereas in the 
United States it was called necessary crime control.


III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Poverty, unemployment and the homeless are serious problems in the 
United States, where workers' economic, social and cultural rights 
cannot be guaranteed.

Unemployment rate in the U.S. in 2009 was the highest in 26 years. 
The number of bankrupt businesses and individuals kept rising due to 
the financial crisis. The Associated Press reported in April 2009 
that nearly 1.2 million businesses and individuals filed for 
bankruptcy in the previous 12 months - about four in every 1,000 
people, a rate twice as high as that in 2006 
(http://www.floridabankruptcyblog.com). By December 4, 2009, a total 
of 130 U.S. banks had been forced to close in the year due to the 
financial crisis (Chicago Tribune, December 4, 2009). Statistics 
released by the U.S. Labor Department on Nov. 6, 2009 showed 
unemployment rate in October 2009 reached 10.2 percent, the highest 
since 1983 (The New York Times, November 7, 2009). Nearly 16 million 
people were jobless, with 5.6 million, or 35.6 percent of the 
unemployed, being out of work for more than half a year (The New York 
Times, November 13, 2009). In September, about 1.6 million young 
workers, or 25 percent of the total, were jobless, the highest since 
1948 when records were kept (The Washington Post, September 7, 2009). 
In the week ending on March 7, 2009, the continuing jobless claims in 
the U.S. were 5.47 million, higher than the previous week's 5.29 
million (http://247wallst.com, March 19, 2009).

The population in poverty was the largest in 11 years. The Washington 
Post reported on September 10, 2009, that altogether 39.8 million 
Americans were living in poverty by the end of 2008, an increase of 
2.6 million from that in 2007. The poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 
percent, the highest since 1998. The number of people aged between 18 
to 64 living in poverty in 2008 had risen to 22.1 million, 170,000 
more than in 2007. Up to 8.1 million families were under poverty, 
accounting for 10.3 percent of the total families (The Washington 
Post, September 11, 2009). According to a report of the New York 
Times on Sept. 29, 2009, the poverty rate in New York City in 2008 
was 18.2 percent and nearly 28 percent of the Bronx borough's 
residents were living in poverty (The New York Times, September 29, 
2009). From August 2008 to August 2009, more than 90,000 poor 
households in California suffered power and gas cuts. A 93-year-old 
man was frozen to death at his home (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). 
Poverty led to a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the United 
States. It is reported that there are roughly 32,000 suicides in the 
U.S. every year, nearly double the cases of murder, which numbered 
18,000 (http://www.time.com). The Los Angeles County coroner's office 
said the poor economy was taking a toll even on the dead as more 
bodies in the county went unclaimed by families who could not afford 
funeral expenses. A total of 712 bodies in Los Angles County were 
cremated with taxpayers' money in 2008, an increase of 36 percent 
over the previous year (The Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2009).

The population in hunger was the highest in 14 years. The U.S. 
Department of Agriculture reported on Nov. 16, 2009, that 49.1 
million Americans living in 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of 
all American families, lacked consistent access to adequate food in 
2008, up 31 percent from the 13 million households, or 11.1 percent 
of all American families, that lacked stable and adequate supply of 
food in 2007, which was the highest since the government began 
tracking "food insecurity" in 1995 (The New York Times, November 17, 
2009; 14.6% of Americans Could Not Afford Enough Food in 2008, 
http://business.theatlantic.com). The number of people who lacked 
"food security," rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million in 2008 
(http://www.livescience.com, November 26, 2009). About 15 percent of 
families were still working for adequate food and clothing (The 
Associated Press, November 27, 2009). Statistics showed 36.5 million 
Americans, or about one eighth of the U.S. total population, took 
part in the food stamp program in August 2009, up 7.1 million from 
that of 2008. However, only two thirds of those eligible for food 
stamps actually received them (http://www.associatedcontent.com).


Workers' rights were seriously violated. The New York Times reported 
on Sept. 2, 2009 that 68 percent of the 4,387 low-wage workers in a 
survey said they had experienced reduction of wages. And 76 percent 
of those who had worked overtime were not paid accordingly, and 57 
percent of those interviewed had not received pay documents to make 
sure pay was legal and accurate. Only eight percent of those who 
suffered serious injuries on the job filed for compensation. Up to 26 
percent of those surveyed were paid less than the national minimum 
wage. Among those who complained about wages or treatment, 43 percent 
had experienced retaliation or dismissal (The New York Times, 
September 2, 2009). According to a report by the USA Today on July 
20, 2009, a total of 5,657 people died at workplaces across the U.S. 
in 2007, about 17 deaths each day. About 200,000 workers in New York 
State were injured or sickened at workplaces each year (USA Today, 
July 20, 2009).

The number of people without medical insurance has kept rising for 
eight consecutive years. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on 
Sept. 10, 2009, showed 46.3 million people were without medical 
insurance in 2008, accounting for 15.4 percent of the total 
population, comparing 45.7 million people who were without medical 
insurance in 2007, which was a rise for the eighth year in a row. 
About 20.3 percent of Americans between 18 to 64 years old were not 
covered by medical insurance in 2008, higher than the 19.6 percent in 
2007 (http://www.census.gov). A study released by the Commonwealth 
Fund showed health insurance coverage of adults aged 18 to 64 
declined in 31 U.S. states from 2007 to 2009 (Reuters, October 8, 
2009). The number of states with extremely high number of adults who 
were not covered by medical insurance increased from two in 1999 to 
nine in 2009. More than one in every four people in Texas were 
uninsured, the highest percentage among all states 
(http://www.ncpa.org). Houston had 40.1 percent of its residents 
uninsured (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). In 2008, altogether 2,266 U.S. 
veterans under the age of 65 died for lack of health insurance 
coverage or medical care, 14 times higher than the U.S. military 
death toll in Afghanistan that year (AFP, November 11, 2009). A 
report by the Consumer International showed 34 percent of U.S. 
families with annual income below 50,000 U.S. dollars and 21 percent 
of homes with annual income exceeding 100,000 U.S. dollars lost 
medical insurance or suffered reduction in medical insurance in 2009. 
In addition, two thirds of households with annual income below 50,000 
U.S. dollars and one third of homes earning more than 100,000 U.S. 
dollars a year cut their medical expenses last year. About 28 percent 
Americans chose not to see a doctor when they fell ill; a quarter of 
them could not afford medical bills; 22 percent postponed medical 
treatment; a fifth of them did not buy medicine prescribed by doctors 
or undergo medical checkups; 15 percent took expired drugs or did not 
follow medical instructions to take medicine on time in order to save 
money (http://www.oregonlive.com). According to a report of the 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on 
December 8, 2009, average life expectancy of Americans was 78.1 years 
in 2007, ranking the fourth from bottom among all member states of 
OECD. The average life expectancy of OECD member states was 79.1 that 
year (http://www.msnbc.msn.com).

The number of homeless has been on the rise. Statistics show that by 
September 2008, an upward of 1.6 million homeless people in the U.S. 
had been receiving shelter, and the number of those in families rose 
from 473,000 in 2007 to 517,000 in 2008 (USA Today, July 9, 2009). 
Since 2009, homeless enrollments in the six counties of Chicago area 
had climbed, with McHenry County seeing the biggest hike - an 
increase of 125 percent over the previous year (Chicago Tribune, 
November 28, 2009). These families could only live in shabby places 
such as wagons. In March 2009, a sprawling tent city was seen in 
Sacramento of California where hundreds of homeless gathered. Police 
in Santa Monica of southern California even regularly used force to 
drive the homeless out of the city (www.truthalyzer.com). In October, 
several thousand homeless in Detroit got into a fight, worrying they 
might not receive the government's housing subsidies (USA Today, 
October 8, 2009). In December, there were 6,975 homeless single 
adults in shelters in New York City, not including military veterans, 
chronically homeless people, and the 30,698 people living in 
short-term housing for homeless families (The New York Times, 
December 10, 2009). The Houston Chronicle reported on March 16, 2009 
that large numbers of houses in Galveston were destroyed by Hurricane 
Ike in September 2008, leaving thousands homeless. About 1,700 
households did not receive any aid and most of them do not have fixed 
residences (Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2009).


IV. On Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is still a chronic problem of the United States.

Black people and other minorities are the most impoverished groups in 
the United States. According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of 
Census, the real median income for American households in 2008 was 
50,303 U.S. dollars. That of the non-Hispanic white households was 
55,530 U.S. dollars, Hispanic households 37,913 U.S. dollars, black 
households only 34,218 U.S. dollars. The median incomes of Hispanic 
and black households were roughly 68 percent and 61.6 percent of that 
of the non-Hispanic white households. Median income of minority 
groups was about 60 to 80 percent of that of majority groups under 
the same conditions of education and skill background (The Wall 
Street Journal, September 11, 2009; USA Today, September 11, 2009). 
According to the U.S. Bureau of Census, the poverty proportion of the 
non-Hispanic white was 8.6 percent in 2008, those of 
African-Americans and Hispanic were 24.7 percent and 23.2 percent 
respectively, almost three times of that of the white (The New York 
Times, September 29, 2009). About one quarter of American Indians 
lived below the poverty line. In 2008, 30.7 percent of Hispanic, 19.1 
percent of African-Americans and 14.5 percent of non-Hispanic white 
lived without health insurance (Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance 
Coverage in the United States: 2008, www.census.gov). According to a 
report issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, a record 10,552 fair housing discrimination complaints 
were filed in fiscal 2008, 35 percent of which were alleged race 
discrimination (The Washington Post, June 10, 2009). The U.S. Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention reported that while 
African-Americans make up 12 percent of the US population, they 
represent nearly half of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths every 
year (The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2009; revised statistics 
released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Employment and occupational discrimination against minority groups is 
very serious. Minority groups bear the brunt of the U.S. 
unemployment. According to news reports, the U.S. unemployment rate 
in October 2009 was 10.2 percent. The jobless rate of the U.S. 
African-Americans jumped to 15.7 percent, that of the Hispanic rose 
to 13.1 percent and that of the white was 9.5 percent (USA Today, 
November 6, 2009). Unemployment rate of the black aged between 16 and 
24 saw a record high of 34.5 percent, more than three times the 
average rate. Unemployment rates for the black in cities such as 
Detroit and Milwaukee had reached 20 percent (The Washington Post, 
December 10, 2009). In some American Indians communities, 
unemployment rate was as high as 80 percent (The China Press, 
November 6, 2009). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
the unemployment rate for black male college graduates aged 25 and 
older in 2009 has been twice that of white male college graduates, 
8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent (The New York Times, December 
1, 2009). In 2008, a record number of workers filed federal job 
discrimination complaints, with allegations of race discrimination 
making up the greatest portion at more than one-third of the 95,000 
total claims (AP, April 27, 2009). According to an investigation by 
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Houston-based oil 
and gas drilling company faced five complaints of racial harassment 
and discrimination (AP, November 18, 2009). According to a news 
report, by the end of May 2009, the black and Hispanic groups each 
accounted for roughly 27 percent of New York City's population, but 
only 3 percent of the 11,529 firefighters were black, and about 6 
percent were Hispanic since the city's fire department unfairly 
excluded hundreds of qualified people of color from the opportunity 
to serve (The New York Times, July 23, 2009).

The U.S. minority groups face discriminations in education. According 
to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, 33 percent of the 
non-Hispanic white has college degrees, proportion of the black was 
only 20 percent and Hispanic was 13 percent (US Bureau of Census, 
April 27, 2009, www.census.gov). According to a report, from 2003 to 
2008, 61 percent of black applicants and 46 percent of 
Mexican-American applicants were denied acceptance at all of the law 
schools to which they applied, compared with 34 percent of white 
applicants (The New York Times, January 7, 2010). African-American 
children accounted for only 17 percent of the U.S. public school 
students, but accounted for 32 percent of the total number which were 
expelled from the schools. According to a research by the University 
of North Carolina and Michigan State University, most of the black 
juvenile believed that they were victims of racial discrimination 
(Science Daily, April 29, 2009). According to another study conducted 
among 5,000 children in Birmingham, Ala., Houston and Los Angeles, 
prejudice was reported by 20 percent of blacks and 15 percent of 
Hispanics. The study showed that racial discrimination was an 
important cause to mental health problems for children of varied 
races. Hispanic children who reported racism were more than three 
times as likely as other children to have symptoms of depression, 
blacks were more than twice as likely (USA Today, May 5, 2009).


Racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial system is very 
distinct. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, by the end of 
2008, 3,161 men and 149 women per 100,000 persons in the U.S. black 
population were under imprisonment (www.ojp.usdoj.gov). The number of 
life imprisonment without parole given to African-American young 
people was ten times of that given to white young people in 25 
states. The figure in California was 18 times. In major U.S. cities, 
there are more than one million people who were stopped and 
questioned by police in streets, nearly 90 percent of them were 
minority males. Among those questioned, 50 percent were 
African-Americans and 30 percent were Hispanics. Only 10 percent were 
white people (The China Press, October 9, 2009). A report released by 
New York City Police Department, of the people involved in police 
shootings whose ethnicity could be determined in 2008, 75 percent 
were black, 22 percent were Hispanic; and 3 percent were white (The 
New York Times, November 17, 2009). According to a report by Human 
Rights Watch, from 1980 to 2007, the ratio of the African-Americans 
being arrested for dealing drugs across the U.S. was 2.8 to 5.5 times 
of that of the white (www.hrw.org, March 2, 2009).

Since the Sept. 11 event, discrimination against Muslims is 
increasing. Nearly 58 percent of Americans think Muslims are subject 
to "a lot" of discrimination, according to two combined surveys 
released by the Pew Research Center. About 73 percent of young people 
aged 18 to 29 are more likely to say Muslims are the most 
discriminated against (http://www.washingtontimes.com, September 10, 2009).

Immigrants live in misery. According to a report by the U.S. branch 
of Amnesty International, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants were 
detained by U.S. immigration authorities each year, and the illegal 
immigrants under custody exceeded 30,000 for each single day (World 
Journal, March 26, 2009). At the same time, hundreds of legal 
immigrants were put under arrest, denied entry or even sent back 
under escort every year (Sing Tao Daily, April 13, 2009). A report 
released by the Constitution Project and Human Rights Watch revealed 
that from 1999 to 2008, about 1.4 million detained immigrants were 
transferred. Tens of thousands of longtime residents of cities like 
Los Angeles and Philadelphia were sent, by force, to remote immigrant 
jails in Texas or Louisiana (The New York Times, November 2, 2009). 
The New York City Bar Association received a startling petition in 
October 2008 which was signed by 100 men, all locked up without 
criminal charges in the Varick Street Detention Facility in the 
middle of Manhattan. The letter described their cramped, filthy 
quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners 
were put to work for 1 dollar a day (The New York Times, November 2, 
2009). Some detained women who were still in lactation period were 
denied breast pumps in the facilities, resulting in fever, pain, 
mastitis, and the inability to continue breastfeeding upon release 
(www.hrw.org, March 16, 2009). A total of 104 people have died while 
in custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency since 
October, 2003 (The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2009).

Ethnic hatred crimes are frequent. According to statistics released 
by the U.S. Federal Investigation Bureau on November 23, 2009, a 
total of 7,783 hate crimes occurred in 2008 in the United States, 
51.3 percent of which were originated by racial discrimination and 
19.5 percent were for religious bias and 11.5 percent were for 
national origins (www.fbi.gov). Among those hate crimes, more than 70 
percent were against black people. In 2008, anti-black offenses 
accounted for 26 persons per 1,000 people, and anti-white crimes 
accounted for 18 persons per 1,000 people (victim characteristics, 
October 21, 2009, www.fbi.gov). On June 10, 2009, a white supremacist 
gunned down a black guard of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with 
another two wounded (The Washington Post, June 11, 2009, The Wall 
Street Journal, June 11, 2009). According to a report issued by the 
Southern Poverty Law Center, an environment of racial intolerance and 
ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public 
officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in Suffolk 
County of New York State during the past decade (The New York Times, 
September 3, 2009).


V. On the Rights of Women and Children

The living conditions of women and children in the United States are 
deteriorating and their rights are not properly guaranteed.

Women do not enjoy equal social and political status as men. Women 
account for 51 percent of the U.S. population, but only 92 women, or 
17 percent of the seats, serve in the current 111th U.S. Congress. 
Seventeen women serve in the Senate and 75 women serve in the House 
(Members of the 111th United States Congress, 
http://en.wikipedia.org). A study shows minorities and women are 
unlikely to hold top positions at big U.S. charities and nonprofits. 
The study reveals that women make up 18.8 percent of nonprofit CEOs 
compared to just 3 percent at Fortune 500 companies. Among the 400 
biggest charities in the U.S., no cultural organization, hospital, 
public affairs group, Jewish federation or other religious 
organization is headed by a woman (The Washington Times, September 20, 2009).

Women have difficulties in finding a job and suffer from low income 
and poor financial situations. According to statistics from the U.S. 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), workplace 
discrimination charge filings with the federal agency nationwide rose 
to 95,402 during Fiscal Year 2008, a 15 percent increase from the 
previous fiscal year. Charge of workplace discrimination because of a 
job applicant's sex maintained a high proportion (www.eeoc.gov, 
November 3, 2009). According to statistics released by the U.S. 
Census Bureau in September 2009, the median incomes of full-time 
female workers in 2008 were 35,745 U.S. dollars, 77 percent of those 
of corresponding men whose median earnings were 46,367 U.S. dollars, 
which is lower than the 78 percent in 2007 (The Wall Street Journal, 
September 11, 2009; www.census.gov, September 10, 2009). According to 
the Associated Press, a female pharmacist who had been working for 
Walmart for ten years was fired in 2004 for demanding the same income 
as her male counterparts (The Associated Press, October 5, 2009). By 
the end of 2008, 4.2 million, or 28.7 percent of families with a 
female householder where no husband is present were poor 
(www.census.gov, September 10, 2009). About 64 million, or 70 percent 
of working-age American women have no health insurance coverage, or 
have inadequate coverage, high medical bills or debt problems, or 
problems in accessing care because of cost (The China Press, May 12, 2009).

Women are frequent victims of violence and sexual assault. It is 
reported that the United States has the highest rape rate among 
countries which report such statistics. It is 13 times higher than 
that of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan (Occurrence of 
rape, http://www.sa.rochester.edu). In San Diego, a string of similar 
attacks happened to five women who have been sexually assaulted by a 
home invader in March 2009 (Sing Tao Daily, March 14, 2009). 
According to a report released by the Pentagon, more than 2,900 
sexual assaults in the military were reported in 2008, up nearly 9 
percent from the year before. And of those, only 292 cases resulted 
in a military trial. The report said the actual numbers of such cases 
could be five to ten times of the reported figure (The evening news 
of the Columbia Broadcasting System, March 17, 2009). Reuters 
reported that based on in-depth interviews on 40 servicewomen, 10 
said they had been raped, five said they were sexually assaulted 
including attempted rape, and 13 reported sexual harassment (Reuters, 
April 16, 2009).


American children suffer from hunger and cold. A report from the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture showed that 16.7 million children, or one 
fourth of the U.S. total, had not enough food in 2008 (The Washington 
Post, USA Today, November 17, 2009). The food relief institution 
Feeding America said in a report that more than 3.5 million children 
under the age of five face hunger or malnutrition. This figure 
accounts for 17 percent of American children aged five and under. In 
11 states, more than 20 percent of young children were at risk for 
hunger. Louisiana, with 24.2 percent, had the highest rate of child 
food insecurity (www.feedingamerica.org, May 7, 2009). Children at or 
below 18 account for more than one third of the U.S. people in 
poverty. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that the number 
of children younger than 18 who live in poverty increased from 13.3 
million in 2007 to 14.1 million in 2008 (http://www.census.gov, The 
Washington Post, September 11, 2009). According to statistics from 
the U.S-based National Center on Family Homelessness, from 2005 to 
2006, more than 1.5 million children, or one in every 50 children, 
were homeless in the U.S. every year. Among the homeless children, 42 
percent were younger than 6 and the majority were African-Americans 
and Indians (CNN.com, MSNBUC.com, March 10, 2009). In 2008, nearly 
one tenth of the children in the United States were not covered by 
health insurance. It was reported that about 7.3 million children, or 
9.9 percent of the American total, were without health insurance in 
2008. In Nevada, 20.2 percent of the children were uncovered by 
insurance (http://www.census.gov, the Washington Post, September 21). 
On August 13, 2009, a state board voted that California will begin 
terminating health insurance for more than 60,000 children on October 
1. The program could ultimately drop nearly 670,000 children by the 
end of June 2010 (The Los Angeles Times, The China Press, August 14, 
2009). A research led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center showed 
that lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 
17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the U.S. in the span of 
less than two decades (Journal of Public Health, October 30, 2009). 
The A/H1N1 flu has infected about 8 million children under 18 from 
April to October 2009, killing 540 of them, according to the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (USA Today, 
The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2009).

Children are exposed to violence and living in fear. It is reported 
that 1,494 children younger than 18 nationwide were murdered in 2008 
(USA Today, October 8, 2009). A report released by the Health 
Department of the New York City on June 16, 2009 showed that between 
2001 and 2007, the national average rate of child deaths was 20 per 
100,000 children aged 1 to 12 years. Homicide rates were 1.3 deaths 
per 100,000 among the group (http://www.nyc.gov). A survey conducted 
by the U.S. Justice Department on 4,549 kids and adolescents aged 17 
and younger between January and May of 2008 showed, more than 60 
percent of children surveyed were exposed to violence within the past 
year, either directly or indirectly. Nearly half of all children 
surveyed were assaulted at least once in the past year, about 6 
percent were victimized sexually, and 13 percent reported having been 
physically bullied in the past year (The Associated Press, October 7, 
2009). There have been at least 1,227 children died from abuse or 
neglect in Texas since 2002 (The Houston Chronicle, October 22, 
2009). According to research of U.S.-based institution and public 
health media reports, in the U.S., one third of children who run away 
or were expelled from home performed sexual acts in exchange for 
food, drugs and a place to stay every year. The justice system no 
longer considers them as young victims, but as juvenile offenders 
(The China Press, October 28, 2009).

Child farmworkers are prevalent. An organization devoted to 
protecting children's rights disclosed that as many as 400,000 
children are estimated to work on U.S. farms. Davis Strauss, 
executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity 
Programs, noted that for decades, children, some as young as eight 
years old, have labored in the fields using sharp tools and toiling 
amongst dangerous pesticides. The association's president Ernie 
Flores said children account for about 20 percent of all farm 
fatalities in the United States (Spain's Uprising newspaper, October 
14, 2009). A labor standards act permits a child beyond 13 to work in 
heat for long time in a farm, but does not permit that child to work 
in an air-conditioned office and even forbids them working in a fast 
food restaurant.

The U.S. is the only country in the world that does not apply parole 
system to minors. Detentions of juveniles have increased 44 percent 
from 1985 to 2002. Many children only committed only minor crimes but 
could not get assistance from lawyers. Many procurators and judges 
turned a blind eye on abuse in juvenile prisons.


VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations

The United States with its strong military power has pursued hegemony 
in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and 
trespassing their human rights.

As the world's biggest arms seller, its deals have greatly fueled 
instability across the world. The United States also expanded its 
military spending, already the largest in the world, by 10 percent in 
2008 to 607 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 42 percent of the 
world total (The AP, June 9, 2009).

According to a report by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. foreign arms 
sales in 2008 soared to 37.8 billion U.S. dollars from 25.4 billion a 
year earlier, up by nearly 50 percent, accounting for 68.4 percent of 
the global arms sales that were at its four-year low (Reuters, 
September 6, 2009). At the beginning of 2010, the U.S. government 
announced a 6.4-billion-U.S. dollar arms sales package to Taiwan 
despite strong protest from the Chinese government and people, which 
seriously damaged China's national security interests and aroused 
strong indignation among the Chinese people.

The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan have placed heavy burden on American 
people and brought tremendous casualties and property losses to the 
people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has led to the death 
of more than 1million Iraqi civilians, rendered an equal number of 
people homeless and incurred huge economic losses. In Afghanistan, 
incidents of the U.S. army killing innocent people still keep 
occurring. Five Afghan farmers were killed in a U.S. air strike when 
they were loading cucumbers into a van on August 5, 2009 
(http://www.rawa.org). On June 8, the U.S. Department of Defense 
admitted that the U.S. raid on Taliban on May 5 caused death of 
Afghan civilians as the military failed to abide by due procedures. 
The Afghan authorities have identified 147 civilian victims, 
including women and children, while a U.S. officer put the death toll 
under 30 (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 2009).

Prisoner abuse is one of the biggest human rights scandals of the 
United States. A report presented to the 10th meeting of Human Rights 
Council of the United Nations in 2009 by its Special Rapporteur on 
the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms 
while countering terrorism showed that the United States has pursued 
a comprehensive set of practices including special deportation, 
long-term and secret detentions and acts violating the United Nations 
Convention against Torture. The rapporteur also said, in a report 
submitted to the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations, that 
the United States and its private contractors tortured male Muslims 
detained in Iraq and other places by stacking the naked prisoners in 
pyramid formation, coercing the homosexual sexual behaviors and 
stripping them in stark nakedness (The Washington Post, April 7, 
2009). The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has begun 
interrogation by torture since 2002. The U.S. government lawyers 
disclosed that since 2001, CIA has destroyed 92 videotapes relating 
to the interrogation to suspected terrorists, 12 of them including 
the use of torture (The Washington Post, March 3, 2009). The CIA 
interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to frighten a 
captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information (The 
Washington Post, August 22, 2009). The U.S. Justice Department memos 
revealed the CIA kept prisoners shackled in a standing position for 
as long as 180 hours, more than a dozen of them deprived of sleep for 
at least 48 hours, three for more than 96 hours, and one for the 
nearly eight-day maximum. Another seemed to endorse sleep deprivation 
for 11 days, stated on one memo (http://www.chron.com). The CIA 
interrogators used waterboarding 183 times against the accused 9/11 
major plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and 83 times against suspected 
Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). A 
freed Guantanamo prisoner said he experienced the "medieval" torture 
at Guantanamo Bay and in a secret CIA prison in Kabul (AFP, London, 
March 7, 2009). In June 2006, three Guantanamo Bay inmates could have 
been suffocated to death during interrogation on the same evening and 
their deaths passed off as suicides by hanging, revealed by a 
six-month joint investigation for Harpers Magazine and NBC News in 
2009 (www.guardian.co.uk, January 18, 2010). A Somali named Mohamed 
Saleban Bare, jailed at Guantanamo Bay for eight years, told AFP the 
prison was "hell on earth" and some of his colleagues lost sight and 
limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed (AFP, Hargisa, Somali, 
December 21, 2009). A 31-year-old Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay 
who had been on a long hunger strike apparently committed suicide in 
2009 after four prior suicide deaths beginning at 2002 (The New York 
Times, June 3, 2009). The U.S. government held more than 600 
prisoners at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. A United Nations report 
singled out the Bagram detention facility for criticism, saying some 
ex-detainees allege being subjected to severe torture, even sexual 
abuse, and some prisoners put under detention for as long as five 
years. It also reported that some were held in cages containing 15 to 
20 men and that two detainees died in questionable circumstances 
while in custody (IPS, New York, February 25, 2009). An investigation 
by U.S. Justice Department showed 2,000 Taliban surrendered 
combatants were suffocated to death by the U.S. army-controlled 
Afghan armed forces (http://www.yourpolicicsusa.com, July 16, 2009).


The United States has been building its military bases around the 
world, and cases of violation of local people's human rights are 
often seen. The United States is now maintaining 900 bases worldwide, 
with more than 190,000 military personnel and 115,000 relevant staff 
stationed. These bases are bringing serious damage and environmental 
contamination to the localities. Toxic substances caused by bomb 
explosions are taking their tolls on the local children. It has been 
reported that toward the end of the U.S. military bases' presence in 
Subic and Clark, as many as 3,000 cases of raping the local women had 
been filed against the U.S. servicemen, but all were dismissed 
(http://www.lexisnexis.com, May 17, 2009).

The United States has been maintaining its economic, commercial and 
financial embargo against Cuba for almost 50 years. The blockade has 
caused an accumulated direct economic loss of more than 93 billion 
U.S. dollars to Cuba. On October 28, 2009, the 64th session of the 
United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on the 
"Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo 
imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," with a 
recorded vote of 187 in favor to three against, and two abstentions. 
This marked the 18th consecutive year the assembly had overwhelmingly 
called on the United States to lift the blockade without delay 
(Overwhelming International Rejection of US Blockade of Cuba at UN, 
www.cubanews.ain.cu).

The United States is pushing its hegemony under the pretence of 
"Internet freedom." The United States monopolizes the strategic 
resources of the global Internet, and has been retaining a tight grip 
over the Internet ever since its first appearance. There are 
currently 13 root servers of Internet worldwide, and the United 
States is the place where the only main root server and nine out of 
the rest 12 root servers are located. All the root servers are 
managed by the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
Numbers), which is, by the authority of the U.S. government, 
responsible for the management of the global root server system, the 
domain name system and the Internet Protocol address. The United 
States has declined all the requests from other countries as well as 
international organizations including the United Nations to break the 
U.S. monopoly over the root servers and to decentralize its 
management power over the Internet. The United States has been 
intervening in other countries' domestic affairs in various ways 
taking advantage of its control over Internet resources. The United 
States has a special troop of hackers, which is made up of hacker 
proficients recruited from all over the world. When post-election 
unrest broke out in Iran in the summer of 2009, the defeated 
reformist camp and its advocators used Internet tools such as Twitter 
to spread their messages. The U.S. State Department asked the 
operator of Twitter to delay its scheduled maintenance to assist with 
the opposition in creating a favorable momentum of public opinion. In 
May 2009, one web company, prompted by the U.S. authorities, blocked 
its Messenger instant messaging service in five countries including Cuba.

The United States is using a global interception system named 
"ECHELON" to eavesdrop on communications worldwide. A report of the 
European Parliament pointed out that the "ECHELON" system is a 
network controlled by the United States for intelligence gathering 
and analyzing. The system is able to intercept and monitor the 
content of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other digital information 
transmitted via public telephone networks, satellites and microwave 
links. The European Parliament has criticized the United States for 
using its "ECHELON" system to commit crimes such as civilian's 
privacy infringement or state-conducted industrial espionage, among 
which was the most striking case of Saudi Arabia's 6-billion-dollar 
aircraft contract (see Wikipedia). Telephone calls of British 
Princess Diana had been intercepted and eavesdropped because her 
global campaign against land-mines was in conflict with the U.S. 
policies. The Washington Post once reported that such spying 
activities conducted by the U.S. authorities were reminiscent of the 
Vietnam War when the United States imposed wiretapping and 
surveillance upon domestic anti-war activists.

The United States ignores international human rights conventions, and 
takes a passive attitude toward international human rights 
obligations. It signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social 
and Cultural Rights 32 years ago and the Convention on the 
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 29 years 
ago, but has ratified neither of them yet. It has not ratified the 
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities either. On 
Sept. 13, 2007, the 61st UN General Assembly voted to adopt the 
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has been the 
UN's most authoritative and comprehensive document to protect the 
rights of indigenous peoples. The United States also refused to 
recognize the declaration.

The above-mentioned facts show that the United States not only has a 
bad domestic human rights record, but also is a major source of many 
human rights disasters around the world. For a long time, it has 
placed itself above other countries, considered itself "world human 
rights police" and ignored its own serious human rights problems. It 
releases Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to 
accuse other countries and takes human rights as a political 
instrument to interfere in other countries' internal affairs, defame 
other nations' image and seek its own strategic interests. This fully 
exposes its double standards on the human rights issue, and has 
inevitably drawn resolute opposition and strong denouncement from 
world people. At a time when the world is suffering a serious human 
rights disaster caused by the U.S. subprime crisis-induced global 
financial crisis, the U.S. government still ignores its own serious 
human rights problems but revels in accusing other countries. It is 
really a pity.

We hereby advise the U.S. government to draw lessons from the 
history, put itself in a correct position, strive to improve its own 
human rights conditions and rectify its acts in the human rights field.






Freedom Archives
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