Index

"Human Rights Record Of The United States In 2001" 


[FBIS Transcribed Text]     Beijing, March 11 (XINHUA) -- Following is the 
full text of the "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001," 
published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's 
Republic of China Monday: 

    Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001 

    By Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic 
of China 

    On March 4, 2002, the US State Department published "Country Reports 
on Human Rights Practices -- 2001." Once again the United States, 
assuming the role of "world judge of human rights," has distorted human 
rights conditions in many countries and regions in the world, including 
China, and accused them of human rights violations, all the while turning 
a blind eye to its own human rights-related problems.   In fact, it is 
right in the United States where serious human rights violations exist. 

    I.   Lack of Safeguard for Life, Freedom and Personal Safety 

    Violence and crimes are a daily occurrence in the US society, where 
people's life, freedom and personal safety are under serious threat.   
According to the 2001 fourth issue of Dialogue published by the US 
Embassy in China, in 1998, the number of criminal cases in the United 
States reached 12.476 million, including 1.531 million violent crime 
cases and 17,000 murder cases; and for every 100,000 people, there were 
4,616 criminal cases, including 566 involving violent crimes.   From 1977 
to 1996, more than 400,000 Americans were murdered, almost seven times 
the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.   During the years 
since 1997, another 480,000 people have been murdered in the country.   
According to a report carried by the Christian Science Monitor in its 
January 22, 2002 issue, the murder rate in the United States at present 
stands at 5.5 persons per 100,000 people.   According to data provided by 
police stations in 18 major US cities, the number of murder cases in many 
big cities in 2001 increased drastically, with those in Boston and 
Phoenix City increasing the fastest.   In the year to December 18, 2001, 
the number of murder cases in the two cities increased by more than 60 
percent over the same period of the previous year.   The number of murder 
cases increased by 22 percent in St. Louis, 17.5 percent in Houston, 15 
percent in St. Antonio [as received], 11.6 percent in Atlanta, 9.2 
percent in Los Angeles and 5.2 percent in Chicago.   According to the 
same report of the Christian Science Monitor, on campuses of colleges and 
universities in the United States in 2001, the number of murder cases 
increased by almost 100 percent over 2000, that of arson cases by about 9 
percent, that of break-ins by 3 percent. 

    The United States is the country with the biggest number of private 
guns.   On the one hand, worries about the threat of violence have led to 
rush buying of guns for self-protection; on the other hand, the flooding 
of guns is an important factor contributing to high violence and crime 
rates.   Statistics of the FBI show that sales of weapons and ammunition 
in the United States in the three months of September through November of 
2001 grew anywhere from 9 percent to 22 percent.   October witnessed a 
record 1,029,691 guns registered.   Statistics also show that shooting is 
the second major cause of non-normal deaths after traffic accidents in 
the United States, averaging 15,000 deaths annually.   Over the history 
of more than 200 years, three US presidents were shot, with two dead and 
one wounded seriously.   There is much less personal safety for common 
people in the United States.   Since 1972, more than 80 people have been 
shot dead every day on average in the United States, including about 12 
children. 

    On March 5, 2001, a 15-year-old student killed two and wounded 13 
fellow students at Santana High School in California.   This is the 
deadliest school shooting following one in a high school in the state of 
Colorado in April 1999, in which 13 were killed.   Two days later, that 
is, on March 7, a 14-year-old girl student shot dead a schoolmate of hers 
in the cafeteria of a Roman Catholic school in Pennsylvania.   On the 
same day, police overpowered a gunman who was about to shoot on the 
campus of the University of Albertus.   On April 14, a 43-year-old man 
with two rifles and two short guns fired madly at a bar and its car park, 
killing two and wounding 20.   On September 7, a gunman burst into a 
family on the outskirts of Simi Valley of Los Angeles and shot three 
people dead and wounded two.   Earlier on August 31, a demobilized 
policeman shot dead another and set fire on himself.   FBI called Los 
Angeles "the freest city for crimes." On December 7, a worker at a 
woodworking factory shot one fellow worker dead and wounded six others in 
Indiana. 

    On January 15, 2002, a teenage student fired at fellow students at 
Martin Luther King High School, seriously wounding two.   This coincided 
with the 73rd anniversary of Martin Luther King, leader of the human 
rights movement in the United States and an advocator of non-violence.   
More ironically, on March 4, 2002, the very day when the US State 
Department published its annual report, accusing other countries of 
"human rights violations," another shooting took place: in New Mexico, a 
four-year-old boy, while watching TV in his bedroom, shot dead an 
18-month-old baby girl with his father's gun. 

    The US media are inundated with violent contents, contributing to a 
high crime rate in the United States, especially among young people.   
Young people in the country get used to violence and crimes from an early 
age.   With the extensive use of cable TV, video tapes and computers, 
children have more opportunities to see bloody violent scenes.   A 
culture beautifying violence has made young people believe that the gun 
can "solve" all problems.   An investigative report issued on August 1, 
2001 by a US non-governmental watchdog group -- Parents Television 
Council (PTC) -- says that violence in television programs from 8 to 9 
p.m.   in the recent one-year period was up by 78 percent and abusive 
language up by 71 percent.   Even CBS, regarded as the " cleanest" TV 
network, had 3.2 scenes of violence and abusive language per hour.   
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, TV stations and movie houses in 
the United States exercised some restraint on the broadcasting and 
screening of programs and films of violence.   But it was hardly two 
months before violence films, which have top box-office value, staged a 
comeback.   International Herald Tribune reported that one American youth 
could see 40,000 murder cases and 200,000 other violent acts from the 
media before the age of 18.   A survey by California-based Ethical Code 
Institute shows that over the past year, most American youth had the 
experience of using violence, including 21 percent of the boys in high 
schools and 15 percent of the boys in junior middle schools who had the 
experience of taking arms to school for at least once. The US National 
Association of Education estimates that about 100,000 students in the 
United States take arms to school every day. 

    In recent years, voices for controlling guns and eliminating the 
culture of violence have been running high.   On Mother's Day on May 14, 
2000, women from nearly 70 cities in the United States staged a "Million 
Moms Mother's Day March," demanding that the U.S. Congress enact a strict 
gun control law.   However, voices of the common people can hardly 
produce any results. 

    II.   Serious Rights Violations by Law Enforcement Departments 

    Police brutality and unfair adjudication are intrinsic stubborn 
diseases of the United States.   In March 2001, the family of a French 
victim brought a lawsuit against the police and prison guards of the 
state of Nevada.   Nine prison guards were accused of beating the victim, 
Phillippe Leman, to death.   Forensic examinations identified the cause 
of death as suffocation due to fracture of the throat bone.   Yet, a 
local court pardoned the nine prison guards and acquitted them of 
responsibilities for the death of the French man. 

    Torture and forced confession are common in the United States, with 
the number of convicts on the death row that are misjudged or wronged 
remaining high.   In December 2001, a man on the death row, Alon 
Patterson, claimed that his confession was forced due to torture by 
Chicago police, who used a plastic typewriter cover to suffocate him.   
The case aroused extensive attention.   As Chicago is under the 
jurisdiction of Cook County, Chicago Herald Tribune sent reporters to 
investigate the archives of several thousand murder cases in Cook since 
1991.   They found that verdicts were determined in at least 247 cases 
without witness or evidence and that judgment was based on confessions of 
the accused only.   The credibility of such "confessions" is subject to 
doubt. 

    US federal laws and 38 states allow the death penalty.   Since the 
1990s, crimes punishable by death and the annual number of executions in 
the United States have been on the increase.   Annual executions 
increased from 23 in 1990 to 98 in 1999.   In the last 20 years, the 
United States has extended the death penalty to more than 60 crimes and 
speeded up executions by restricting the right of the convicted to 
appeal.   Since 1976 when the US Supreme Court restored the death 
penalty, about 600 persons have been executed in the United States.   
According to a February 11, 2002 Reuters report, from 1973 to 1995, the 
verdicts of 68 percent of convicts on the death row were overturned owing 
to misjudgment by the court. In the cases with overturned verdicts, 82 
percent of the convicts were sentenced to lesser penalties and 9 percent 
were set free.   Since 1973, a total of 99 convicts on the death row have 
been proven innocent.   These people spent an average of eight years of 
terror in death confines, sustaining tremendous mental trauma.   
According to an analysis, main reasons for misjudgment were failure to 
get legal counsel on the part of the accused, confession forcing by the 
police and prosecutors, and misdirection of the jury by judges. 

    The United States has the biggest prison population in the world.   
Prisons there are overcrowded, and inmates ill-treated.   A study by the 
Judicial Policy Institute under the Juvenile and Criminal Hearing Center 
shows that during the 1992-2000 period, 673,000 people were sent to state 
or federal prisons and detention centers, and 476 out of every 100,000 
people were detained.   With prisons burdened with too many inmates, 
violent conflicts keep occurring.   In December 2001, about 300 inmates 
in a California prison staged a riot, which was put down by prison 
guards, using tear gas and wooden bullets.   Seven prisoners were 
seriously wounded.   The prison in question incarcerated more than 4,000 
inmates though it was designed to keep no more than 2,200.   Overcrowding 
often leads to violent clashes among prisoners.   In 2000 alone, more 
than 120 prisoners staged riots, in which ten people were wounded.   Drug 
taking is prevalent in US prisons.   In the last ten years, at least 188 
inmates died of drug abuse. 

    Punishment for sex offenders in the United States has become more and 
more severe.   Many phased-out cruel punishments have been reinstated.   
Some criminals would select the extreme penalty of castration in exchange 
for a penalty reduction.   Castration had been removed as a penalty 
scores of years before.   According to the Los Angeles Times, in 
California in the last three years, two sex offenders received castration 
in return for release. 

    In February 2002, the world was shocked to learn of a scandal 
involving a crematorium in the United States.   Tri-State Crematory in 
the state of Georgia, instead of cremating human bodies after receiving 
money for the service, threw the corpses in the woods or stacked them in 
wooden sheds like cordwood, leaving them to rot there.   The shocking 
practice is said to have lasted 15 years.   More than 300 bodies have 
been found on the grounds of the crematorium so far.   The crime is 
shocking enough, but the state of Georgia does not have a law that is 
applicable for the crime.   What verdict to pass on the suspect remains a 
legal difficulty. 

    III.   Plight of the Poor, Hungry and Homeless 

    While the best-developed country in the world, the United States 
confronts a serious problem of polarization between the rich and the 
poor.   Never has a fundamental change been possible in conditions of the 
poor, who constitute the forgotten "third world" within this superpower. 

    The gap between high-income and low-income families in terms of the 
wealth owned by either group has further widened over the past two 
decades.   In 1979, the average income of the families with the highest 
incomes, who account for 5 percent of the total in the United States, was 
about ten times as great as that of the families with the lowest incomes, 
who account for 20 percent of the total.   By 1999, the figure had grown 
to 19 times.   According to a New York Times analysis of a US Census 
Bureau survey in August 2001, the economic boom the United States 
experienced in the 1990s failed to make the American middle class richer 
than in the previous decade.   The true fact is that the poor became even 
poorer and the rich, even wealthier.   For most of those in between the 
two opposite groups, life was worse at the end of the 1990s than at the 
beginning of the decade.   Right now, the richest 1 percent of the 
Americans own 40 percent of the national wealth.   In contrast, the share 
is a mere 16 percent for 80 percent of the American population.   The 
richest 20 percent of the families in Washington D. C.   are 24 times as 
rich as the poorest 20 percent, up from 18 times a decade ago. 

    Problems facing the poor, hungry and homeless have become 
increasingly conspicuous.   According to a 2002 report of the American 
Food Research and Action Center on its website, 10 percent of the 
American families, in other words 19 million adults and 12 million 
children, suffered from food insecurity in 1999.   In a national survey 
of emergency feeding program (Hunger in America 2001), America's Second 
Harvest emergency food providers served 23 million people in the year, 9 
percent more than in 1997.   The figure included nine million children.   
Nearly two-thirds of the adult emergency food recipients were women, and 
more than one in five were elderly. 

    In its annual report published in December 2001, the United States 
Conference of Mayors reported a sharp increase in the number of the 
hungry and homeless in major cities.   In the 27 cities covered by a USCM 
survey, the number of people asking for emergency food increased by an 
average of 23 percent, and the increase averaged 13 percent for those 
asking for emergency housing relief.   Demand for emergency food supplies 
grew in 93 percent of the cities covered by the survey.   Of those who 
asked for emergency food, many -- 19 percent more than in the previous 
year -- had children to support.   Of the adults who asked for emergency 
relief, 37 percent were employed.   Hunger in these cities was attributed 
to low incomes, unemployment, high housing rent, economic recession, 
welfare reforms, high medical bills and mental disorders.   According to 
a report issued by the US Department of Labor on November 29, 2001, 4.02 
million Americans -- the highest number in 19 years -- were living on 
relief.   The National Alliance to End Homelessness has reported that 
750,000 Americans are in a permanent state of homelessness, and that up 
to two million have had experiences of having no shelter for themselves.  
 People without a roof over themselves have to spend the night in places 
like street corners, abandoned cars, refuges and parks, where their 
personal safety cannot be guaranteed. 

    Lives of the rich seem more valued than lives of the poor.   
According to la Liberation on January 9, 2002, the federal fund set up by 
the American government would compensate victims of the September 11, 
2001 attacks according to their ages, salaries and the number of people 
in their families, plus a sum in compensation for the mental trauma the 
family members suffered.   This way of fixing the compensations produced 
shocking results.   If a housewife was killed, her husband and two 
children would be entitled to 500,000 US dollars in compensation from the 
fund.   If the victim happened to be a Wall Street broker, the 
compensation would be as much as 4.3 million US dollars for his widow and 
two children.   Families of many victims protested against this 
inequality, compelling the American government to commit itself to 
revising the method. 

    IV.   Worrying Conditions for Women and Children 

    Gender discrimination is an important aspect of social inequality in 
the United States.   Until this day, there has been no constitutional 
provision on equality between men and women.   On September 18, 2000, 
with support of some NGOs, a dozen surviving " comfort women" brought a 
class action with a federal court in Washington D.C., demanding public 
apology and compensation from the Japanese government.   The US 
government, however, issued a statement of interest in July 2001, calling 
for dismissal of the lawsuit on the ground that recruiting of "comfort 
women" by the Japanese army during the Second World War was a "sovereign 
act." The statement aroused protects from the US National Organization 
for Women, the Truth Council for World War II in Asia and other NGOs.   
This incident, in its own way, reflects current conditions in protection 
of women's human rights in the United States and America's official 
attitude towards women's rights demand. 

    Violence against women is a serious social problem in the United 
States.   According to US official statistics, one American woman is 
beaten in every 15 seconds on average and some 700,000 cases of rape 
occur every year.   According to the 121st edition of the American Census 
published on January 24, 2002, in 1998 about one million people were 
suspected of involvement in violence between spouses and between men and 
women as friends.   In March 2001, Amnesty International USA issued a 
report after two years' investigation, saying that the human rights of 
female prison inmates in the United States are often fringed upon and 
that they often fall victim to sexual harassment or rape by prison 
guards.   Seven states even do not have laws or legal provisions banning 
sexual relations between prison officials and female inmates. 

    Protection of American children's rights is far from being adequate.  
 The United States is one of the only two countries that have not acceded 
to Convention on the Rights of the Child.   It is one of the only five 
countries that execute juvenile offenders in violation of relevant 
international conventions.   More juvenile offenders are executed in the 
United States than in any of the other four.   In 25 states, the youngest 
age eligible for death sentence is set at 17; and 21 states set that age 
at 16 or do not impose an age limit at all.   Besides, the United States 
is among the few countries where psychiatric and mentally retarded 
offenders could be executed.   According to the Human Rights Watch, in 
the 1990s, nine juveniles were sentenced to death in the United States, 
and the number was greater than that reported by any of the other 
countries. 

    American children are susceptible to violence and poverty.   
According to a report published on November 28, 2001 by the US Violent 
Policy Center, analysis of the murder data released by FBI shows that 
from 1995 to 1999, 3,971 infants and juveniles aged one to 17 years were 
murdered in handgun homicides.   The firearm homicide rate for American 
children was 16 times the figure for children in 25 other industrialized 
countries.   Black children have the highest rate of handgun homicide 
victimization, seven times higher than that for white children.   In 
April 2000, the US Fund for the Protection of the Child published a green 
paper on conditions of American children.   It quotes the poverty 
statistics of the American government for 1999 as saying that more than 
12 million children were living below the poverty line set by the federal 
government, accounting for one-sixth of the total number of children in 
the country.   A report by the US Health and Public Service Department 
released at the beginning of 2001 says that 10 percent of the American 
children have mental health problems and that one out of every ten 
children and children in adolescence suffered from mental illnesses that 
are serious enough to hurt.   Nevertheless, those able to receive 
treatment could not exceed one- fifth. 

    The problem of missing children is serious.   Figures published by 
FBI in 2001 showed that in 1999, 750,000 children went missing, 
accounting for 90 percent of the total number of people who went missing 
in the year.   To put it another way, an average of 2,100 children at 17 
or younger went missing every day.   Since the Missing Children Act was 
enacted in 1982, the number of children registered by police as missing 
has increased by 468 percent. 

    American children often fall prey to sexual abuse.   According to a 
report published in September 2001 by a group of researchers at the 
University of Pennsylvania after three years' investigation, about 
400,000 American children are streetwalkers or engage in various obscene 
activities for money near their schools.   Children who have fled their 
homes or are homeless suffer most severely from sexual abuse.   Sexual 
harassment against children by clergymen in the United States is serious. 
  According to Newsweek published on February 26, 2002, the Boston 
archdiocese of the US Roman Catholic Church has over the past decade paid 
1 billion US dollars in compensation in lawsuits of sexual harassment by 
its clergymen against children.   About 80 Boston clergymen are suspected 
of having molested children sexually.   One has been accused of sexually 
molested more than 100 children.   This, the greatest scandal in the 
United States following the Enron case, has aroused nationwide attention 
to the problem that is also common among clergymen elsewhere and, as a 
result, a string of similar cases have been brought to light. 

    V.   Deep-Rooted Racial Discrimination 

    Racial discrimination is the most serious human rights problem in the 
United States, a problem that the United States has never resolved since 
its founding.   The United States, as a matter of fact, was notorious for 
genocide against aboriginal Indians, trade of African blacks and black 
slavery.   In recent years, scandals of racial discrimination have 
occurred, one after another. 

    On April 7, 2001, a white police officer shot to death an unarmed 
black youth in Cincinnati, Ohio, as he was trying to run away after 
breaking traffic rules.   Black people in the city staged mass protests 
following the death of Timothy Thomas, which culminated in a racial 
conflict.   The incident once again aroused worldwide attention to the 
problem of racial discrimination in the United States.   According to the 
Observer of Britain published on April 15, 2001, Cincinnati is one of the 
eight large cities in the United States where the problem of racial 
discrimination is most serious.   Even though the world is already in the 
21st century, racial segregation is still practiced by virtually all 
schools in the city.   Timothy Thomas was the fourth black person killed 
by white police in succession from November 2000 to April 2001, and the 
15th black suspect killed by white police in the same city since 1995.   
It is beyond people's comprehension that during the same period, killing 
of white suspects by the police never occurred.   According to the 
Associated Press, the mass protests in Cincinnati matched those that 
broke out after the killing of Martin Luther King. 

    Racial discrimination is discernible everywhere in the United States. 
  The proportion of federal government posts taken by ethnic minority 
Americans is much smaller than the proportion of their population in the 
national total.   According to an article in the July-August issue of the 
bimonthly World Economic Review, of the 535 senators and Congress men and 
women, those of Latin-American origin with voting rights number only 19, 
or 3.5 percent of the total, even though ethnic Latin-Americans account 
for 12.5 percent of the country's total population.   Blacks account for 
13 percent of the American population, but are able to win only 5 percent 
of the public posts through election.   There are legal provisions to the 
effect that colored people must account for a certain percentage in the 
police force.   The true fact, however, is that few black people are able 
to join the police force and even fewer serve as senior police officers.  
 Take for example Cincinnati.   Black people account for 43 percent of 
the local population but, of the 1,000 members of the local police force, 
only 250 are blacks.   None of the CEOs and presidents of the top 500 
companies in the Unites States are blacks.   Blacks holding senior posts 
at Wall Street investment companies are rare, if any. 

    Social conditions are bad for ethnic minority Americans.   According 
to the 2000 population census, blacks unable to enjoy medical insurance 
are twice as many as whites.   Only 17 percent of the black population 
are able to finish higher education, in contrast to 28 percent for 
whites.   The unemployment rate was twice as high for blacks as for 
whites.   Meanwhile, blacks employed for menial service jobs are more 
than twice as many.   Incomes for the average white family averaged 
44,366 US dollars in 1999.   For an average black family, however, the 
figure was 25,000 US dollars. According to statistics provided by the US 
Equal Employment Opportunity Committee, the number of employed ethnic 
minority Americans has increased by 36 percent since 1990, but the number 
of charges against racial or ethnical harassment at work-sites has 
doubled, averaging 9,000 a year.   Of the five largest dumps of harmful 
wastes, three are in residential areas inhabited mainly by blacks and 
other ethnic minority Americans.   Up to 60 percent of the blacks and 
ethnic Latin-Americans are living in places where harmful wastes are 
dumped. 

    Racial discrimination is frequently seen in America's judicature.   
Half of the 2 million prison inmates are blacks, and ethnic 
Latin-Americans account for 16 percent of the total.   According to an 
investigative report published by the United Nations, for the same crime 
the penalty meted out against the colored can be twice or even thrice as 
severe as against the white. Blacks sentenced to death for killing whites 
are four times as many as whites given death penalty for killing blacks.  
 The US Department of Justice reported on March 12, 2001 that threats by 
the police with force against blacks and ethnic Latin-Americans are twice 
as possible as against whites. 

    VI.   Wantonly Infringing upon Human Rights of Other Countries 

    The United States ranks first in the world in terms of military 
spending and arms export.   Its military expenditure accounts for nearly 
40 percent of the world total, more than the combined military 
expenditure of the nine countries ranking next to it.   Its arms exports 
account for 36 percent of the world total.   US defense budget for the 
2003 fiscal year announced by the US Defense Department on February 4, 
2002 totaled 379 billion US dollars, up 48 billion US dollars, or 15 
percent, over the previous year and representing the highest growth rate 
in the past two decades. 

    The United States ranks first in the world in wantonly infringing 
upon the sovereignty of, and human rights in, other countries.   Since 
the 1990s, the United States has used force overseas on more than 40 
occasions.   On April 1, 2001, a US military reconnaissance plane flew 
above waters off China's coast in violation of flight rules, causing the 
crash of a Chinese aircraft and the death of its pilot.   It 
presumptuously entered China's territorial airspace without permission 
from the Chinese side and landed on a Chinese military airfield, 
seriously encroaching upon China's sovereignty and human rights.   After 
the incident, the United States made all sorts of excuses to defend 
itself, refusing to make a public apology for the serious consequences of 
its intruding aircraft and trying to shirk its responsibilities.   This 
aroused great indignation and strong protests from the Chinese people. 

    The United States has built many military bases all over the world, 
where it has stationed hundreds of thousands of troops, violating human 
rights everywhere in the world.   Before the September 11 incident, the 
United States had stationed its troops in more than 140 countries.   
Today, the United States has expanded its so-called security interests to 
almost every corner of the world.   In recent years, US troops stationed 
in Japan have frequently committed crimes.   In 1995, three American 
soldiers raped a Japanese schoolgirl in Okinawa, sparking massive 
protests by the Japanese people and arousing the alert of world public 
opinion.   In fact, scandals like this happen almost every year.   On 
January 11, 2001, an American soldier was arrested for molesting a local 
schoolgirl in Okinawa.   On January 19, the Okinawa parliament adopted a 
resolution of protest against frequent criminal activities by American 
soldiers, calling for reduction of US troops in Japan.   However, in an 
e-mail message to his subordinates, the US commander in Okinawa insulted 
the Okinawa magistrate and parliament.   On June 29, another soldier of 
the US air force sexually assaulted a Japanese girl in Kyatan of Okinawa. 

    The NATO headed by the United States dropped a large number of 
depleted uranium bombs during the Kosovo war, subjecting peace- keeping 
soldiers as well as the local people to serious danger.   The US side 
claimed that one of the reasons for the withdrawal of US troops from 
Kosovo is that "it would not let radiation hurt our boys." Latest reports 
say that the United States knew the dangers of depleted uranium bombs and 
where they were dropped, and that, when dividing up peacekeeping zones, 
it allocated the most seriously contaminated areas to allied forces.   
After the US army entered Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, it gave a boost 
to the sex industry in the two places.   Over the past year, 
Bosnia-Herzegovina uncovered dozens of women trafficking cases, many of 
which were associated with the US army.   Most of the US soldiers were 
involved in prostitution and some of them were even involved in selling 
women.   In September 2000, the US Army published a report of more than 
600 pages, detailing all kinds of bad behaviors committed by the No.82 
air-borne division of its First Army during their peace-keeping mission 
in Kosovo, admitting that the general atmosphere of the US army in Kosovo 
is very inhumane. 

    Available data indicate that in the Gulf War the United States 
dropped more than 940,000 depleted uranium bombs with a total weight of 
320 tons onto Iraqi land, causing serious destruction to the environment 
of Iraq and the health of its people.   The Ministry of Health of Iraq 
pointed out in a report that the number of cancer patients in Iraq 
increased dramatically after the Gulf War, from 6,555 in 1989 and 4,341 
in 1991 to 10,931 in 1997.   In the ten years since the end of the Gulf 
War, the incidence rate of leukemia, malicious tumors and other difficult 
and complicated cases in areas hit by depleted uranium bombs in southern 
Iraq was 3.6 times higher than the national average and the proportion of 
women with miscarriage was ten times as high as in the past.   On 
February 22, 2002, Emad Sa'doon, a medical expert with Basra University 
in southern Iraq, disclosed to the media that after many years of 
research the medical group led by him found that in the 1989-1999 period, 
the number of patients with blood cancer doubled and the number of women 
with breast cancer increased 102 percent. 

    The United States always flaunts the banner of "freedom of the 
press".   Yet according to an Agence France-Presse report on February 21, 
2002, the annual report of International Journalism Institute published 
on the same day pointed out that the way in which the US government dealt 
with the media during the Afghan War and its attempt at suppressing 
freedom of speech by independent media were "the most amazing in 2001." 

    In the United States, close to 100 companies manufacture and export 
considerable quantities of instruments of torture that are banned in 
international trade.   They have set up sales networks overseas.   In its 
February 26, 2001 report, Amnesty International said some 80 American 
companies were involved in the manufacture, marketing and export of 
instruments of torture, including electric- shock tools, shackles and 
handcuffs with saw-teeth.   Many instruments of torture and police tools 
are high-tech products, which can cause serious harms to the human body.  
 For instance, handcuffs,which would tear apart the flesh of the tortured 
if the victim slightly exerts himself, are very cruel, and so is a high- 
pressure rope for tying up a person.   Although categorically prohibited 
by US law, the Commerce Department of the United States has given 
official export licenses for exporting such tools. According to 
statistics, American companies have secured export licenses and sold 
tools of torture overseas valued at 97 million U. S.   dollars since 1997 
under the category of "crime control equipment." It is inconceivable 
that, while the US State Department is talking about human rights, the US 
Department of Commerce has given export licenses for products determined 
as instruments of torture in statutes of the US government, said Dr. 
William Schulz, who conducted the investigation. 

    The United States has also conducted irradiation experiments with the 
dead bodies of babies from overseas.   The Daily Telegraph and the 
Observer of the United Kingdom disclosed in June of 2001 that the United 
States has recently declassified some top-secret documents, which 
indicate that in the 1950s the United States carried out what was called 
"Project Sunshine" experiments.   For these experiments, about 6,000 dead 
babies were obtained from overseas and cremated without permission of 
their parents.   The ashes were sent to laboratories for irradiation 
studies. 

    The US government has until this day refused to sign the Basel 
Convention, which restricts the transfer of waste materials. It often 
transfers dangerous waste materials by different methods to developing 
countries, damaging the health of the people of other countries.   The 
Associated Press reported on February 25, 2002 that, according to an 
estimate by environmental protection organizations, as much as 50 percent 
to 80 percent of the electronic wastes collected by the United States in 
the name of recycling have been shipped to a number of countries in Asia 
for waste treatment, causing serious environmental and health problems to 
the local people. 

    The United States has announced its withdrawal from the Kyoto 
Protocol, refusing to bear the responsibilities of improving the 
environment for human survival and bringing about negative impacts on 
environmental protection efforts in the world. 

    The Third UN Conference Against Racism held in Durban of South 
African in September 2001 was an important gathering in the area of 
international human rights at the beginning of the new century. It 
attracted representatives from more than 190 countries, which reflected 
the burning desire of the international community to eliminate hatred 
accumulated over time and eradicate the remnants of racism through 
dialogue and cooperation.   The United States, however, turned a deaf ear 
to the voices of the international community.   Ignoring its 
international obligations, it asserted openly to boycott the conference 
before it was opened.   Although the United States sent a low-level 
delegation to the conference as a result of prompting and persuasion by 
the United Nations, it took the lead in opposing discussing slave trade 
and colonial compensation, expressed opposition to putting Zionism on a 
par with racism, and walked out of the conference midway.   Behaviors of 
the United States at the conference revealed its hypocrisy when it 
professes itself as "a world judge of human rights" and show how arrogant 
and isolated the hegemonic acts of the US government are. 

    For many years, the US government has year after year published 
reports on human rights conditions in other countries in disregard of the 
opposition of many countries in the world, cooking up charges, twisting 
facts and censoring all countries except itself.   It also publishes a 
report every year to make a so- called appraisal of anti-drug trafficking 
campaigns of 24 countries including all Latin American countries.   The 
United States deals with any country it deems "inefficient in cracking 
down on drug trafficking" with condemnation, sanctions, interference in 
the latter's internal affairs, or outright invasion. 

    In 2001, without support from the majority of member countries, the 
United States was voted out of the United Nations Human Rights Commission 
and the International Narcotics Committee.   This shows, from one aspect, 
that it is extremely unpopular for the United States to push double 
standards and unilateralism on such issues as human rights, crackdowns on 
drug trafficking, arms control and environmental protection.   We urge 
the United States to change its ways, give up its hegemonic practice of 
creating confrontation and interfering in the internal affairs of others 
by exploiting the human rights issue, go with the tide of the times 
characterized by cooperation and dialogue in the area of human rights, 
and do more useful things for the progress and development of the human 
society. 

[Description of Source: Beijing Xinhua in English -- China's official 
news service for English-language audiences (New China News Agency)]