The Information Office of the State Council on Thursday released a
report entitled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in
2002."
Following is a summary of the document:
The US State Department released the "Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices for 2002" on March 31, when the United States is
facing condemnation from people of various countries in the world
for unilaterally launching a war against Iraq.
With the United States pretending to be "the world's judge of human
rights," the reports once again assessed the human rights
situations in over 190 countries and regions in the world.
The reports carry distorted pictures and accusations of human
rights conditions in China and other countries, but they mention
not even a word of the human rights problems in the United States
itself.
Therefore, it is necessary to make known to the world the human
rights violations in the United States in 2002.
I. Ineffective Protection of Life and Security of Person
In
American society, excessive violence has resulted in ineffective
protection of life and security of the person.
According to a report released by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) on Oct. 28, 2002, the United States recorded
11.8 million crime offenses in 2001, a 2.1 percent increase over
2000.
The offenses included four violent crimes (murder and non-negligent
manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), and
three property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle
theft). Firearms were involved in 26.2 percent of violent crime
cases, and murder cases increased by 2.5 percent.
There was an offense in every 2.7 seconds, and there were 44
murders, 248 rapes and 26 hate crimes each day. Among the crime
offences were 15,980 murders and 90,491 forcible rapes.
Crime in many major American cities went up in 2002. In Washington
D.C., drug abuse, gang violence and prostitution ran rampant, and
crime went up by 36 percent from 2001; in Boston the crime rates
increased by 67 percent, and in Los Angeles, by 27 percent.
The murder rate in the United States was five to seven times higher
than most industrial nations.
During January-November 2002, New York City reported 489 murder
cases; Chicago registered 485 homicide cases, in which 515 people
were killed; and Detroit reported 346 murders.
During the same period Los Angeles reported 595 murder cases with
614 people killed, up 11.3 percent and 20.5 percent compared to the
same period in 2001 and 2000, respectively (Los Angeles, Nov. 21,
2002, AFP).
The Constitution of the United States provides that the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and the
constitutions of 44 states in the nation include provisions
safeguarding citizens' right to possess guns.
In
the United States, guns owned by private individuals exceed 200
million, averaging nearly one for every citizen. In 2002, the
numbers of gun buyers across the United States went up by 13
percent to twice over previous years, and the number of rifle
owners increased even faster.
The National Rifle Association of the United States has over 2.8
million members. Excessive gun ownership has led to frequent
shootings, and victims of firearms-related crime number more than
30,000 a year.
On
March 26, a retired sheriff's deputy in Merced County, California,
shot and killed his 5-year-old daughter and his three stepchildren
while his estranged wife was out for a walk, then committed suicide
with the body of one of the youngsters in his arms.
On
May 30, a gunman opened fire inside a grocery store at a Top Valu
Market near the downtown marina in Long Beach, California, killing
a woman and a 7-year-old girl and wounding four others before he
was fatally shot by police (Long Beach, California, May 31, 2002,
AFP).
From October 2 to October 22, serial gun shooting cases occurred in
Washington D.C. and neighboring Maryland and Virginia states, in
which ten people were killed and three others were seriously
wounded.
The number of gun shootings went up by 40 percent in Los Angeles in
2002 over 2001. Between the evening of November 19 and the early
morning of November 20, five separate cases of gun shooting took
place in downtown Los Angeles, leaving two people dead and seven
others wounded.
Crime rates among juveniles in the United States have remained
high, with youngsters accounting for 20 percent of violent
crime.
Drug abuse among youngsters has kept increasing. Drug abuse among
tenth-grade high school students in the United States went up from
11.6 percent in 1991 to 22.7 percent in 2001, and 34.4 percent of
senior high school students in New York City have at least taken
marijuana once.
In
2001, there were 638,000 narcotics-related cases, and drug abuse
accounted for 25 percent of violent crime in the United States.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, crime in schools
decreased as most schools have installed metal detectors and video
cameras, but it was reported that 6 percent of the students still
carried guns to school.
Violence in schools such as bullying rose by 12 percent, and at
least 10,000 students in the United States choose to stay at home
once in a month for fear of being bullied ("School Crime
Decreasing, US Says, But Students Still Fear Bullying, Reports
Show", Dec. 10, 2002, Sun).
Violence in nursing homes for the aged in the United States is
worrisome. In March 2002, a report submitted to the US Congress
said that inmates in some of such homes had suffered splash of cold
water, battery and sexual assault.
However, such acts had never been regarded as crime, and most of
them had not been prosecuted. Statistics show that there are 17,000
homes for the aged and similar institutions in the United States,
housing 1.6 million aged Americans.
Violations of law have been found in about 26 percent of them, and
two percent of which have caused physical injuries.
II. Serious Human Rights Violation by Law Enforcement
Officials
The rights of ordinary Americans have met with challenge after the
September 11 terrorist attacks. The anti-terrorism law USA Patriot
Act, which took effect on October 26, 2001, provides law
enforcement agencies with greater powers for investigation,
including wiretapping of phone calls and Internet E-mail
communications by suspect terrorists.
A
Federal Court of Appeals on November 18 ruled that the Department
of Justice asking for expanding its investigative powers is
constitutional, and therefore should not be restricted. It aroused
great concern among the American public that the DOJ would encroach
upon their right of privacy in its work.
Commenting on the court ruling, US House Judiciary Committee
Representative John Conyers said in a statement the same day,
"Piece by piece, this Administration is dismantling the basic
rights afforded to every American under the Constitution." Some
civil rights and electronic information organizations worried that
there would have no effective protection of civil rights after the
ruling.
Police brutality is a chronic malady in American society. On July
6, 2002, a bystander videotaped a scene in which several white
police officers at Inglewood, Los Angeles, slammed the head of a
handcuffed 16-year-old black, named Donovan Jackson, on a squad car
and punched him in his eyes, neck and hands. Afterwards, one police
officer involved was ordered a paid leave. In contrast, the man who
filmed the videotape was detained on July 10.
In
another incident, on July 8, Oklahoma City police officers
repeatedly beat a black suspect on the ground with their batons.
The suspect was pepper-sprayed twice. On September 16, police in
Boston shot at a suspect car hijacker in the downtown area and
wounded him seriously. The incident led to a mass demonstration
against police brutality.
Indiscriminate arrests are another serious problem in the United
States. According to an investigation by the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), prosecutors declined to bring charges in
15,798 arrests in 2001, or 26 percent of the 60,412 cases they
reviewed that year, the vast majority brought by Baltimore
police.
In
2002 the number of monthly arrests increased by 15 percent over the
previous year to 7,832. Prosecutors declined to charge in24 percent
of the cases. Two-thirds of the cases they dropped were dropped on
the day of arrest because they could not be proved in court (May 9,
2002, Sun).
Within half a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the
FBI detained for security reasons more than 1,200 non-US nationals,
mainly men from Muslim or Middle Eastern countries (Washington,
Dec.10, 2002, EFE). Most of them were detained for overstaying
their visas, and according to rules the detention should last for
no more than 48 hours. However, many were actually held in custody
for a month or more, or even up to 50 days.
While in custody, they were deprived of their basic rights --
making phone calls, access to a lawyer, family visits, being
informed of the reasons for the detention, or challenging the
lawfulness of the detention.
They were let out for exercise and air less than an hour a day.
Many were handcuffed, and some were even bundled. Those falling ill
could not get timely medical treatment.
In
many cases torture was used to extract confessions, and unjust
charges were often reported in the United States. According to a
Reuters report on February 11, 2002, US authorities confirmed that
over 200 inmates had been wrongly convicted since 1973; among them
99 inmates on death row had been proved innocent, but most of them
had not got compensations (Washington, Feb.11, 2002, Reuters).
Ray Krone walked out an Arizona courtroom a free man in April 2002
after spending 10 years and three months in prison, with more than
two years in the death cell (USA Today, June 18, 2002). Yet, he
could hardly obtain any compensation from the state government in
accordance with state laws.
A
black man in Detroit, named Eddie Joe Lloyd, served a term of 17
years, three months and five days in jail on a charge of raping and
murdering a teenage girl before he was freed in August 2002 (New
York Times, Aug. 27, 2002).
The wrong verdicts are closely related to confessions from innocent
people extracted by police. According to an ABC (American
Broadcasting Company) news report on March 15, 2002, every year
thousands of criminals are convicted on the basis of confessions
obtained from police interrogations.
Also according to the ABC news report, in 1993, Gary Gauger, a man
in Illinois, was forced to confess he had killed his parents, a
crime he did not commit, when he broke down after 21 hours of
police interrogation. He was then sentenced to death for double
murder. Two years later, the real killers confessed to the crime in
an unrelated federal investigation. Gauger was freed in 1996, after
spending three years behind bars.
The United States is one of the few countries to impose capital
punishment on child offenders and mentally ill people in the world.
Twenty-three US states permit the execution of child offenders
(under 18 at the time of the crime). Two thirds of the executions
of child offenders over the past decade worldwide were carried out
in the United States.
Since 1985, 18 child offenders had been executed, half of them in
Texas State (May 9, 2002, EFE). The executions in 2002 also
included three child offenders and one mentally ill man. There were
80 child offenders on death row, and the figure in the case of the
mentally retarded was estimated to be around 200 to 300. (The
Amnesty International)
Prisons in the United States are jam-packed with inmates. According
to a report of the Bureau of Justice Statistics under the
Department of Justice released on August 25, 2002, the adult US
correctional population reached a record of almost 6.6 million at
the end of 2001, or fourfold of the 1980 figure. About 3.1 percent
of the nation's adult population, or 1 in every 32 adult residents,
were on probation or parole or were held in a prison or jail.
Roughly two million Americans are currently behind bars.
In
a report titled "A stigma that never fades", the British business
magazine Economist said that America is "the world's most
aggressive jailer", and "when local jails are included in the
American tally, the United States locks up nearly 700 people per
100,000". (The Economist, August 10, 2002)
Poor management of prisons leads to lack of protection of inmates'
legitimate rights. Extortion, abuse, violence and sexual assault
are serious in prisons of the United States.
An
Amnesty International report released on May 14, 2002 said inmate
Frank Valdes at the Florida State Prison was beaten to death by
guards in July 1999. Autopsy reports proved massive injuries,
including 22 broken ribs and a fractured sternum, nose and jaw, and
there were boot marks on his face, neck, abdomen and back.
The three guards involved were charged of second-degree murder in
1999. But the Florida State prosecutors decided in February 2002 to
drop the charges.
According to reports of US human rights organizations, brutalities
targeted at inmates number about 100,000 a year in American
prisons. A former chief law officer of Virginia State estimated the
number of such brutalities to be at least 250,000 oras many as
600,000 a year.
Sexual assaults between male inmates are prominent in the prisons.
Most of such assaults are coupled with the use of force, causing
spread of HIV virus and physical and mental injuries on victims.
The prison and judicial departments remain indifferent towards such
complaints and take no punishment measures.
The Sun newspaper reported on August 31, 2002, the Baltimore City
Detention Center has a poorly run system of health care and suicide
prevention. In some cases, the problems resulted in jail suicides,
heart attack deaths and fatal asthma spasms that federal
authorities deemed preventable if the inmates had been properly
treated.
In
another case, a fire killed eight inmates locked in cells in
Mitchell County jail in North Carolina and injured 13 others. The
prison authority blamed lack of water sprinklers for the
tragedy.
III. Money-driven Democracy
Boasting itself to be the "model of democracy", the United States
has been trying hard to sell to the world its mode of
democracy.
In
fact, American "democracy" has always been democracy of the rich, a
small number of the population. Just as an article in the
International Herald Tribute of the January 24, 2002 issue says,
"The American problem is domination of politics by money."
The dominant role of money in American politics has been very
obvious, and elections have in fact been turned into races of
money.
During the midterm elections in 2002, spending on campaigning TV
advertising amounted to US$900 million, surpassing that for the
presidential election in 2000.
According to an analysis made by the Associated Press based of data
from the Federal Election Commission, in the 2002 midterm elections
95 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives and 75
percent of the seats in the Senate went to candidates who had spent
the most in campaigning.
In
a report filed on August 30, 2002, AP said President George W.
Bush, in order to win control of the House and the Senate, cashed
in on his cachet to raise donations for midterm elections of his
Republicans, and collected US$110 million for three GOP candidates
in Oklahoma and Arkansas, setting records in campaign cash raising
("Bush raises nearly $110 million for Republicans, setting record",
Aug. 30, 2002, Sun).
Election of judges in the United States is also like a race of
money. In the year of 2000, judge candidates in only two states
bought TV advertising, whereas during the midterm elections in
2002, chief justice candidates in nine states bought TV
commercials.
"Money politics" has made more and more American people lose
interest in political participation.
Statistics show the United States has experienced declining voter
turnout in presidential election years for about four decades.
Measured against the voting age population, turnout in presidential
election years fell from its high of 62.8 percent in 1960 to an
estimated 51.2 percent in 2000.
In
contrast, 60 percent of eligible voters shunned the midterm
elections in 2002, leaving the voter turnout at 40 percent.
A
survey of minority voters in three cities of California showed
almost all the surveyed were fed up with the fact that money can
buy over politics and were not interested in political
participation.
Asian American voters reckon money had too much influence over
politics, which is unfair; African Americans and Hispanics felt
being shut out of the door of politics and had become its
victims.
The United States has been flaunting its "freedom of the press,"
but it met with criticism from many sides in 2002 in this
respect.
In
an annual report published on Feb. 21, 2002, the International
Press Institute accused the United States of violating freedom of
the press and said it is the most astonishing event of 2001 that
the way the Bush administration treated the work of the media
during the Afghan war and the practices of the Bush administration
attempting to suppress freedom of speech by independent media
(Vienna, Feb. 21, 2002, AFP).
Two senior journalists with the Washington Post wrote in their book
entitled "The News About The News: American Journalism In Peril"
that practices of pursuing profits have destroyed the sense of
mission of the journalistic community of the United States, and
believed an overwhelming majority of media owners and publishing
businessmen forced newspaper editors and TV news executives to
concentrate on profits as opposed to quality of coverage (New York,
March 29, 2002, AP).
In
its annual report published on May 2, 2002, Reporters Without
Borders exposed since September 11 attacks, the United States has
exerted pressure on the journalistic community in the war against
terrorism, which has restricted freedom of the press (Paris, May 2,
2002, EFE).
On
August 6, 2002, a major news organ in the United States published a
survey showing the public wanting the media to "shut up".
The survey found among the respondents, 69 percent believe the
media is biased, and over two thirds of them read news reports with
disbelief.
IV. Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness
The United States is the only superpower in the world, however, the
poor, hungry and homeless have formed a "Third World" in this most
developed nation, owing to the widening gap in wealth between the
rich and the poor and social injustice.
In
the last two years, a series of scandals of major corporate fraud
were exposed in the United States, resulting in a credibility
crisis and financial losses, which has deprived ordinary Americans
of a sense of economic security due to the serious losses they
suffered. The Labor Department of the United States reported on
January 10, 2003 that between 2001 and 2002, the United States lost
1.6 million jobs. In December 2002, the country's unemployment rate
was six percent; the number of jobless people stood at 8.6 million;
and employers slashed payrolls by 101,000 workers (Jan. 11, 2003,
Sun).
In
the United States, 60 percent of households own stock shares. As
corporate fraud scandals brought down the stock market, its
capitalization was slashed by US$2.5 trillion, with the employees
of the affected big firms and their shareholders suffering great
losses. Since energy giant Enron filed for bankruptcy protection,
its stock price plunged from US$85 a share to less than US$1 a
share. Millions of Enron stockholders have suffered enormous
losses. A large number of Enron employees lost all their pension
funds, while teachers, firefighters and some government workers
lost US$1 billion in pensions.
WorldCom's filing for bankruptcy also plunged its stock share price
to a few cents from US$62; 17,000 of its employees became jobless,
while investors had their interests severely damaged (June 26,
2003, Sun).
The gap in wealth between rich and poor has become even wider. The
US Federal Reserve reported on January 22, 2003 that between1992
and 1998, the gap in wealth between the 10 percent of families with
the highest incomes and the 20 percent of families with the lowest
incomes increased by 9 percent, but between 1998 and 2001, the gap
jumped by 70 percent.
The Washington Post reported on September 24, 2002 that the top20
percent residents with highest income in the United States
accounted for 50 percent of the total income of the country, while
the share of the richest 5 percent (with an annual income of
US$150,000 and above) in the national total went up from 22.1
percent in 2000 to 22.4 percent in 2001.
Poverty and hunger have kept increasing. According to the Census
Bureau of the United States, in 2001, another 1.3 million people
fell below the poverty line; in 2002, the poor population continued
growing.
According to the American organization Bread for the World,,
33million Americans lived in households that experience hunger or
the risk of hunger in 2002. The newspaper USA Today reported that
the nation's estimated 3 million homeless had harder times in
2002,as authorities reduced assistance to them and tough laws were
passed against them (USA Today, Dec. 27, 2002).
A
survey report published by the US Conference of Mayors indicates
that the year 2002 witnessed an average of 19 percent increase in
requests for emergency food assistance in 25 large cities in the
country, and also an average of 19 percent increase in requests for
emergency shelter assistance in 18 major cities, the steepest rise
in a decade.
And all the cities in the survey expect that requests for both
emergency food assistance and shelter assistance would increase
again in 2003. Boston Mayor and President of the US Conference of
Mayors Thomas M. Menino commented, "The world's richest and most
powerful nation must find a way to meet the basic needs of all its
residents."
The Associate Press reported on November 3, 2002 that 777,000
people in Los Angeles, or 33 percent of its population, were food
insecure and could not always afford to put food on the table. By
July 2002, homelessness in New York grew by 66 percent compared
with four years ago (Aug. 20, 2002, AP). In 2002, Los Angeles
County alone had 84,000 homeless people, and every night, 43
percent of 9,000-15,000 vagrants could not find shelters and had to
sleep on downtown sidewalks.
According to statistics by relevant American organizations, the
current homelessness situation in the United States has become
nearly as severe as at the end of World War II. Most vulnerable to
poverty and hunger are pregnant women, the aged, people without ID,
and single-parent families. The report by the US Conference of
Mayors indicates that among those requesting for emergency food
assistance, 48 percent were members of families with children; 38
percent of the adults requesting such assistance were employed; of
the homeless, 39 percent were from families with children, 22
percent were employed, and 73 percent were from single-parent
families.
V. Women and Children Are in Worrisome Situation
Discrimination against women is common in the United States. USA
Today reported on January 6, 2003 that women hold merely 14 percent
of seats in Congress. According to a survey report released by
researchers at Rutgers university, discrimination against ethnic
minorities was found in one third of business firms in the United
States, and discrimination against women was reported in one fourth
of 200,000 firms. In hospitals, shops, restaurants and bars, women
of African, Latin American and Asian descent made up 70 percent of
those who have been hurt.
American women are likely to become victims of crimes and violence.
A study report published by the Harvard School of Public Health on
April 17, 2002 said that American females are at the highest risk
of murder, and the US female homicide victimization rate is 5 times
that of all the other high income countries combined. The United
States accounts for 70 percent of all female homicides in the 25
high income countries, and 4,400 American females are murdered each
year, with about half by firearms.
American women are also likely to become victims of sexual
assaults. In 2002, several scandals of sexual assaults on women by
clergies were exposed. According to reports, over the past five
years, in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico,
Texas, and Wisconsin, a number of faith healing-related sexual
assaults were exposed, with some faith healers found to have raped
women during the therapy.
Police and public prosecutors believe that hundreds of women in Los
Angeles and other places were sexually abused when they sought help
from faith healers (March 13, 2002, L.A. Times). Agence France
Presse (AFP) reported that a survey conducted by researchers at St.
Louis University in 1996 but kept under wraps after completion
shows that about 40 percent of American Catholic nuns (nearly
35,000) have been sexually abused, often at the hands of a priest
or another nun. (Jan. 5, 2003, Washington, AFP).
American children often fall victim to domestic violence, social
crimes, their parents' divorces, and abandonment. According to a
study published by researchers at Harvard University in 2002,in
American states and regions with high gun ownership, children have
more chances to be murdered, to commit suicide or to meet
accidental death. Between 1988 and 1997, a total of 6,817 children,
aged 5-14, were shot to death in the 50 states of the United States
(Boston, Feb. 28, 2002, Reuters).
Young girls missing and the kidnapping of children are frequent.
Statistics show that in the United States, 58,000 children were
kidnapped by people other than their families each year, and 40
percent of them were slain in the end. Another 200,000 children
were kidnapped by their family members, mostly for the right of
custody (Washington, Aug. 6, 2002, Xinhua News Agency).
In
2002, a series of scandals of sexual assaults on children by
Catholic clergies were exposed. An article titled "Sins of the
Fathers" published by the Newsweek magazine on March 4, 2002
reported that the child-sexual-abuse settlements may have cost the
American church US$1 billion during the 1986-1996 period. Some 80
priests have been accused of sexually abusing children, with one
said to have assaulted more than 100 children over the past 40
years.
The Sun newspaper reported on April 29, 2002 that there were 46,000
priests in the United States, and in the past 18 years at least
1,500 had been charged (Sun, Apr. 29, 2002). According to the
newspaper Christian Science Monitor, the targets of sex-related
crimes committed by American clergies were mostly children, and
since 1985 over 70 clergies and priests were imprisoned for
molestation of children (Christian Science Monitor, March 21,
2002).
Many children have encountered serious difficulties in their life,
medical treatment and education, and many of them have not received
parental love and care. According to a report published by the
Public Policy Institute of California in November 2002, 20 percent
of Californian children aged under 5 years live in poverty,
compared with the national average of 15 percent. The New York
Times reported last July that the proportion of American children
who grow up in parentless families is increasing, from the previous
7.5 percent to the present 16.1 percent.
The non-governmental Women's Commission for Refugee Women and
Children says in its 2002 report that nearly 5,000 children were
detained every year by the US Immigration and Naturalization
Service for entering the United States illegally. Their average age
is 15 years, with the youngest only one and a half years.
Most of these children did not have other criminal records except
illegal entry. However, over 30 percent of these children were
commingled with young offenders, handcuffed and shackled, sent to
prisons or detained in warehouses with very poor safety
conditions.
VI. Deep-rooted Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination is deep-rooted in the United States. Senate
Republican leader Trent Lott had repeatedly made remarks supporting
racial segregation during his political life. He had tried by every
means to prevent the Congress from passing a bill on establishing
the birthday of Martin Luther King, a murdered civil rights leader
of the blacks, as a national holiday.
On
December 5, 2002, when attending a 100th birthday party for Sen.
Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, who ran for the presidency in
1948 as a segregationist candidate, Lott said that the United
States would be better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidency
that year. Lott's remarks triggered strong reaction of the
Congressional Black Caucus.
In
the end, Lott quitted his post as Senate Republican leader under
the pressure of public opinion ("Black Caucus unforgiving after
Lott's apology" by William M. Welch, Dec. 11 2002, USA Today).
For more than 100 years between 1862 and 1965, the United States
had enforced a law restricting immigrants from Asia and forbidding
marriage between immigrants of Asian descent and white people. Many
states nullified the law in the 1940s-1960s, but it is still in
effect in the states of New Mexico and Florida.
Racial discrimination is serious in law enforcement. According to a
study by the Justice Policy Institute of the United States, blacks
constitute only 12.9 percent of America's total population, but
black prisoners account for 46 percent of the total in jail in the
nation; approximately one in every five blacks is jailed for some
time during his or her life.
The number of blacks in jail is greater than that of blacks at
college. In 2000, about 800,000 blacks were in jail, compared with
only 600,000 blacks registered in institutions of higher learning.
Among the new inmates put in prison since 1980, people of African
and Latin American descent have accounted for 70 percent.
The Sun newspaper reported on Jan. 8, 2003 that defendants who kill
white people are significantly more likely to be charged with
capital murder and sentenced to death than are killers of
non-whites, and a black offender accused of killing a white victim
is most likely to be put on death row.
The paper quoted a study as saying that the probability that
someone accused of killing a white person will be charged with
capital murder is 1.6 times higher than the probability for a
black-victim homicide. Blacks who kill whites are two and
one-halftimes more likely to be sentenced to death than are whites
who kill whites, and three and one-half times more likely than are
blacks who kill blacks. Though a majority of Maryland's homicide
victims were black, of the 12 inmates on Maryland's death row
awaiting execution, eight were black, and all were convicted of
killing white people.
Minorities are among the poorest groups in the United States. A
Federal Reserve report issued on January 22, 2003 said that the gap
in wealth between American whites and ethnic minorities widened by
21 percent between 1998 and 2001. The US Census Bureau reported in
its 2002 annual report on income and poverty that in 2001, the
poverty rate in the United States rose to 11.7 percent; the poverty
rate was 22.7 percent among African Americans, and 21.4 percent
among Hispanics, both nearly double the rate for other ethnic
groups.
African American and Hispanic homeowners paid higher interest rates
for housing loans than white people did. In the metropolitan area
of Washington D.C., among households that made at least 120 percent
of the typical income in the area, 32 percent of blacks held
high-interest loans while only 11 percent of whites did; among
households that made 80 percent or less of the typical income, 56
percent of blacks had high-interest loans and 25 percent of whites
did.
Minorities also suffer from unfair treatment in schooling. Racial
segregation in public schools has got even worse than decades ago.
Only four of all 185 school districts across the United States
witnessed increase in black-white exposure (exposure of black
students to white students) between 1986 and 2000. The 24school
districts with the worst racial segregation were found in Texas and
Georgia states.
The newspaper Christian Science Monitor reported on Jan. 21, 2003
that in the state of Georgia 32 percent of white elementary school
teachers left their posts at predominantly black schools in2001.
The situation was the same in Texas, California and North Carolina.
Lots of classes had to be taught by substitute teachers who didn't
have degrees and weren't licensed to teach, and "black students
aren't getting an equal shot at good schooling".
Among the third graders in elementary schools in California,
70percent of white children met the required educational attainment
standard, compared with 37 percent of black children and 27 percent
of Hispanic children. The enrollment rate of minority students in
schools of higher learning was declining.
A
2002 report by researchers of Harvard University pointed out that
America's pervasive legacy of slavery, racism, and substandard,
segregated health care for many of the nation's minorities has left
a deep chasm between the health status of most minorities and
whites. Blacks have enjoyed much poorer medical treatment than
whites ever since they came to America from Africa.
African Americans have much higher rates of heart diseases,
diabetes, AIDS and some cancers. Blacks have a cancer death rate
about 35 percent higher than that of whites, the AIDS cases among
black women and children are 75 percent higher than among white
people, and African-American children also have much higher rates
of asthma and juvenile diabetes than white children. There is a
life expectancy gap of about seven years between whites and African
Americans. ("Blacks suffer most from managed care, by Julianne
Malveaux, Nov. 29, 2002, USA Today).
Racial discrimination has been on the rise in the United States
since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The US authorities have
intensified restrictions on new immigrants and slowed down its
procedure for approving entry of immigrants. Tougher regulations
have been adopted, requiring new immigrants to register their
residences at Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices,
or otherwise face imprisonment, fines or even deportation. In
August 2002, in airport safety inspections the FBI arrested a large
number of immigrant airport workers, mostly Latinos.
Discrimination against Muslims and Arabs is the most serious.
According to statistics from the Islamic Society of North
America,48 percent of Muslims living in the Unites States said
their lives have changed for the worse since Sept. 11. By the first
anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, approximately 60
percent of Muslims had experienced in person or witnessed acts of
discrimination against Muslims including public harassment,
physical assault and property damage. There had been nearly 2,000
vicious criminal cases against Muslims, including 11 murders and 56
death threats.
In
Los Angeles, assaults on Islamic institutions rose by 16 times from
28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001. In Toledo City, Ohio, more than 10,000
residents of Arab descent were monitored and wiretapped by judicial
departments after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and they were not
allowed to talk to lawyers. Moreover, judicial departments can have
house search at any time.
The US Immigration and Naturalization Service announced in August
2002 that males from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan are to be
fingerprinted on entering the United States. In November the same
year, a new federal regulation added another 13 countries including
Afghanistan to the list. Males from these 18 countries, who are 16
years and older and on temporary visas to the United States are
subject to "special registration", to report to relevant
departments and be fingerprinted and photographed before the
designated deadline.
On
December 16, 2002, more than 1,000 Muslims from Iran, Iraq and
other Middle East nations went to the immigration offices in
California for the "special registration" procedures. However, most
of them were detained by immigration officers right away, under
accusations of holding invalid visas, overstaying their visas or
other wrongdoing. The US Department of Justice later admitted that
about 500 immigrants of Mideast descent were arrested.
While statistics from local Islamic institutions showed that at
least 700 people were arrested, some even put it at about 1,000.
News reports said that as the immigration detention center was
overcrowded, some of the detainees were moved to prison. The
detainees complained that they were stripped, searched, and given
prison suits after their clothes were taken away. Many people were
locked in one cell, with no bed or quilt, and had to sleep on the
icy cement floor.
VII. Blunt Violations of Human Rights in Other Countries
The United States is following unilateralism in international
affairs and has frequently committed blunt violations of human
rights in other countries.
Regardless of the strong call for no war from the international
community, the United States, together with a few other countries,
launched a war against Iraq on March 20, 2003. The war, which has
openly violated the purpose and principles of the UN Charter, has
caused casualties of innocent Iraqi civilians and serious
humanitarian disasters.
During its air attacks against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in
2002, the US troops dropped nearly a quarter-million cluster
bomblets and raided a number of non-military targets, causing heavy
civilian casualties. The Time newsweekly disclosed civilians killed
in the Afghan war had exceeded 3,000.
The cluster bombs also left an estimated 12,400 explosive duds that
continue to take civilian lives to this day (Fatally Flawed:
Cluster Bombs and Their Use By the United States in Afghanistan,
Human Rights Watch, Dec. 18, 2002). In 2001 the US bombing of Mudoh
village reduced the local population to 100 from 250 and leveled
all buildings in the village to the ground. A similar attack on
Kakrakai village in central Afghanistan on July 1, 2002 left at
least 54 civilians dead and more than 100 others injured (Newsweek,
July 22, 2002).
The rights and interests of prisoners of war (POWs) were also
violated. According to CNN (Cable News Network), a total of 12,000
Taliban fighters were reported to have been captured since the US
launched its military action in Afghanistan, but only 3,500 to
4,000 of them survived. It was found that these POWs were locked
into unventilated steel shipping containers after their capture,
and many of them died of sweltering heat, suffocation or extreme
thirst en route to the prison. Numerous mass graves in which the
bodies of the dead POWs were dumped have been found in Afghanistan.
There are also evidence of US troops' involvement in the shipping
of the POWs. In November 2001, some 1,000 Taliban and Al-Qaeda
fighters who had surrendered in the northern Afghan city of Konduz
died on their way to the prison after they were packed tightly into
unventilated container trucks (Washington, Aug. 18, 2002, AFP).
According to media reports, in 2002 the United States was holding
more than 600 detainees from 42 countries, mostly captured during
the Afghan war, in its military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
However, the detainees were denied "prisoner of war" status by the
US government and therefore faced uncertainty of their futures.
It
was unclear for how long they would remain in custody or what kind
of treatment they would receive. These detainees were allegedly
confined for 24 hours a day to small cells and were not allowed to
meet their families or lawyers. Former Al-Qaeda members were also
subject to torture or other forms of maltreatment.
Hundreds of thousands of US troops are stationed overseas, and such
troops have committed crimes and human rights abuses wherever they
stay. Each year US troops stationed in the Republic of Korea (ROK)
are caught responsible for more than 400 traffic accidents, but
only less than 10 cases would go for trial in ROK courts.
On
June 13, 2002, two US soldiers driving an armored vehicle crushed
two 14-year-old South Korean girls to death, but both offenders
were acquitted by a US military tribunal in November. On Sept. 2,
three other US soldiers in Kyonggi-do, ROK, started a tussle on a
road, and they deliberately smashed a taxi car parked on the
roadside and beat up its Korean driver.
Earlier reports said six American soldiers stationed in the ROK
were charged with sexual harassment, assault and scuffle after
drinking.
The US troops in Okinawa, Japan has long been notorious for its
constant involvement in criminal cases such as arson and rape.
Investigation shows that after World War II US soldiers have
committed more than 300 sex crimes in Okinawa, with over 130 rape
cases reported since 1972.
In
the wee hours of Jan. 7, 2002, Frederick Thompson, a US Navy marine
stationed in Okinawa, was arrested by local police on charges of
trespassing on private property after he broke into the apartment
of a 24-year-old woman. On Dec. 3 the same year, the police
department of Okinawa prefecture issued an arrest warrant against
Major Michael Brown of the US Marine Corps, who was accused of
attempted rape and damaging of private articles, but the US side
refused to hand him over to the police department. (Asahi Shimbun,
Dec. 15, 2002)
According to a news report in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo of
April 1, 2002, there are more than 52,000 illegitimate children in
the Philippines fathered by US marines stationed in this Southeast
Asian country before 1991. Recently tens of Filipino teenage girls,
some of them not yet 13, were sent to Mindanao in southern
Philippines, to entertain US marines stationed there.
VIII. Double Standards in International Field of Human
Rights
The United States, taking a negative attitude toward the
international human rights conventions, is one of the only two
countries in the world that have not ratified the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child. To date, it hasn't ratified
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, which have got ratification from or accession
of most countries in the world.
In
2002, the United States shrank remarkably from its previous stance
on international human rights affairs. It used to ask for the
removal of any text in UN draft resolutions that involved human
rights conventions which all countries were expected to observe or
the US government had not yet ratified, on the pretext of the US
being not a state party to these conventions. When its request was
rejected, the United States would ask for a separate voting on the
text, or even cast the only dissenting vote. In July 2002, the
United States withdrew a 34-million-dollar contribution it had
promised to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), forcing the
UNFPA to cancel its projects of assistance to women in countries
like Burundi, Algeria, Haiti and India.
The United States has been releasing annually Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices, censuring other countries for their human
rights situations, but it has turned a blind eye to serious
violations of human rights on its own soil. This double standard on
human rights issues cannot but meet with strong rejection and
opposition worldwide, leaving the United States more and more
isolated in the international community.
(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2003)