China Lashes Back at U.S. on Human Rights
China on Thursday lashed out against U.S. criticism of its human rights record, saying racial discrimination and crime were still rife in the United States and prisoners were being abused at U.S.-run detention centers abroad.
The State Council, China's cabinet, denounced the United States for what it said were rampant violence and widespread discrimination against minorities — especially blacks — in its annual response to the State Department's report on human rights worldwide.
"For a long time, the life and security of the people of the United States has not been under efficient protection," the Chinese report said.
Blacks are given heavier criminal penalties, arrested more frequently and are more likely to be targeted for hate crimes, the report said.
It also criticized American troops for brutality at prisons in Iraq and the detention camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States," it said.
It is "an act that fully exposes its hypocrisy and double standard on human rights issues," said the report which drew mostly from stories and statistics in the American press.
The response came one day after the State Department said the Chinese government's human rights record "remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses."
The report also touched on:
• private gun ownership in America, saying the "unchecked spread of guns has caused incessant murders."
• secret wire taps and surveillance on American citizens under the Patriot Act.
• the poverty rate and the problem of homelessness.
"No country in the world can claim to have a perfect state of human rights," the Chinese report said.
"We urge the U.S. government to look squarely at its own human rights problems, reflect what it has done in the human rights field and take concrete measures to improve its own human rights status."
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