[R-G] Full Text of Human Rights Record of US in '08
Anthony Fenton
fentona at shaw.ca
Thu Mar 5 11:57:14 MST 2009
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/26/content_7517517.htm
Full Text of Human Rights Record of US in '08
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-26 23:50
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BEIJING -- The Information Office of the State Council published a
report titled "The Human Rights Record of United States in 2008" here
on Thursday. Following is the full text:
The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices for 2008 on February 25, 2009. 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 mentioned nothing of the widespread human rights abuses on
its own territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in
2008 is prepared to help people around the world understand the real
situation of human rights in the United States, and as a reminder for
the United States to reflect upon its own issues.
I. On Life and Personal Security
Widespread violent crimes in the United States pose serious threats to
its people's lives, property and personal security.
According to a report published in September 2008 by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the country reported 1.4 million
violent crimes, including 17,000 murders (The Washington Post, June
10, 2008), and 9.8 million property crimes (The World Journal,
September 16, 2008) in 2007. Throughout 2007, the estimated number of
robberies counted 445,125, a 7.5 percent rise over the last five years
(The Washington Post, September 16, 2008). In cities with 50,000 to
100,000 inhabitants, the number of murders increased by 3.7 percent
than 2006 (The Washington Post, June 10, 2008). In those with
populations of 10,000 to 30,000, the number of violent crimes rose 2.4
percent than 2006 (The Washington Post, September 16, 2008). US
residents age 12 and older experienced an estimated 23 million crimes
of violence or theft. The violent crime rate in 2007 was 20.7
victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older; for property crimes
it was 146.5 per 1,000 households. (Criminal Victimization, 2007, US
Department of Justice,http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cv07.htm).
Among cities with relatively high violence and murders rates, New
Orleans reported 95 murders per 100,000 population, Baltimore 45,
Detroit 44, St. Louis 40, Philadelphia 27.8, Houston 16.2, and Dallas
16.1 (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 2008). In the United States,
one murder is committed every 31 minutes, one rape in every 5.8
minutes, and one burglary every 14.5 seconds (The Washington Post,
September 16, 2008).
Guns are widespread in the United States. The US Supreme Court
asserted that Americans had an individual right to possess and use
firearms, even when the guns are not related to service in a
government militia, the Christian Science Monitor reported on June 27,
2008. Statistics show that the US citizens own about 200 million
private guns, including 60 to 65 million pistols. A total of 48 states
in the United States allow its residents to bear guns (The China
Press, October 16, 2008), while it is believed that one can buy a gun
at gun shows in 35 states without a background check (United Press
International, October 3, 2008). A gun store outside Nashville,
Tennessee, sold 70 guns on November5, 2008 alone (http://www.usqiaobao.com
). More than 20 airports in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco
and other cities allow people with gun permits to carry firearms in
the general public areas of the terminal (The China Press, October 15,
2008). A local high school in north Texas even let some teachers carry
concealed weapons (The New York Times, August 29, 2008). The
Washington Post reported on December 5, 2007 that 10 states, including
Virginia, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Mississippi, supplied 57
percent of the guns that were recovered in crimes in other states in
2007. The 10 states with the highest crime-gun export rates had nearly
60 percent more gun homicides than the 10 states with the lowest rates.
The frequent occurrences of gun killings were a serious threat to the
lives of US citizens. According to the US Center for Disease Control
and Prevention, 1.35 million high school students in 2007 were either
threatened or injured with a weapon at least once on school property
(United Press International, October 3, 2008). Young people represent
an expanding proportion of all shooting victims, from 13 percent in
2002 to more than 21 percent in 2007. According to a Harvard
University survey of high school students in 2006, a fifth of the
1,200 questioned in schools across Boston had witnessed a shooting.
More than 40 percent believed it was easy to get a gun, and 28 percent
said they did not feel safe on the bus or train (The Boston Globe,
September 18, 2008). In the 2007-08 school year, a record 34 Chicago
Public School students were killed (The Chicago Tribune, April 2,
2008). Within a week from February 7, 2008, the United States had
seven shooting incidents, leading to 23 deaths and dozens of injuries.
On March 27, 2008, five people in Georgia and Kentucky were shot dead
(The Associated Press, March 27, 2008, March 28, 2008). On the night
of April 18, nine shootings were reported in a period ofless than two
hours in Chicago (The Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2008). In November,
Baltimore had 31 shootings (The Baltimore Sun, December 2, 2008). On
December 24, 2008, a man dressed in a Santa costume shot at a
Christmas Eve party at his ex-parents-in-law's house, causing eight
deaths, three injuries and three missing persons (The China Press,
December 26, 2008).
II. On Civil and Political Rights
In the United States, an increasing number of restrictions have been
imposed on civil rights.
According to a report on the Washington Post website on April 4,2008,
the deep-packet inspection, a brand new surveillance technology, which
has been applied, is able to record every visited web page, every sent
email and every online search. Statistics indicated that at least
100,000 US Internet users had been tracked and the service providers
had conducted tests on as many as 10 percent of the US netizens (The
Washington Post, April 4, 2008). The FBI has been engaged in illegal
surveillance launched by the US government nationwide, obtaining
thousands of people's phone records, bank accounts and other personal
information by unwarranted means.
The Seattle Times reported on July 15, 2008 that President Bush signed
a bill on July 10 that overhauls government eavesdropping and called
it "landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people."
The new law grants legal immunity to telecommunication companies that
take part in wiretapping programs and authorizes the government to
wiretap international communications betweens parties outside the US
for anti-terrorism purposes without court approval. The US Department
of Homeland Security disclosed in July 2008 that as part of border
search policies, federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer
or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified
period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing (The Washington
Post, August 1, 2008). The New York Times reported on December 8, 2008
that the National Security Agency illegally wiretapped a Muslim
scholar named Ali al-Timimi in Northern Virginia and intentionally
withheld materials gained through eavesdropping during a 2005 trial,
in which the scholar was convicted on terrorism charges. These
materials may provide evidences that the US government's eavesdropping
program has violated its citizens' civil rights.
Police abuse of force infringed on the civil rights of Americans.
According to a report by the Chicago Tribune on June 25,2008, Chicago
witnessed eight shootings by police officers in two weeks in June,
causing five with fatalities. Shapell Terrell, a 39-year-old
sanitation worker, was fatally shot by police officers on June 22 at
the entrance of a two-story building, where all four apartments were
filled with family members (The Chicago Tribune, June 23, 2008). Luis
Colon, an 18-year-old man in Chicago, was shot and killed by a
plainclothes police officer on June 24, when he was walking with his
girlfriend to meet friends and eat at a restaurant (The Chicago
Tribune, June 25, 2008). Daryl Battle, 20, was shot dead in his
Brooklyn apartment in New York City on the morning of August 2, 2008.
Michael Mineo was sodomized by a police officer's baton on October 15,
on a busy Brooklyn subway platform (The New York Times, December 10,
2008). Gilberto Blanco was shot and killed when he was swinging a
folding chair in front of a policewoman named Dawn Ortiz in a parking
lot near the Coney Island church (The New York Times, December 1, 2008).
The proportion of US prisoners to its population has hit a new high.
The Washington Post reported on July 11, 2008 that the United States
has 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation in
the world. A report issued by the US Department of Justice on December
11, 2008 said that over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail
or on parole at the end of 2007, equivalent to 3.2 percent of all US
adult residents or one in every 31 adults. (The United Press
International, December 11, 2008). For black men aged between 20-34,
one in nine was in jail. (The Guardian, March 1, 2008). The rate of
prisoners, higher than any period in the US history, was almost six
times the world average (125 in every 100,000 people). According to
statistics, the recidivism rate stayed high in the United States. Half
the people of previous convictions were sentenced to prison again
within three years.
There is no proper protection of prisoners' basic rights. Information
released in August 2008 by the US Department of Justice showed that
the rate of conviction by US courts has been on a rise since 1993.
Convicts who committed violent crimes accounted for more than 50
percent of the total. California had 172,000 inmates in its 33
prisons, which were designed for just over half that number, leaving
each inmate a space of only 6 square foot (Prison overcrowding blamed
for health woes, http:// www. sfgate.com, November 19, 2008). In
Prince George of Maryland, the Upper Marlboro jail held an estimated
1,500 prisoners while it was designed for about 1,330 (The Washington
Post, July 25, 2008).There were frequent reports inmates dying from
prison officers' violence. An Amnesty International report in 2008
said Taser was widely used to control inmates in the US prisons and
detention centers. It had tracked more than 300 cases since 2001 in
which people died after being shocked by a Taser. Among them, 69 died
in2008. According to a report by the Washington Post on July 25, more
than 10 jail officers in Prince George of Maryland have arrest
records. At least six officers were suspended in the past seven months
and nine others still worked in the prison though they were accused of
crimes or violence. Baron Pikes, arrested on a cocaine charge, died in
January 2008 after a police officer had shocked him nine times with a
Taser (The CNN website, on July 22, 2008). Ronnie L. White, 19, died
of strangulation on June 29, 2008,when he was held in solitary
confinement at a correction center in Prince George County, Maryland
(The Washington Post, September 23,2008). According to the latest
statistics released by the US Department of Justice in June 2008,
1,154 inmates in the federal and state prisons died of AIDS between
2001 and 2006 (Ming Pao Daily, July 3, 2008). Some US jails have
become the "new asylums" for drug addicts and mental patients, with
six out of 10 people in jail living with a mental illness (Jails
bulging with people with mental illnesses, the homeless and people
detained for immigration offenses; costing counties billions, http://
justicepolicy.org). The Economist reported on May 10, 2008 that the US
was one of the few countries where the felons were deprived of rights.
Some US states even forbid felons to vote.
III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
American people's economic, social and cultural rights are not
properly protected.
There is a wide wealth gap in the American society. According to a New
York Times report on October 5, 2008, the United States developed the
most the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-
income country over the past 30 years. The richest fifth of the
Americans earn an average of 168,170 US dollars a year, about fifteen
times the figure for the bottom fifth -- 11,352 US dollars. The top
one percent of New York City tax filers received 37 percent of the
city's adjusted gross income-- which includes wages, business income
and capital gains, among other earnings (The New York Times, April 9,
2008). There are 64 billionaires in New York City with a combined net
worth of 344 billion US dollars, 469 percent more than the collective
worth of the city's billionaires two years ago (The Washington Post,
September 29, 2008). A UN report released on October, 22, 2008 showed
that the wealth gap in big American cities, including New York,
Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans, was almost as wide as some
African cities, and the ratio of income inequality in American cities
was very high.
The number of people who are homeless, in poverty and hunger increased
in the United States in 2007. Figures released in August, 2008 by the
US Census Bureau showed that 12.5 percent of Americans, or 37.3
million people, were living in poverty in 2007,up from 36.5 million in
2006. Eighteen percent of children (13.3 million) were impoverished in
2007, up from 17.4 percent (12.8 million) in 2006 (Reuters, August 27,
2008). Some 7.6 million American families, or 9.8 percent of the
total, were living in poverty. In 2007, the annual income of 1.56
million American people, 41.8 percent of the country's population in
poverty, reached only half of the poverty threshold. In New York City,
latest study shows 23 percent of the people are living in poverty (The
Washington Post, July 14, 2008).
According to a report released on October 17, 2008 by Los Angeles-
based Taiwan Times, a nationwide survey showed that under the
influence of the financial crisis, about 80 percent of low-income
workers could not afford to buy fuel or save for pension insurance.
More than 60 percent of them could not afford medical insurance and 50
percent could not pay for food or housing. The Reuters reported that
food stamps, the main US anti-hunger program which helps the needy buy
food, set a record in September 2008, as more than 31.5 million
Americans used the program, a year-on-year increase of 17 percent
(Reuters, December 3, 2008). About 48 percent of New York City
residents, had difficulty affording food for themselves and their
families in 2008, doubling that of 2003. Already, 1.3 million New York
City residents rely on emergency food organizations, up 24 percent
from1 million in 2004 (The NYC Hunger Experience 2008 Update: Food
Poverty Soars as Recession Hits Home). Some 68.8 percent of emergency
food agencies reported that they did not have enough food to fulfill
demand (Survey shows impact of hunger crisis, http://www.nyccah.org).
More than 2 million American families were unable to pay back house
loans. Statistics released on November 13,2008 showed that foreclosure
filings grew 25 percent nationally in October 2008 over the same month
in 2007. More than 84,000 properties were repossessed by banks in
October (China Press, November 14, 2008).
Statistics collected by the US Department of Housing and Urban
Development showed that the number of chronically homeless people
living in the nation's streets and shelters reached 123,833in 2007.
About 1.6 million people experienced homelessness and found shelter
between October 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007 (The New York Times,
July 30, 2008). The number of requests for emergency shelter doubled
from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal 2008 (World Journal, October 22,
2008). In Louisiana and Kentucky, the number of homeless families
increased to 931. In December 2008, 19of the 25 American cities
surveyed reported some kind of increase in homelessness between
October 1, 2007 and October 30, 2008. And 16 cities reported an
increase in family homelessness (Advocacy Groups Fear New Wave of
Homeless, http://ipsnews.net). The Washington Legal Clinic for the
Homeless estimated that more than 6,000 people were homeless in the
District on an average day. Among them, 47 percent were "chronically
homeless" (District agrees on homeless shelter access; Faces $5
million cost, The Washington Times, December 13, 2008).
The rights of laborers are not properly protected. The unemployment
rate in America keeps high. Statistics released by the US Department
of Labor on January 9, 2009 showed that the unemployment rate
increased from 4.6 percent in 2007 to 5.8 percent in 2008, the highest
since 2003. A total of 2.6 million jobs were lost in 2008, the biggest
loss since 1945. In December 2008 alone, 524,000 jobs were lost,
driving the unemployment rate to a 16-year-high of 7.2 percent (The
New York Times, January 10,2009). The number of long-term unemployed
(those jobless for 27 weeks or more) reached 2.2 million in November,
up by 822,000 over the past 12 months (Employment Summary, http://data.bls.gov
). According to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive, the median
time Americans spent working in 2008, which included housekeeping and
studying, was 46 hours, which was one hour more than that of 2007. One
in every four Americans said their working hours increased in 2008.
The median time Americans spent playing in 2008was 16 hours, a decline
of four hours from a year ago and the lowest since 1973 (Agence France
Presse, December 10, 2008). A survey of day-laborer sites in 25 states
found that half of all workers had been underpaid or not paid at least
once (The Washington Post, July 8, 2008). In July 2008, a Minnesota
court ruled Wal-Mart Stores Inc violated state wage and hour laws,
failing to give workers their full rest breaks and requiring hourly
employees to work off-the-clock during training (The China Press,
December 10, 2008). On July 23, 2008, New York's State Labor
Department said a clothes factory called "Jin Shun" in Queens was
found to have cheated its workers of 5.3 million US dollars in the
past six years by paying them salaries far below the minimum wage and
not paying for overtime work (World Journal, July 24, 2008). On
September 6, about 27,000 machinists in Boeing went on strike,
requiring the company to raise their salaries and welfares (http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid-7600000
). On October 20, US District Court in Manhattan of New York ordered
Saigon Grill Restaurant to compensate 4.6 million US dollars to 36
delivery workers for violations of minimum wage and overtime laws (The
China Press, December 23, 2008).
Employees' pension plans shrank considerably. A senior budget analyst
with the US Congress estimated in October 2008 that Americans' pension
accounts lost 2 trillion US dollars in the past 15 months. More than
half the people surveyed in an Associated Press-GfK poll said they
would have to delay their retirement. A survey conducted by the
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) released in October
2008 said one out of five Americans above the age of 45 stopped
putting money into a 401(k), IRA(Individual Retirement Account) or
other retirement account (The China Press, October 8, 2008). A study
by Hewitt Associates found the average US 401(k) plan balance was down
14 percent in 2008 to 68,000 US dollars from 79,000 US dollars in2007.
401(k) refers to a section of the US Tax Code that allows retirement
plan investors to defer paying taxes (The China Press, November 25,
2008).
The realization of Americans' education rights is not guaranteed. The
American Human Development Report 2008-2009 showed that 14 percent of
Americans (about 40 million), with inadequate ability to read or
write, were not able to understand the articles on newspapers or user
manuals (The China Press, July 17, 2008). A report published on
December 3, 2008 by the US National Center for Public Policy and
Higher Education said college tuition and fees increased 439 percent
from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Tuition
for the 2008 fall semester increased by 6.4 percent on average for
state universities. Many states planned to sharply increase tuition
for public universities in 2009. Florida and the Washington states
were considering an increase of 15 percent and 20 percent,
respectively. Among the poorest families -- those with incomes in the
lowest 20 percent --the net cost of a year at a public university was
55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000. At
community colleges, that cost was 49 percent of the poorest families'
median income in 2008, up from 40 percent in 1999-2000 (The New York
Times, December 3, 2008). Only 11 percent of the children from the
most impoverished families were college graduates. The figure for
children from the top earning 20 percent families was 53 percent. (The
New York Times, February 22, 2008).
Americans without health insurance have been increasing. According to
the American Human Development Report published in July 2008, despite
spending 230 million US dollars an hour on healthcare, Americans live
shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country,
ranking 42nd in terms of life expectancy. One out of six Americans
does not have health insurance. The Census Bureau said in a report
published on August 26, 2008 that there are 45.7 million Americans
without health insurance. Nineteen states had already made cuts or
were planning to make cuts in Medicaid and/or State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) (The China Press, December 12, 2008). As
medical expenses were rising, many companies quitted buying health
insurance for their employees. A research conducted by the National
Federation of Independent Business in March 2008 found that only 47
percent small-size companies provide health aids for their employees.
Among companies of 50 employees or less, only 24 percent offer health
aids. Many gave up seeing a doctor or receiving treatments as they
couldn't afford it.
Drugs, suicide and other social problems prevail in the United States.
America has the largest population of cocaine and marijuana users in
the world. A survey of 54,000 people from 17 countries found that 16
percent of US survey respondents had at least tried cocaine in their
lifetime, and more than 42 percent had tried marijuana (WHO global
drug survey finds high rates of cocaine, marijuana use in US, http://www.thebostonchannel.com
). The suicide rate among middle-aged white Americans had been on the
rise. A research report issued on October 21, 2008 by the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said between 1999 and 2005,
the overall suicide rate in the United States rose by 0.7 percent
every year. The figure for white men aged 40 to 64 rose 2.7 percent
and for middle-aged white women 3.9 percent. In 2007, a total of 138
people in the city of St. Louis committed suicide. As of June 2, 2008,
61 in the city committed suicide, up by 15 year-on-year (The
Washington Post, June 2, 2008). The suicide rates in Baltimore,
Detroit and New Orleans were all on the rise (The Christian Science
Monitor, January 4, 2008). Many young Americans have personality
disorders. Researchers found that almost one in five young American
adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life,
and nearly half of young people surveyed have some sort of psychiatric
condition. Fewer than 25 percent of college-aged Americans with mental
problems get treatment (1 in 5 adults has personality disorder, http://www.archgenpsychiatyr.com
).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
In the United States, racial discrimination prevails in every aspect
of social life. Black people and other minorities are still suffering
from unequal treatment and discrimination.
Black people and other minorities live at the bottom of the American
society. A report issued by the US Bureau of Census on August 26, 2008
said the real median income for American households was 50,233 US
dollars in 2007. That of the non-Hispanic White households was 54,920
US dollars, Hispanic households 38,679 US dollars, Black households
33,9160 US dollars. The median income of Hispanic and Black households
was roughly 62 percent of that of the non-Hispanic White households.
Poverty rate of Hispanics stood at 21.5 percent, higher than the 20.6
percent in 2006 (Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the
United States: 2007, issued by the US Census Bureau in August 2008, http://www.census.gov
). According to The State of Black America issued by the National
Urban League in March 2008, nearly one quarter of Black American
households live below the poverty line, three times over that of White
households. A report released by the Working Poor Families Project on
October 14, 2008 said in 2006, among all non-Hispanic White
Households, those with low income accounted for 20 percent, while
among minorities, the proportion was 41 percent. In New York City, the
poverty proportion of Hispanic, Asian, African Americans and non-
Hispanic White people were 29.7 percent, 25.9 percent, 23.9 percent
and 16.3 percent respectively (World Journal, July 14, 2008).
Immigrants find it hard to own a house in the United States. The New
York Immigrant Housing Collaborative and Pratt Center for Community
Development said in a report issued on December 3, 2008 that around 25
percent of the native Americans spent half of their income on housing
rent while the ratio was about 31.5 percent among immigrants.
Immigrants from South America and Mexico spent 71.1 percent and 79.8
percent of their incomes on rent, respectively (The China Press,
December 4, 2008). AIDS threatens life of African Americans. A study
released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
in August 2008 said that among the newly infected HIV positive in the
city in 2006, 46 percent were Blacks while 32 percent were Hispanics
(New York Times, August 28, 2008). Black women are 15 times as likely
to be infected with HIV as White women (Hot docs: AIDS in America,
Criminalizing HIV, Obama's National Security Team,http://
www.usnews.com). Currently, there are at least 500,000 Black Americans
infected with HIV/AIDS.
Discrimination in employment is commonplace. According to statistics
from the US Labor Department, the jobless rate in the United States
was 6 percent in the third quarter of 2008. The jobless rate for
Blacks was 10.6 percent, twice that of the Whites(5.3 percent) (The
Employment Situation: November 2008. Issued by the US Department of
Labor, http://www.bls.gov). The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission said it received 30,510 charges concerning employment
discrimination in 2007 (Charge Statistics FY1997 Through FY 2007, http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/charges.html)
. An accusation was filed by Oswald Wilson, an African American on
February 11, 2008 against the American Broadcast Company (ABC) and its
parent company Disney. He said a pattern of racial discrimination had
caused him physical pain and emotional suffering (Black Worker Hits
ABC in Racism Suit, http://www.nydailynews.com/news). On December 5,
2008, former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer's father Bernard
Spitzer was found guilty of racial discrimination by a jury. Four
African Americans, who had worked as doormen or porters at a 34-story
building owned by Bernard Spitzer, claimed that they lost their jobs
because of the color of their skins. They were fired a decade ago,
replaced by someone with lighter skin colors (The China Press,
December 8, 2008).
The ugly head of racial discrimination emerges from time to time in
the education sector. The State of Black America issued by the
National Urban League in 2008 said African Americans' high school
graduation rate and college entry rate still lingered at the level of
the Whites two or three decades ago. Less African American students
get college degrees than the Whites. A news report said that African
American students in public schools were more likely to get physical
punishment than White children, while African American girls were
twice likely to get paddled than White girls (US: End Beating of
Children in Public Schools, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/08/19).
Racial segregation in schools is getting worse. A report by the Civil
Rights Project at the University of California found that Blacks and
Hispanics are more separate from white students than at any time since
the civil rights movement. Some 39 percent of Black students and 40
percent of Hispanic students are isolated in schools in which there is
little racial mixing. The report also found that the average Black and
Latino students is now in a school that has nearly 60 percent of
students from families who are near or below poverty line (Reuters,
January 14, 2009).
Racial discrimination in the judicial system is appalling. The US
Department of Justice said on June 5, 2008 that jailed Black men were
six times as many as the Whites by July 30, 2007. Nearly 11 percent of
the Black men between 30 and 34 were in prison. The New York-based
Human Rights Watch said in a report released in February 2008 that
African American youth arrested for murder are at least three times
more likely than their white peers to receive life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole (US: Uphold Treaty Against Racial
Discrimination,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/02/06). In California,
they are almost six times more likely to receive a sentence of LWOP
(The United States was not Forthcoming and Accurate in its
Presentation to CERD, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/02/06). The New
York Times carried a report on May 6, 2008, saying that although most
drug offenders are white, 54 percent of the drug offenders sent to
prison are black. In 16 states, African Americans are sent to prison
for drug offenses at rates between 10 and 42 times greater than the
rate for whites. A study of 34 states shows that a black man is 11.8
times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug
charges, and a black woman is 4.8 times more likely than a white woman
(US: "Drug War" Unjust to African Americans, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/05/04)
. According to media reports, Sean Bell, a black youngster, died after
being shot at 50 times the day he was to be married. But the three
police officers were acquitted of all charges in his death (National
Urban League Urges US Justice Department to Prosecute Acquitted
Officers in Sean Bell Shooting Case, http://www/nul.org/PressReleases/2008/2008pr430.htm)
. Statistics from the Los Angeles police showed that for every 100
Hispanics stopped by the police for questioning, there is only one
White person being stopped. African Americans are even more likely to
be intercepted by police. Blacks and Hispanics are also frequently
ordered to get out of their vehicles, frisked, shoved and detained. In
the past five years, the L.A. police received nearly 1,200 complaints
against police officers over racial discrimination, but none was
handled (The China Press, October 21,2008). Muslims, Arabic Americans
and other minority groups are also targets for anti-terrorism
investigation of FBI (Ming Pao, July 3, 2008). On the New Year's Day
of 2009, an unarmed black man,22-year-old Oscar Grant was pressed
facedown on an Oakland train platform by police officers and shot him
in the back. Such atrocity aroused protest from local people, who took
to streets on January 7 (Associated Press, February 13, 2009).
The basic rights of indigenous Americans were infringed on. The United
States erected a 18-feet-high wall along the US-Mexico border, which
severely impaired life of local Apache people. Indigenous women fell
victim to violence of American soldiers. In border cities and
townships like Juarez, more than 4,000 Indigenous women were killed or
reported missing. The population of Indigenous youth accounts less
than 2 percent of the total youth population in the United States. But
among those in jail, the Indigenous accounted for 15 to 20 percent and
30 percent of them received the toughest penalty. On April 15 2008,
people of Yankton Siou ethnic group in South Dakota staged a peaceful
demonstration against building a hoggery, which they considered as
highly pollutant. More than 70 officers from the county, state and
federal law enforcement agencies, with the help of special police
squad, police dogs, snipers as well as helicopters, cracked down the
peaceful protest. Thirty-eight people, including children and the
elderly, were arrested. The United States deployed troops and built
navy and air force bases in Guam, taking up one third of the land
there. Local Chamoru people were victimized by the weapons left by US
army during the World War II and nuclear tests. The incidence of rhino
pharyngeal cancer among them is 1,999 percent higher than the average
Americans.
Immigrants received inhumane treatment. Harriett Olson, deputy general
secretary of the Women's Division of the General Board of Global
Ministries of the United Methodist Church, said that once arrested,
the illicit immigrants were always mistreated. They were often jailed
with criminals, and denied fundamental human rights and basic medical
service. Each year, dozens of them die in jail (The China Press,
December 14, 2008). The Human Rights Watch said in June 2008 that the
Department of Homeland Security had more than 30,000 individuals in
detention, and that more than 80 immigrants have died in the last five
years while in the care of the department or immediately after their
release from custody, due to inconsistent standards of care and
inadequate oversight (US: Protect Health of Immigration, http://www.hrw.org/en/news)
. According to a report by the New York Times, computer engineer Hiu
Lui Ng who moved to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 was sent to
detention center in 2007 after his visa expired, and was then jailed
in three states in New England. He died in the custody in August 2008
with his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had
gone undiagnosed and untreated for months (The New York Times, August
12, 2008). More than 2,900 illegal labors were detained since October,
2007, but only 75 employers or managers faced accusation. This number
was just 2 percent of the labors (New York Times, July 1, 2008).
There is serious racial hostility in the United States. According to a
Voice of America report, a research report released by the US
Department of Justice at the end of 2005 shows that United States
reports about 191,000 hate crime each year (Voice of America's Chinese
website, November 7, 2008). A FBI report released on October 27, 2008
indicated that 7,624 hate crime incidents were reported in the United
States in 2007. Among them, 50.8 percent were motivated by a racial
bias, 62.9 percent of the known offenders were white (FBI Releases
2007 Hate Crime Statistics,http://www.fbi.gov/hc2007/summary.htm). The
Chicago Tribune reported on November 23, 2008 that there were 602
organization based on racial bias in the United States in 2000. The
number surged to 888 by 2008. On the same day, the Boston Globe
reported a survey by a professor from the Northwestern University,
saying that the ratio of black men being murdered soared by 33 percent
from 2002 to 2007.
V. On the Rights of Women and Children
The conditions of women and children in the United States are worrisome.
Women account for 51 percent of the US population, but only 88 women
serve in the 110th US Congress. Sixteen women serve in the Senate, or
16 percent of the seats, and 72 women serve in the House, or 16.6
percent of the seats. As of December 2007, 73 women held statewide
elective executive offices across the country, or 23.2 percent of the
available positions. The proportion of women in state legislature is
at 23.7 percent. As of July 2008, among the 100 largest cities in the
US, only 11 had women mayors (Women serving in the 110th Congress
2007-09. Center for American Women and Politics, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu
).
Gender-based discrimination in employment is quite serious. The US
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it received 24,826
charges on discrimination on the basis of sex in 2007, accounting for
30.1 percent of the total discrimination charges (Charge statistics FY
1997 Through FY 2007,http://eeoc.gov/stats/charges.html). A growing
number of women are being treated unfairly by employers because they
are pregnant or hope to be (Mom-to-be claim work bias, http://www.nydailynews.com
,May 19, 2008). According to statistics released by the US Census
Bureau in August 2008, the real median earnings of women who worked
full time in 2007 were 35,102 US dollars, 78 percent of those of
corresponding men whose median earnings were 45,113 US dollars
(Current population survey, http://www.census.gov/press-release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html)
. The unemployment rate for adult women continued to trend up. It
reached 5.5 percent as of November 2008 (The employment situation:
November 2008, issued by the US Department of Labor on December 5,
2008, http://www.bls.gov).
American women are victims of domestic violence and sexual violence.
Statistics showed that among women receiving emergency treatment, one
third of them are victims of domestic violence. Sexual violence poses
a serious threat to American women. 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/masa/stats.php)
. Sexual assault against Indigenous women in the United States is
widespread. Some women interviewed by Amnesty International said they
didn't know anyone in their community who had not experienced sexual
violence (Maze of injustice: the failure to protect indigenous women
from sexual violence in the USA, http://www.amnestyusa.org).
Statistics showed that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
received 12,510 charges of sexual harassment in 2007, 84 percent of
which were filed by females (Sexual Harassment Charges EEOC & FEPAs
Combined: FY 1997-FY 2007, http//www.eeoc.gov). A USA Today report on
October 28, 2008, citing a study, said about one out of seven female
veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq who visit a Veterans Affairs center
for medical care reported being a victim of sexual assault or
harassment during military duty. More than half these women have post-
traumatic stress disorder (15% of female veterans tell of sexual
trauma, more than half of them experience stress disorder, http://global.factiva.com
).
An increasing number of children are living in poverty. Children under
18 account for one third of the people in poverty in the United
States. Statistics show that as at the end of 2007, the poverty rate
of children younger than 18 was 18 percent, up from 17.4 percent in
2006. The poverty rate of children in single female-headed families
reached as high as 43 percent (Income, poverty, and health insurance
coverage in the United States: 2007,issued by the US Census Bureau in
August 2008, www.census.gov.).According to a report released on
October 14, 2008 by the Working Poof Families Project, one third of
children live in low-income working families in 2006. In New York
City, 41.6 percent of children in single-parent families live under
the poverty line. At the end of 2007, 8.1 million children under 18,
or 11 percent of the total, were uninsured, (Income, poverty, and
health insurance coverage in the united states: 2007, issued by the US
Census Bureau in August 2008, www.census.gov).
The conditions of American students are worrisome. According to the US
Department of Education, more than 223,000 students were corporally
punished in 2007. More than 200,000 public school students were
punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year. In 13 states,
more than 1,000 students were corporally punished per year (US: end
beating of children in public schools, http://www.hrw.org/en/new/2008/08/19)
. Corporal punishment is legal in 21 states, according to a report
released by American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch on
August 19, 2008. Alcohol abuse, gambling and drug use are pervasive on
campus. Between 1999 and 2005, 157 college students died of alcoholism
and750,000 youths were addicted to drugs. A report on teen drug use
issued by University of Michigan researchers on December 11, 2008
shows that 11 percent of eighth graders, 24 percent of tenth graders
and 32 percent of 12th graders reported using marijuana in the prior
year. Use of any illicit drug in the prior year was reported by 37
percent of 12th graders, 27 percent of 10th graders and 14 percent of
eighth graders (The China Press, December 12, 2008).
There is no guarantee of children's security. The Children's Defense
Fund said in its 2008 annual report that 3,006 children and teens died
in 2005 from firearms. According to a survey by the Center for
Children, Law and Policy, University of Houston, guns kill eight
children and teens every day in America, which means the Virginia Tech
shooting occurring every four days, or a child or teen being killed by
guns every three hours (Children and teens firearm deaths increase for
first time since 1994, http://www.childrenandthelawblog.come/
2008/06/19). Each year about1.8 million children are reported lost.
More than 3 million children are reported as victims of physical,
sexual, verbal and emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, and death
(Facts you should know about violence against children, http://www.loveourchildrenusa.org
). There are about 1,500 child-abuse fatalities every year (Abuse more
a risk in non-traditional families, http://usatoday.com). Sexual abuse
against children is serious. One in five children were reportedly
sexually abused by the age of 18 (Facts you should know about violence
against children, http://www.loveourchildrenusa.org). In a Texas
polygamist sect, some girls as young as 12 were forced into marriage
with middle-aged men (The China Press, September 23,2008). A research
by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one
fourth of teenage American girls, or 3 million, had a sexually
transmitted disease (STD). African-American teenage girls were mostly
severely affected. Nearly half of the young African-American women
were infected with an STD, compared with 20 percent of young white
women (Sing Tao Daily, March 12, 2008).
The United States is one of the few countries in the world where
minors receive the same criminal punishments as adults do. It is the
only country in the world that sentences children to life in prison
without possibility of parole or release. There are2,381 such inmates
in US prisons currently (The United States was not forthcoming and
accurate in its presentation to CERD, http://www.hrw.org). Seventy-
three of them are serving death-in-prison sentence for offenses at the
age of 13 or 14. Among them, 49 percent are African-Americans, and
most of them come from needy families, without enough legal aids.
These children will die in prison without parole no matter how they
are corrected (Equal Justice Initiative, http://eji.org). According to
the general comments made by the United Nations Committee on the
Rights of the Child in April 2007, sentencing minors to death or life
in prison without possibility of release violates Article 37 of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. When reviewing the human rights
records of the United States in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights
Council said sentencing minors to life in prison without possibility
of release violates Article 7 and Article 24 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Thousands of innocent children have been put into prison by corrupt
judges. According to a report of the Spanish newspaper Rebelion on
February 20, 2009, among the 5,000 juvenile prisoners in Pennsylvania,
an estimated 2,000 were wrongly put into prison by two bribe-taking
judges. According to the report, Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and
Michael T. Conahan in the Luzerne County took more than 2.6 million US
dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two private youth detention
centers run by PA Child Care and a Sister company, Western PA Child
Care. Most of the teenagers did not have a lawyer to turn to. Jamie
Quinn, 18, stayed in prison for one year when she was 14 after she and
a friend quarreled and slapped each other's face. Jamie was taken to a
juvenile detention center and later transferred to several other
jails. In her captivity, Jamie was forced to take some medicines so
she could be "obedient". The girl is just one of the thousands of
innocent children.
The use of child labors is serious in the United States. The
Associated Press reported that the owner and managers of a meatpacking
plant in Iowa was in September 2008 charged with more than 9,000
misdemeanors alleging they hired minors and in some cases had children
younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment. The Iowa attorney
general's office said the violations involved 32 illegal immigrant
children under age 18, including seven who were younger than 16 (Iowa
files child labor charges against meat plant, the Associated Press,
September 10).
VI. On the violation of Human Rights in other nations
The United States has a string of records of trampling on the
sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries.
The war in Iraq has led to the death of more than a million civilians,
made the same number of people homeless and incurred huge economic
losses. The Xe, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide and connected
to the US Department of State, and the DynCorp hired 6,000 private
security guards in Iraq. Victims of activities of the two companies
are frequently Iraqi civilians. A report issued by a supervision team
under the US House of Representatives in October 2007 said Xe
employees had been involved in at least 196 shooting incidents in Iraq
since 2005, which translates into 1.4 incidents a week. Xe employees
fired first in 84 percent of these incidents. The United States
established prisons across Iraq, where prisoners were routinely
abused. Human Rights Watch said on April 27, 2008 that the US-led
Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF) was holding 24,514 detainees at the
end of 2007 (UN: tell us to end illegal detention practices in Iraq, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/04/27)
. On average, detainees remain in custody for more than 300 days, and
all Iraqi detainees are denied their basic rights (America's Iraqi
prisoners, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/08/07). According to a
Human Rights Watch report on May 19, 2008, the United States has
detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including those as young as 10,
since 2003. US forces were also holding 513 Iraqi children as
"imperative threats to security". Children in Iraqi custody are at
risk of physical abuse (US: Respect rights of child detainees in Iraq,
http//www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/05/19).
The United States has maintained its economic, commercial and
financial embargo against Cuba for nearly 50 years. Cuban Foreign
Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the US blockade has caused an
accumulated directed economic loss of more than 93 billion US dollars
for Cuba. Seven out of 10 Cubans have spent their entire lives under
the US embargo (Overwhelming International Rejection of US Blockade of
Cuba at UN,www.cubanews.ain.cu/2008/1029votacion_onu.htm). On October
29, 2008, the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly
adopted a resolution entitled "Necessity of ending the economic,
commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of
America against Cuba" with a vote of 185 for, three against, urging
the United States to immediately end its unilateral embargo against
Cuba. It is the 17th consecutive year that an overwhelming majority in
the assembly have supported the measure. It is a demonstration of the
international community expressing their strong dissatisfaction over
the United States acting against the international law and U.N.
Charter by viciously violating Cuban peoples' rights to live and
develop.
The United States is the world's biggest seller of arms. Its arms
sales greatly intensified instability across the world and severely
violated human rights of foreign nationals. A report by the New
American Foundation, US arms sales reached 32 billion US dollars in
2007, more than three times the level in 2001. The weapons were sold
to more than 174 nations and regions (Study: US arms sales undermine
global human rights, http://sfgate.com).
The United States is haunted by scandals of prisoner abuses. The
Washington Post reported on September 25, 2008 that US interrogators
poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal
liability, according to an internal memo declassified by the
Department of Defense. The same newspaper reported on April 22, 2008
that US interrogators used practices such as keeping detainees from
sleeping, forced drugging, and coercing confession through torture
during questioning detainees at the military prison in Guantanamo. The
Human Rights Watch said in a February 6, 2008 report that about 185 of
the 270 detainees are housed in facilities akin to "supermax" prisons
in various "camps" at the detention center in Guantanamo even though
they have not yet been convicted of a crime. These detainees have
extremely limited contact with other human beings; spend 22 hours a
day alone in small cells with little or no natural light or fresh air
(News report finds treatment of detainees unnecessarily harsh, http//www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/06/10)
. The Associated Press reported that more than 20 detainees under the
age of 18 have been brought to the prison camp in Guantanamo since
2002 to fall victim to mistreatment from US army service people. In
June 2008, Mohammed Jawad described his experience in May 2004 when
he, less than 18 then, was brought to the detention center in
Guantanamo and was denied his time for sleep. Jawad was moved from
cell to cell 112 times in 14 days, usually left in one cell for less
than three hours before being shackled and moved to another. He was
moved more frequently between midnight and 2 a.m. to ensure maximum
disruption of sleep (The war on teen terror, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/06/23)
.
The United States is inactive towards its international human rights
obligations under the international treaties. The US signed the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 31
years ago, the Covenant on the Elimination of All forms of
Discrimination against Women 28 years ago, and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child 14 years ago, but none of the above treaties has
been approved yet. The Convention on Rights of Disabled Persons is the
most important progress the United Nations has achieved in protecting
the rights of disabled persons in the new century, and the convention
is highly valued by different nations. So far, 136 countries have
signed the convention, and 41 already approved it. But the United
States has yet to endorse and sign the convention. The US has refused
a pledge to promote and protect the rights of indigenous people, and
also failed to acknowledge their rights of self-governing, of land and
of natural resources in the United Nations and in the international
community. On September 13, 2007, the 61st session of the United
Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of Aboriginal Rights
by a vote of 143 in favor, while the United States was one of the only
four countries that voted against it.
The United States has always obstinately followed double standards in
dealing with international human rights affairs, and failed to fulfill
its international human rights obligations. The Special Rapporteur on
the human rights of migrants of the United Nations visited the United
States in 2007. However, the original plans to visit the detention
centers in Hutto, Texas and Monmouth, New Jersey were canceled with no
satisfactory explanations from the US government, although the plans
had been sanctioned by the US government in advance. In 2008, the U.N.
Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants said in the US-
visit report that the United States detained 230,000 migrants every
year, more than three times the number nine years ago. The US
deportation procedures lack proper procedures about "non-citizens",
and non-citizens are rendered incapable of questioning whether they
are detained lawfully, or whether for too long. The Special Rapporteur
said the United States had failed to fulfill its international
obligations, and also failed in adopting comprehensively coordinated
national policies in light of explicit international obligations to
prioritize the human rights of more than 37.5 million migrants living
in the country.
The outbound humanitarian aids offered by the United States are
dwarfed by its status as the richest country in the world. According
to a report from the Development Assistance Research Associates, a non-
profit organization based in Spain, the United States is listed one of
the countries with the worst records in providing independent,
righteous, and unbiased humanitarian aids to other countries. The
report said the US aids to other countries came frequently linked to
its military or political ambitions.
Respect to and protection of human rights is an important indication
of civilization and progress of human society. Every government
shoulders a common responsibility in committing itself to improvement
of human rights conditions in the country. For years, the United
States has positioned itself over other countries and released the
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices annually to criticize human
rights conditions in other countries, using it as a tool to interfere
with and demonize other nations. In the meantime, the US has turned a
blind eye to its own violations of human rights. The US practice of
throwing stones at others while living in a glass house is a testimony
to the double standards and hypocrisy of the United States in dealing
with human rights issues, and has undermined its international image.
We hereby advise the US government to begin anew, face its own human
rights problems with courage, and stop the wrong practice of applying
double standards on human rights issues.
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