China issues report on US human rights

BEIJING - China published a report on the United States' human rights situation on Friday.

The report, titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2014," was released by the Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, in response to "the 2014 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" issued by the US State Department on June 25 local time.

China's report states that the US made comments on the human rights situations in many countries while showing not a bit of regret for or intention to improve its own terrible human rights record.

"The US, a self-proclaimed human rights defender, saw no improvements in its existent human rights issues, but reported numerous new problems," it says.

While its own human rights situation was increasingly grave, the US violated human rights in other countries in a more brazen manner, and was given more "red cards" in the international human rights field, according to the report.

The US was haunted by spreading guns, frequent occurrence of violent crimes, which threatened citizens' civil rights. The excessive use of force by police officers led to many deaths, sparking public outcry, the report says.

An unarmed 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson, a town in Missouri. After the grand jury of both Missouri and New York decided to bring no charges against the white police officer, massive protests broke out in more than 170 cities nationwide, it cites cn.nytimes.com as saying.

"The US used cruel tortures indiscriminately, notably those carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)," it says.

To acquire intelligence from suspects of terrorism and extremism, the CIA used brutal methods, such as sleep deprivation, waterboarding, long-term solitary confinement, slamming prisoners against the wall, lashing, death threat and even "rectal rehydration" or rectal feeding, according to the report.

"The US is a country with grim problems of racial discrimination, and institutional discrimination against ethnic minorities continued," according to the report.

Serious racial bias persisted in the police and justice systems. Minority groups and indigenous people are subject to unfairness in environment, election, health care, housing, education and other fields, it says.

In August 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its concluding observation on the periodic report of the US on the latter's implementation of relevant convention, slammed the US for violating the rights of ethnic minorities, indigenous people, immigrants and other minority groups.

Members of racial and ethnic minorities continued to be disproportionately arrested, incarcerated and subjected to harsher sentences, according to the report.

"American women and children's rights were not fully protected, " it says, adding that women were discriminated at workplaces, and domestic violence was prevalent.

The report quotes media reports as saying that 2.1 million American women on average were assaulted by men each year. Three females were murdered by their partner each day, and four females died each day as a result of abuse.

Also, "millions of American children were homeless." Three children died each day as a result of abuse. School violence and sex assaults were pervasive and gun shootings happened from time to time, it says.