photo 3ec5abe8-497d-41af-a7dd-29050aea8f7e.jpg

“民间组织・议会斗争・民主人权”论坛 ——人民之友工委会12周年纪念

Thursday, June 28, 2012

美国推动“亚洲疯狂军备竞赛”

 美国推动亚洲疯狂军备竞赛

作者: 杜朝平(中国)
来源: 环球视野网站


(漫画美国战略东移: 推销武器 

美国《外交政策聚焦》网站 近期刊发专栏作家康恩哈利南名为亚洲疯狂的军备竞赛的文章,称亚洲目前正处于一场前所未有的军备竞赛之中,而中国1000亿美元军费及与周边国家之间的紧张关系是主要动因。军事观察家表示,该文把中国作为靶标,恶意攻击中国正当的军费需求和军力发展,无非是要嫁祸于人,窝藏真正的凶手。那么,究竟是谁制造了亚洲疯狂的军备竞赛?

美《国防》月刊网站近日对美国国防部长帕内塔亚洲之行的报道,就很好地回答了这个疑问:帕内塔在日前的亚洲之行中大谈美国扩大在该地区军事存在的计划及加强与该地区联系的决心,尽管没有贸易代表团随他出访,但推销高价武器仍是其重要任务。

中国又成了靶子

《外交政策聚焦》网站的文章指出,亚洲目前正处在一场前所未有的军备竞赛之中,这不仅加剧了该地区的紧张局势,还与亚洲国家为消除贫困和日益加大的经济差距所做的努力相左。文章详细罗列了近两年来亚洲国家加强军备建设的情况。印度是2010年世界上最大的武器采购国,它拿出200亿美元采购法国阵风战斗机 等装备。印度不久前成功试射了射程5000公里的烈火5型洲际导弹,从俄罗斯租借的首艘核潜艇查克拉”—2号正式服役,并在研制一种能够携带多枚 核弹头的远程弹道导弹,以及购买更多的潜艇和水面舰船。印度今年的军费预算增加17%,达到420亿美元。

文章称,中国也在大力发展军备,包括加强海军建设、制造新一代隐形战机和研制一种也许能够压制位于中国沿海的美国航母反舰弹道导弹。中国的军费预算以每年大约12%的速度增加,目前为1064.1亿美元,在全世界排名第二。中国在南海的强硬姿态引发了与越南、菲律宾、马来西亚与文莱等国的紧张关系。中菲黄岩岛争端目前仍未最终解决。

尽管中国在相关海域问题上容易动怒,但没有证据表明中国奉行扩张主义,北京似乎也不急于动武。中国对谁控制这一地区海域担忧,在一定程度上是因为大约80%的中国能源供应要通过美国及其盟友控制的海上咽喉要道。

文章表示,就算没有美国媒体描绘的那样尖锐或严重,亚洲的紧张局势却是真实存在的,而中国与该地区其他国家之间的紧张关系引发了军备竞赛。日本将大量军力从北部岛屿转移至靠近中国的南部地区。菲律宾斥资十多亿美元购买新飞机和雷达,最近还与美国在南海举行了联合军演。韩国刚刚成功试射了一枚远程巡航导弹。华 盛顿还正在恢复与印尼军队的关系,因为印尼控制着该地区大多数贸易和能源供应必经的战略海上通道。澳大利亚也在调整其国防政策以对付中国。澳国防部长斯蒂 史密斯还敦促印度扮演作为一个新兴大国在地区安全和稳定事务中能够或应该扮演的角色。国外分析人士认为,史密斯这番话旨在促使新德里加入一个对付 北京的联合阵线。

炒作亚洲军备竞赛及把矛头对准中国,《外交政策聚焦》的文章其实并不新鲜。今年3月初,英国智库国际战略研究所预测亚洲军费2012年将首超欧洲,英国《金融时报》因此称亚洲正陷入典型军备竞赛的泥潭

英国《独立报》在3月中旬报道中印2012年度军费均呈两位数增长时,也煞有介事地宣称亚洲已陷入日益加剧的军备竞赛过程

瑞典斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所发布的报告称,亚洲过去5年成为全球最大武器买家,排名前五的武器进口国都在亚洲。

美国彭博社特别关注中菲黄岩岛争端中菲律宾的军购计划,称菲正寻求尽快引进两个中队的军用飞机,并将为此支付高达16亿美元的采购费用。彭博社还援引菲律宾总统阿基诺三世的话说,此举意在提高菲与中国在领土争端中的防御能力。菲海军还从美国引进了2艘汉密尔顿级炮舰,该级舰实际上已经是美国海岸警卫队的老古董了,但阿基诺政府仍然花了不少的钱。

哪里有争端,哪里就有美国的影子


自从2010年以来,美国战略逐步东移,强化在亚太的军事存在,不断在亚太挑起纷争。可以说,哪里有争端,哪里就有美国的影子。61日在新加坡召开的第11香格里拉对话上,美国国防部长帕内塔发表了有关美军事战略转向亚太的讲话,强调亚太对美国的未来至关重要:称美国削减国防预算不妨碍增加在亚太地区的战略,未来几年将在太平洋部署更多舰船。2020年前美将改变目前在太平洋与大西洋分别部署50%战舰的格局,把在太平洋地区的军舰数量增至60%。美国目前有11艘航母,其中6艘部署在太平洋,今年底航母数量将下降至10艘,5艘部署太平洋。

帕内塔称,他准备在未来几年内,将太平洋地区部署航空母舰的数量恢复到6艘,并拟把大部分巡洋舰、驱逐舰、潜艇与濒海战斗舰部署到太平洋地区。

在新加坡期间,帕内塔和新加坡国防部长黄永宏发表联合声明称,美拟向新加坡部署最多4艘濒海战斗舰。新加坡国防部长在单独发表的一份声明中说,首舰独立号将于 2013年第2季度开始部署。尽管声明称部署细节仍在谈判中,这些战舰将轮岗,不会常驻,但美国在当前南海形势趋紧的敏感时刻,把其适于濒海作战的战舰部署到这里,意图不言而喻。

英国《星期曰泰晤士报》援引美国专家的话说,在监测、侦察及兵力投送等方面,独立号优于任何已知中国水面战舰,可在某种程度上平衡中国在南海独大的局面。

向南海地区派驻战舰,是美国继增兵关岛、澳大利亚后在亚太地区进行布阵的又一举措。美国防部官员还宣称正寻求在亚洲及中东建立与欧洲类似的导弹防御系统,以帮助伊朗、朝鲜的邻国抵御来自伊、朝的威胁,并帮助美国防御未来可能的远程导弹威胁。美国提议的这一反导系统直接建在了中国的家门口,名为防范朝鲜和伊 朗,实为遏制中国。美国《大西洋连线》杂志就称,一场高科技导弹对峙逼近东亚

美国还拟重返菲律宾驻军,帕内塔63日历史性地到访越南金兰湾,重回美军越战时期建立的最大海空军基地。与此同时,美国还在加紧武装其亚太盟友,分化中国与亚太国家之间的关系,如支持日本强化钓鱼岛控制, 鼓动菲律宾、越南等国在南海闹事,并为他们撑腰。近期最典型的就是暗助菲律宾在黄岩岛与中国抗衡。
    
410日中菲黄岩岛争端发生后,美国尽管公开宣称不在南海主权问题上选边站,但却不时暗示对菲给予支持。菲国防部长加斯明高调宣称,美国务卿希拉里与防长帕内塔都向菲保证,将保护菲在南海免遭任何形式的攻击。而且,美还加紧向菲提供装备,第2艘汉密尔顿级炮舰在523日移交给菲方,美海军还把北卡罗来纳号核潜艇开到菲律宾苏比克湾。美菲强调美军核潜艇只是例行停靠,与近期黄岩岛事件无关。但明眼人都知道,美国在这个时候派出核潜艇访问菲律宾会有什么潜台词。

是谁惹的祸一目了然

亚洲军费增长较快,但总量仍然有限。2011年亚洲国家的防务开支为2620亿美元,低于欧洲的约2700亿美元。如按人均防务开支标准计算,亚洲则显著低于欧洲。而与美国相比,亚洲军费开支相差更远,虽然面临削减财政赤字的空前压力,但美国2013财政年度的军费仍高达6139亿美元。因此有专家指出,事实上并不存在什么亚洲军备竞赛。就算如西方媒体所言,亚洲正陷入一场前所未有的军备竞赛之中,那么是谁惹的祸,也是一目了然。

军事专家指出,从国防需求来看,中国目前的军费还远远不够。上世纪八九十年代,中国军费开支属维持型,根本不能满足正常装备更新换代。上世纪90年代后 期,中国军费进入补偿型增长阶段。目前,中国提升军力是正当的国防需求。而且,如今中国的物价上涨,军队官兵津贴也随之增长,这也是导致军费增长的一 个重要因素。

值得注意的是,西方国家计算的许多数据都喜欢看人均,如果将中国的军费按人均计算,其实是非常低的,也是处在世界排名靠后的。部分国外媒体对这个问题也有较深的认识。

英国《每日电讯》记者普里查尔撰文说,对于中国军费今年增长11.2%,日本等表示关切。虽然我不想站队,但我要指出中国名义GDP今年将增长12%到 13%,其军费占GDP的比重实际在缩小。因此让鹰派失望的是,我不会对中国军费增长夜不能寐。俄罗斯《军工信使》周刊指出,中国国防支出保持较高速度 增长,但实际上其他国家和地区的军费增幅也不低。

亚洲是保留冷战遗产最多的地区:朝鲜半岛南北双方仍处于战争状态:日本与中国、俄罗斯和韩国之间存在严重领土纠纷等。由于存在领土及岛礁主权之争,造成亚洲国家缺乏相互战略信任,为了领土等利益,相互提防,所以使武器购买增长有些偏高。

菲律宾GMA电视新闻网报道称,南海争端是所有领土争端之母,涉及中国大陆,中国台湾地区、菲律宾、文莱、越南和马来西亚。其实,这只是亚洲的导火线之一,其他还有朝鲜半岛、钓鱼岛、苏岩礁、菲律宾与马来西亚的沙巴州、澳大利亚与印尼的海伯尼亚礁争端等诸多问题。

这些争端刺激了亚洲地区军备竞赛的急剧升温,也给美国等域外大国浑水摸鱼、从中渔利提供了口实。一方面,美国针对亚洲崛起大国加紧强化与调整亚太军力部署,人为加剧亚洲军事紧张,导致亚洲国家间的分化甚至对抗,刺激亚洲军费上涨。另一方面,美国一些媒体则倒打一耙、反咬中国一口,无理指责是中国崛起导致周边国家紧张与亚洲军费上涨,渲染中国军事威胁。真可谓,一手制造危机,一手推销军火。

显然,美国军事战略重返亚洲才是诱发亚洲军备竞赛的真正原因,而这也是美国乐意看到的,它可利用亚太各国之间的岛礁及海洋争端等大做文章,煽风点火、推波助澜、挑拨离间,趁机大发军火财与缓解国内经济困境,又能藉此操控亚洲安全形势,维持其所谓的主导地位

美《国防》月刊网站近日刊文称,奥巴马政府认为,亚洲军备竞赛加剧是推动美国制造业以及经济增长的机会。看来,美国亲手制造危机,然后销售军火,亚洲军备随之升温,于是出现更大危机,需要更多军火……这一恶性循环正是美国挖好的陷阱。

(《环球视野globalview.cn》第471期,摘自201265日《中国国防报》)

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011

 Human Rights Record of 
 the United States in 2011 

Published by: The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China 
[Editor's Note] The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China published a report entitled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" on May 25, 2012. The report consists of 6 sections.

Please click on the section that you want to read :-


   I. On Life, Property and Personal Security
   II. On Civil and Political Rights
   III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
   IV. On Racial Discrimination
   V. On the rights of women and children
   VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations


The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 on May 24, 2012. As in previous years, the reports are full of over-critical remarks on the human rights situation in nearly 200 countries and regions as well as distortions and accusations concerning the human rights cause in China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and kept silent about it. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the United States to people across the world and urge the United States to face up to its own doings.

Occupy Seattle protesters, an off-shoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, scuffle with police officers during a May Day rally and anti-capitalist march in Seattle.
Stuart Isett / Bloomberg

Photo Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/26/content_15392452.htm

I. On Life, Property and Personal Security

The United States has mighty strength in human, financial and material resources to exert effective control over violent crimes. However, its society is chronically suffering from violent crimes, and its citizens' lives, properties and personal security are in lack of proper protection.

A report published by the U.S. Department of Justice on September 15, 2011, revealed that in 2010 the U.S. residents aged 12 and above experienced 3.8 million violent victimizations, 1.4 million serious violent victimizations, 14.8 million property victimizations and 138,000 personal thefts. The violent victimization rate was 15 victimizations per 1,000 residents (www.bjs.gov). The crime rate surged in many cities and regions in the United States. In the southern region of the United States, there were 452 violent crimes and 3,438.8 property crimes per 100,000 inhabitants (in 2010) on average (The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2011). Just four weeks into 2011, San Francisco saw eight homicides -- compared with five during the same time of the previous year, with Oakland racking up 11, when the previous year in the same period it had four (The San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2011). Grand larcenies in the subway in New York City increased from 852 in 2010 to 1,075 cases in the first nine months of 2011, a 25 percent jump (The China Press, September 24, 2011). Homicide cases in Detroit in 2011 saw a 13.5 percent rise over 2010 (www.buzzle.com). Between January and October 2011, a total of 123,924 serious crime cases took place in Chicago (portal.chicagopolice.org). An anti-bullying public service announcement declared in January 2011 that more than six million schoolchildren experienced bullying in the previous six months (CNN, March 10, 2011). According to statistics from the Family First Aid, almost 30 percent of teenagers in the United States are estimated to be involved in school bullying (www.familyfirstaid.org).

The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership. The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world' s civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns (Online edition of the Foreign Policy, January 9, 2011). According to a Gallup poll in October 2011, 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun. That was an increase of six percentage points from a year ago and the highest Gallup had recorded since 1993. Fifty-two percent of middle-aged adults, aged between 35 and 54, reported to own guns, and the adults' gun ownership in the south region was 54 percent (The China Press, October 28, 2011). The New York Times reported on November 14, 2011, that since 1995, more than 3,300 felons and people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors had regained their gun rights in the state of Washington and of that number, more than 400 had subsequently committed new crimes, including shooting and other felonies (The New York Times, November 14, 2011).

The United States is the leader among the world's developed countries in gun violence and gun deaths. According to a report of the Foreign Policy on January 9, 2011, over 30,000 Americans die every year from gun violence and another 200,000 Americans are estimated to be injured each year due to guns (Online edition of the Foreign Policy, January 9, 2011). According to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Justice, among the 480,760 robbery cases and 188,380 rape and sexual assault cases in 2010, the rates of victimization involving firearms were 29 percent and 7 percent, respectively (www.bjs.gov). On June 2, 2011, a shooting rampage in Arizona left six people dead and one injured (The China Press, June 3, 2011). In Chicago, more than 10 overnight shooting incidents took place just between the evening of June 3 and the morning of June 4 (Chicago Tribune, June 4, 2011). Another five overnight shootings occurred between August 12 evening and August 13 morning in Chicago. These incidents have caused a number of deaths and injuries (Chicago Tribune, August 13, 2011). Shooting spree cases involving one gunman shooting dead over five people also happened in the states of Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Nevada and Southern California (The New York Times, October 13, 2011; CNN, July 8, 2011; CBS, July 23, 2011;USA Today, August 9, 2011). High incidence of gun-related crimes has long ignited complaints of the U.S. people and they stage multiple protests every year, demanding the government strictly control the private possession of arms. The U.S. government, however, fails to pay due attention to this issue.

II. On Civil and Political Rights

In the United States, the violation of citizens' civil and political rights is severe. It is lying to itself when the United States calls itself the land of the free (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012).

Claiming to defend 99 percent of the U.S. population against the wealthiest, the Occupy Wall Street protest movement tested the U.S. political, economic and social systems. Ignited by severe social and economic inequality, uneven distribution of wealth and high unemployment, the movement expanded to sweep the United States after its inception in September 2011. Whatever the deep reasons for the movement are, the single fact that thousands of protesters were treated in a rude and violent way, with many of them being arrested -- the act of willfully trampling on people' s freedom of assembly, demonstration and speech -- could provide a glimpse to the truth of the so-called U.S. freedom and democracy.

Almost 1,000 people were reportedly arrested in first two weeks of the movement, according to British and Australian media (The Guardian, October 2, 2011). The New York police arrested more than 700 protesters for alleged blocking traffic over Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, and some of them were handcuffed to the bridge before being shipped by police vehicles (uschinapress.com, October 3, 2011). On October 9, 92 people were arrested in New York (The New York Times, October 15, 2011). The Occupy Wall Street movement was forced out of its encampment at Zuccotti Park and more than 200 people were arrested on November 15 (The Guardian, November 25, 2011). Chicago police arrested around 300 members of the Occupy Chicago protest in two weeks (The Herald Sun, October 24, 2011). At least 85 people were arrested when police used teargas and baton rounds to break up an Occupy Wall Street camp in Oakland, California on October 25. An Iraq war veteran had a fractured skull and brain swelling after being allegedly hit in the head by a police projectile (The Guardian, October 26, 2011). A couple of hundred people were arrested when demonstrations were staged in different U.S. cities to mark the Occupy Wall Street movement' s two-month anniversary on November 17 (USA Today, November 18, 2011). Among them, at least 276 were arrested in New York only. Some protesters were bloodied as they were hauled away. Many protesters accused the police of treating them in a brutal way (The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2011). As a U.S. opinion article put it, the United States could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012).

While advocating press freedom, the United States in fact imposes fairly strict censoring and control over the press and "press freedom" is just a political tool used to beautify itself and attack other nations. The U.S. Congress failed to pass laws on protecting rights of reporters' news sources, according to media reports. An increasing number of American reporters lost jobs for "improper remarks on politics." U.S. reporter Helen Thomas resigned for critical remarks about Israel in June 2010 ( "Report: On the situation with human rights in a host of world states," the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, December 28, 2011). While forcibly evacuating the Zuccotti Park, the original Occupy Wall Street encampment, the New York police blocked journalists from covering the police actions. They set cordon lines to prevent reporters from getting close to the park and closed airspace to make aerial photography impossible. In addition to using pepper spray against reporters, the police also arrested around 200 journalists, including reporters from NPR and the New York Times (uschinapress.com, November 15, 2011). By trampling on press freedom and public interests, these actions by the U.S. authorities caused a global uproar. U.S. mainstream media' s response to the Occupy Wall Street movement revealed the hypocrisy in handling issues of freedom and democracy. Poll by Pew Research Center indicated that in the second week of the movement, reports on the movement only accounted for 1.68 percent of the total media reports by nationwide media organizations. On October 15, 2011, when the Occupy Wall Street movement evolved to be a global action, CNN and Fox News gave no live reports on it, in a sharp contrast to the square protest in Cairo, for which both CNN and Fox News broadcast live 24 hours.

The U.S. imposes fairly strict restriction on the Internet, and its approach "remains full of problems and contradictions." (The website of the Foreign Policy magazine, February 17, 2011) "Internet freedom" is just an excuse for the United States to impose diplomatic pressure and seek hegemony.

The U.S. Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act both have clauses about monitoring the Internet, giving the government or law enforcement organizations power to monitor and block any Internet content "harmful to national security." Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 stipulates that the federal government has "absolute power" to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency. According to a report by British newspaper the Guardian dated March 17, 2011, the U.S. military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas, and will allow the U.S. military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives. The project aims to control and restrict free speech on the Internet (The Guardian, March 17, 2011). According to a commentary by the Voice of Russia on February 2, 2012, a subsidiary under the U.S. government' s security agency employed several hundred analysts, who were tasked with monitoring private archives of foreign Internet users in a secret way, and were able to censor as many as five million microblogging posts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security routinely searched key words like "illegal immigrants," "virus," "death," and "burst out" on Twitter with fake accounts and then secretly traced the Internet users who forwarded related content. According to a report by the Globe and Mail on January 30, 2012, Leigh Van Bryan, a British, prior to his flight to the U.S., wrote in a Twitter post, "Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?" As a result, Bryan along with a friend were handcuffed and put in lockdown with suspected drug smugglers for 12 hours by armed guards after landing in Los Angeles International Airport, just like "terrorists" . Among many angered by the incident in Britain, an Internet user posted a comment, "What' s worse, being arrested for an innocent tweet, or the fact that the American Secret Service monitors every electronic message in the world?" (The Daily Mail, January 31, 2012)

The U.S. democracy is increasingly being influenced by capitalization and becoming a system for "master of money." Data issued by the U.S. Center for Responsive Politics in November 2011 show that 46 percent of the U.S. federal senators and members of the House of Representatives have personal assets of more than a million dollars. That well explains why U.S. administration' s plans to impose higher tax on the rich who earn more than one million dollars annually have been blocked in the Congress (www.finance-ol.com). As a commentary put it, money has emerged as the electoral trump card in the U.S. political system, and corporations have a Supreme Court-recognized right to use their considerable financial muscle to promote candidates and policies favorable to their business operations and to resist policies and shut out candidates deemed inimical to their business interests (Online edition of Time, January 20, 2011). According to a media report, nearly two thirds of all the contributions that the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee received during the 2010 election cycle came from industries regulated by his committee. A ranking Democrat Representative on the Agriculture Committee, who served as chairman between 2007 and 2010, saw a 711 percent increase in contributions from groups regulated by his committee and a 274 percent increase in contributions over all, in the same period (The New York Times, November 16, 2011). According to a Washington Post report on August 10, 2011, nearly eight in 10 of Americans polled were dissatisfied with the way the political system is working, with 45 percent saying they are very dissatisfied (The Washington Post, August 10, 2011).

The U.S. continued to violate the freedom of its citizens in the name of boosting security levels (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012). The Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2011 released a report, "Patterns of Misconduct: FBI intelligence violations from 2001-2008," which reveals that domestic political intelligence apparatus spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, continues to systematically violate the rights of American citizens and legal residents. The report shows that the actual number of violations that may have occurred from 2001 to 2008 could approach 40,000 possible violations of law, Executive Order, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations. The FBI issued some 200,000 requests and that almost 60 percent were for investigations of U.S. citizens and legal residents (www.pacificfreepress.com). The New York Times reported on October 20, 2011, that the FBI has collected information about religious, ethnic and national-origin characteristics of American communities (The New York Times, October 20, 2011). According to a Washington Post commentary dated January 14, 2012, the U.S. government can use "national security letters" to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens' finances, communications and associations, and order searches of everything from business documents to library records. The U.S. government can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012).

Abuse of power, brutal enforcement of law and overuse of force by U.S. police have resulted in harassment and hurt to a large number of innocent citizens and have caused loss of freedom of some people or even deaths. According to a report carried by the World Journal on June 10, 2011, the past decade saw increasing stop-and-frisks by the New York police, which recorded an annual of 600,000 cases in 2010, almost double of that in 2004. In the first three months of 2011, some 180,000 people experienced stop-and-frisks, 88 percent of whom were innocent people (World Journal, June 10, 2011). In early July of 2011, two police officers beat a mentally ill homeless man to death in Orange County, Southern California (FoxNews.com, September 21, 2011). In August 2011, North Miami police shot and killed a man carrying realistic toy gun (The NY Daily News, September 1, 2011). On Jan. 8, 2011, a Central California man was shot and killed by the police, who thought of him as a gang member only because the jacket he was wearing was red, "the chosen color of a local street gang." (www.kolotv.com, January 19, 2011) In May 2011, Arizona' s police officers raided the home of Jose Guerena and shot him dead in what was described as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking. However, the police later found nothing illegal in his home (The Huffington Post, May 25, 2011). Misjudged and wrongly-handled cases continued to occur. According to media reports, Anthony Graves, a Texas man, was imprisoned for 18 years for crimes he did not commit (CBS News, June 22, 2011). Forty-six-year-old Thomas Haynesworth spent 27 years in prison after being arrested at the age of 18 for crimes he didn' t commit (Union Press International, December 7, 2011). Eric Caine, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after being tortured by police into confessing to two murders, spent nearly 25 years behind bars.(Chicago Tribune, June 13, 2011).

The U.S. lacks basic due lawsuit process protections, and its government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012). The National Defense Authorization Act, signed December 31, 2011, allows for the indefinite detention of citizens (The Washington Post, January 14, 2012). The Act will place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists (www.forbes.com, December 5, 2011).

The U.S. remains the country with the largest "prison population" and the highest per capita level of imprisonment in the world, and the detention centers' conditions are terrible. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of prisoners amounted to 2.3 million in 2009 and one in every 132 American citizens is behind bars. Meanwhile, more than 140,000 are serving life sentences ("Report: On the situation with human rights in a host of world states," the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, December 28, 2011). According to a Los Angeles Times report on May 24, 2011, in a California prison, as many as 54 inmates may share a single toilet and as many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium (Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2011). According to data issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the estimated number of prison and jail inmates experiencing sexual victimization totaled 88,500 in the U.S. between October 2008 and December 2009 (www.bjs.gov). Since April 2011, officials stopped serving lunch on the weekend in some U.S. prisons as a way to cut food-service costs. About 23,000 inmates in 36 prisons are eating two meals a day on Saturdays and Sundays instead of three (The New York Times, October 20, 2011). Harsh conditions and treatment in prisons have caused recurring protests and suicides of inmates. There were two major hunger strikes in California prisons staged by a total of more than 6,000 and 12,000 prisoners in July and October 2011, respectively, to protest against what they call harsh treatment and detention conditions (CNN, October 4, 2011; The New York Times, July 7, 2011). According to a Chicago Tribune report on July 20, 2011, since 2000, at least 175 youths have attempted to kill themselves inside Department of Juvenile Justice lockup facilities in Chicago and seven youths committed suicide. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in a 2011 report noted that in the Untied States an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 individuals are being held in isolation, and the U.S. government in 2011 for two times turned down the Special Rapporteur's request for a private and unmonitored meeting with detainees held in isolation.

III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The United States is the world's richest country, but quite a lot of Americans still lack guarantee for their economic, social and cultural rights that are necessary for personal dignity and self-development.

The United States has not done enough to protect its citizens from unemployment. At no time in the last 60 years had the country's long-term unemployment been so high for so long as it was in 2011. It has been one of the Western developed countries that provide the poorest protection over laborer's rights. It has not yet approved any international labor organization convention in the last 10 years. Moreover, the United States lacks effective arbitration system to deal with enterprises that refuse to make compromise with the employees. The New York Times reported on December 12, 2011, that at last count, 13.3 million people were officially unemployed and that 5.7 million of them had been out of work for more than six months (The New York Times, December 12, 2011). The unemployment rate was 8.9 percent for 2011 (www.bls.gov), and the unemployment rate for American youth between 25 and 34 stood at 26 percent in October of that year (The World Journal, November 18, 2011), with more underemployed. A total of 84 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, and El Centro, California, recorded the highest unemployment rate of 29.6 percent in September of 2011 (www.bls.gov). The unemployed people suffered from not only financial pressures but also mental pressures including anxiety and depression.

There is a widening of the gap between the extreme top and bottom (The USA Today, September 13, 2011), showing apparent unfair wealth distribution. The United States claims to have a large population of middle class, making up 80 percent of its total population, while there is only very few impoverished and extremely rich people (The China Press, October 13, 2011). However, this is not the truth. According to the report issued by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on October 25, 2011, the richest one percent of American families have the fastest growth of family revenue from 1979 to 2007 with an increase of 275 percent for after-tax income, while the after-tax income of the poorest 20 percent grew by only 18 percent (The World Journal, October 26, 2011). Cable News Network reported on February 16, 2011, that in the last 20 years, incomes for 90 percent of Americans have been stuck in neutral, while the richest 1 percent of Americans have seen their incomes grow by 33 percent. Economic Policy Institute published a paper on October 26, 2011, saying that in 2009 the ratio of wealth owned by the wealthiest one percent to the wealth owned by median household was 225 to 1 (www.epi.org). Besides, in the United States, the best-off 10 percent made on average 15 times the incomes of the poorest 10 percent (Reuters, December 9, 2011). The wealthiest 400 Americans have 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars' worth of assets (The China Press, October 13, 2011), or the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans -- over 150 million people (www.currydemocrats.org). The annual incomes of the richest 10 chief executive officers (CEO) were enough to pay the salary of 18,330 employees (The World Journal, October 16, 2011). Roughly 11 percent of Congress members had net worth of more than 9 million U.S. dollars, and 249 members were millionaires. The median net worth: 891,506 U.S. dollars, was almost nine times the typical household (The USA Today, November 16, 2011). A commentary by the Spiegel said that the U.S. has developed into an economic entity of "winners take all." American politician Larry Bartels said that fundamental shifts in wealth allocation was caused by political decisions rather than the consequences of market forces or financial crisis (The Spiegel, October 24, 2011).

Contrary to the wealthiest 10 percent, the number of Americans living in poverty as well as poverty rate continued to hit record high, which is a great irony in the affluent America. A report published by the Census Bureau on September 13, 2011, showed that 46.2 million people lived below the official poverty line in 2010, 2.6 million more than 2009, hitting the highest record since 1959. The report also said that the percentage of American who lived below the poverty line in 2010 was 15.1 percent, the highest level since 1993. An analysis done by the Brookings Institution estimated that at the current rate, the recession would have added nearly 10 million people to the ranks of the poor by the middle of the decade. According to the analysis, 22 percent of children were in poverty (The New York Times, September 13, 2011). Another survey showed that 12 states of the U.S had poverty rates above 17 percent, with Mississippi's poverty rate standing at 22.4 percent (The Huffington Post, October 21, 2011). The U.S. has grown into a country dependent on food stamps (Reuters, August 22, 2011). The percentage of Americans who did not have enough money to buy food grew from 9 percent in 2008 to 19 percent in 2011 (The World Journal, October 15, 2011). In 2010, 17.2 million households, or 14.5 percent, were food insecure (www. Worldhunger. org). In 2011, 46 million Americans lived on food stamps, about 15 percent of the total population, up 74 percent from 2007 (Reuters, August 22, 2011).

Millions of homeless people wandered around streets. Reports said that about 2.3 million to 3.5 million Americans did not have a place that they call home to sleep in the night (www.homelessnessinamerica.com). Between 2007 and 2010, the number of homeless families grew by 20 percent (The Huffington Post, August 26, 2011). Over the past five years, the percentage of singles arriving at shelters after living with family or elsewhere in the community has jumped from 39 percent to 66 percent (The USA Today, December 9, 2011). There was an all-time record of more than 41,000 homeless people in New York City, including 17,000 homeless children (www.coalitionforthehomeless.org). On any given night in Santa Clara County, California State, 7,045 people were homeless according to a 2011 Santa Clara County Homeless Census and Survey (www.santaclaraweekly.com). And advocates estimated that Chicago had up to 3,000 homeless youths in need of shelter on any given night (www.chicagonewscoop.org).

The U.S. declared it has the best health care service in the world, but quite a lot of Americans could not enjoy due medication and health care. The Cable News Network reported on September 13, 2011, that the number of people who lacked health insurance in 2010 climbed to 49.9 million (Cable News Network, September 13, 2011). Bloomberg reported on March 16, 2011, that 9 million Americans have lost health insurance during the past two years. An additional 73 million adults had difficulties paying for health care and 75 million deferred treatment because they could not afford it (Bloomberg, March 16, 2011).

Death and infection risks caused by AIDS grew. Since the first American patient was diagnosed with AIDS in 1981, 600,000 people have died from the disease in the U.S. By the end of 2008, 1,178,350 Americans had been infected with AIDS (The China Press, June 3, 2011). AFP reported that nearly three quarters of Americans with HIV do not have their infection under control and one in five people with human immunodeficiency virus are unaware that they have the disease. Among people who know their HIV status is positive, only 51 percent get ongoing medical treatment (AFP, November 29, 2011). Statistics given by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that, in the last 10 years, death caused by prescription drugs in America had doubled and that one would die from taking prescription drug every 14 minutes. Prescription drug overdose caused 37,485 deaths in 2009, exceeding traffic fatalities (The China Press, September 19, 2011).

The U.S. government has significantly cut the expense on education, reduced teaching staff, and shortened school hours with tuition fees soaring. The guarantee for teenagers' rights to education is weakening. The New York Times reported on October 3, 2011, that since 2007, school budgets in New York city have been cut by 13.7 percent every year on average. Since 2008, 294,000 posts in the American education industry, including schools of higher education, have been cut (The China Press, October 25, 2011). Four-day per week classes have been practiced in 292 school districts, which was only put into use during the financial crisis in the 1930s and the oil crisis in the 1970s (The World Journal, October 30, 2011). A report by College Board showed that the average tuition fee of American four-year public universities in the school year of 2011 through 2012 was 8,244 U.S. dollars, 631 U.S. dollars more than the last school year, up 8.3 percent (The China Press, October 27, 2011). About 3,000 people gathered on Sproul Plaza to protest tuition increases at Berkeley on November 9, 2011 (The New York Times, November 13, 2011). Reuters reported that two-thirds of undergraduate students would graduate with student loans about 25,000 U.S. dollars on average owing to the expensive college tuition (Reuters, February 1, 2011).

The Indian culture in the United States has long been suppressed. The country assimilated the Indian culture through legislation and mainstream culture. At the end of the 19th century, the United States carried out "white man's education" and implemented compulsory English-only education. Most of the people who now speak Indian languages are the seniors living in reservations. It is estimated that only five percent of Indians will speak their own languages 50 years later if there are no measures from the U.S. government.

The financial crisis was far from being the sole reason for the inadequate guarantee of Americans' economic, social and cultural rights. So far, the U.S. has not approved the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The above problems concerning human rights are the reflection of the U.S. ideology and political system that ignore people's economic, social and cultural rights.

Demonstrators call for justice in the murder of Trayvon Martin at Leimert Park in Los Angeles on March 22, 2012. Florida Governor Rick Scott appointed a task force to investigate the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin as calls grew for charges to be filed against the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed him.
Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

Photo Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/26/content_15392452.htm


IV. On Racial Discrimination

Ethnic minorities in the United States have long been suffering systemic, widespread and institutional discrimination. And racial discrimination has become an indelible characteristic and symbol of American values.

Ethnic minorities have low political, economic and social positions due to discrimination. The number of ethnic people in civil service is not proportional to their population. New York Times reported on June 23, 2011, that the number of Asian Americans in New York City has topped one million, nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers, but only one Asian-American serves in the State Legislature, two on the City Council and one in a citywide post of the New York City. According to the annual report released by the National Urban League of the U.S., African-Americans' 2011 Equality Index is currently 71.5 percent, compared to 2010's 72.1 percent, among which the economic equality index declined from 57.9 percent to 56.9 percent, and the health index, from 76.6 percent to 75 percent, and the index in the area of social justice, from 57.9 percent to 56.9 percent.

Ethnic Americans are badly discriminated against when it comes to employment. It was reported that the unemployment rate of Hispanics rose to 11 percent in 2010 from 5.7 percent in 2007 (The New York Times, September 28, 2011). The unemployment rate of African Americans was 16.2 percent. For black males, it's at 17.5 percent; and for black youth, it's nearly 41 percent, 4.5 times the national average unemployment rate (CBS News, June 19, 2011). Nationally, black joblessness stands at 21 percent, rising to as high as 40 percent in major urban centers like Detroit (The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2011). In Ziebach County of South Dakota, a community mainly composed of native-Americans, more than 60 percent of the residents live at or below the poverty line, and unemployment rate hits 90 percent in the winter (The Daily Mail, February 15, 2011). A study shows that of the seven occupations with the highest salaries, six are overrepresented by whites (Washington Post, October 21, 2011).

The poverty rate of African Americans doubles that of whites, and the ethnic minority groups suffer severe social inequalities. According to a report by the Pew Research Center released in June 2011, the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households (pewresearch.org). In 2010, poverty among blacks rose to 27.4 percent, and poverty among Hispanics increased to 26.6 percent, much higher than the 9.9-percent poverty rate among whites (www.census.gov). A Pew Research Center report says the lopsided wealth ratios among whites, Hispanics and African-Americans in 2009 were the largest in the past 25 years (pewresearch.org). According to an investigation done by the Washington-based Bread for the World, "black children are suffering from poverty at a rate of nearly 40 percent, and over a quarter of Blacks reported going hungry in 2010." "The figures are both startling and very telling," said the Rev. Derrick Boykin (www.amsterdam.com).

Ethnic minorities are denied equal education opportunities, and ethnic minority kids are discriminated against and bullied at schools. According to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau on June 8, 2011, in 2008, among 18-to 24-year-olds, 22 percent were not enrolled in high schools for Hispanics, 13 percent for African-Americans, whereas only 6 percent for whites (www.census.gov). U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said on October 28, 2011, one third of American students are bullied at schools, and Asian American children bear the brunt. The teases and insults they get in cyber space are three times more compared to kids from other ethnic groups. A research finds 54 percent of Asian-American students have been bullied at schools, 38.4 percent for African-Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics (World Journal October 29, 2011).

Ethnic minorities and non-Christians are also badly discriminated against in the fields like law enforcement, justice and religion, rendering the so-claimed ethnic equality and religious freedom nothing but self-glorifying forged labels. A New York Times story (December 17, 2011) says the New York Police Department recorded more than 600,000 stops in 2010 and 84 percent of those stopped were blacks or Latinos. It was reported that black non-Hispanic males are incarcerated at a rate more than six times that of white non-Hispanic males (World Report 2011: United States, www.hrw.org). On December 1, 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union said that "the FBI is using its extensive community outreach to Muslims and other groups to secretly gather intelligence in violation of federal law." (Washington Post, December 2, 2011) A survey by Pew Research Center finds that 52 percent of Muslim-Americans surveyed said their group is under government's surveillance, about 28 percent said they had been treated or viewed with suspicion and 21 percent said they were singled out by airport security (articles.boston.com). More than half of Muslim-Americans in a new poll said government anti-terrorism policies single them out for increased surveillance and monitoring, and many reported increased cases of name-calling, threats and harassment by airport security, law enforcement officers and others (Washington Times, August 30, 2011).

Illegal immigrants also live under legal and systematic discrimination. It was reported that after Arizona passed its anti-illegal immigration bill, the State of Alabama began implementing its immigration law on September 28, 2011. The Alabama immigration law provides differentiated treatments to illegal immigrants in each of its term, rendering their daily lives rather difficult. Critics argued that the law runs counter to the U.S. Constitution and to certain terms in relevant international human rights law regarding granting equal protections to illegal immigrants (www.hrw.org). The New York Times reported on May 13, 2011, that the State of Georgia passed an anti-illegal immigration law which outlaws illegal immigrants working in the state and empowers local police officers to question certain suspects about their immigration status. Illegal immigrants suffer ferocious maltreatments. Internal reports from the Office of Detention Oversight of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed grave problems in many U.S. detention facilities for immigrants, including lack of medical care, the use of excessive force and "abusive treatment" of detainees (The Houston Chronicle, October 10, 2011). A report released on September 21, 2011, by an Arizona-based non-profit organization revealed that thousands of illegal immigrants detained across the border between Mexico and Arizona are generally maltreated by U.S. border police, being denied enough food, water , medical care and sleep, even beaten up and confined in extreme coldness or heat, suffering both psychological abuse and threats of death (The World Journal, September 24, 2011).

Native Americans are denied their due rights. From January to February 2011, UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya lodged two accusations against the United States, including accusing the Arizona State government of approving the use of recycled wastewater for commercial ski operations on the San Francisco Peaks, a site considered sacred by several Native American tribes (www.forgottennavajopeople.org), as well as the case of imprisoned indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. Peltier was sentenced to life in prison in 1977 for alleged murder of two FBI agents. However Peltier has been claiming he is innocent and persecuted by the U.S. government for participating in the American Indian Movement (www.ohchr.org). On April 26, 2011, Ms. Farida Shaheed, independent expert in the field of cultural rights, Mr. Heiner Bielefeldt, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and Mr. James Anaya, special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, of the UN Human Rights Council, jointly lodged accusations against the U.S, claiming that the city of Vallejo, California, is planning to level and pave over the Sogorea Te, held sacred to indigenous people in northern California, in order to construct a parking lot and public restrooms (www.treatycouncil.org).

Race-motivated hate crimes occur frequently. According to an FBI report, 6,628 hate crime incidents were reported in 2010, 2,201 of which were against African Americans, 534 against Hispanics, and 575 against whites. And 47.3 percent of all were motivated by racial bias, 20 percent by religion, and 12.8 percent by an ethnicity/national origin bias (ww.fbi.gov). According to a report released by the Center for American Progress in August 2011, seven American charitable groups, over the past decade, had spent 42.6 million U.S. dollars on inciting hatred against Islam communities (The New York Times, November 13, 2011). There are three active white supremacy groups in the city of San Francisco, which focus on attacking ethnic minorities and immigrants (www.abclocal.go.com). On November 10, 2010, two Mexican Nationals were beaten by a group of whites who were members of these organizations (www.sfappeal.com). According to investigation, black men aged 15 to 29 years old were most likely to be victims of murders. In New York City, they make up less than 3 percent of the city's population but in 2010 represented 33 percent of all homicide victims (The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2011).

The sufferings of civil rights activists who oppose racial discriminations arouse attention. The Huffington Post reported on May 31, 2011, Catrina Wallace, a civil rights activist in Jena, Louisiana, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by authorities only based on a drug dealer's accusation. Previously, Wallace had taken part in organizing a 50,000-people protest against racial discrimination that won freedom for six Black high school students. The article deemed the sentence was revenge taken by authorities on Wallace's human rights activism. "I am a freedom fighter," she says. "I fight for people's rights."

Yang Ting Lye (left) and Amy Huang hug at an impromptu memorial on campus for the two graduate students from China, Qu Ming of Jilin and Wu Ying of Hunan, who were shot dead near the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on April 11, 2012.
Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

Photo Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/26/content_15392452.htm


V. On the rights of women and children

To date, the United States has ratified neither the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, nor the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the United States neglects the rights of women and children, their situation deteriorates.

Gender discrimination against women widely exists in the United States. According to statistics, women are not fully represented in governments at all levels in the United States, as women hold only 17 percent of the seats in Congress (www.wcffoundation.org). Women doing the same work as men often get less payment in the United States, and the wage gap has narrowed by only 18 cents in the past half century (www.thedailybeast.com). According to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union, in 2009, women working full-time, year-round were paid 77 cents on average for every dollar paid to men (www.aclu.org). Women in the United States widely suffer discrimination in terms of employment, promotion and work. A new study confirms that American tech companies are woefully behind in including women among their board members and highest-paid executives. On average, fewer than one in 28 of the highest-paid tech executives is woman. At California's biggest public companies, only about 10 percent of the board members and top executives are women (The New York Times, December 9, 2011).

Poverty rate among American women reached new record high. According to data from the United States Census Bureau, over 17 million women lived in poverty in 2010, including more than 7.5 million in extreme poverty and 4.7 million single mothers in poverty. The poverty rate among women climbed to 14.5 percent in 2010 from 13.9 percent in 2009, the highest in 17 years; the extreme poverty rate among women climbed to 6.3 percent in 2010 from 5.9 percent in 2009, the highest rate ever recorded (www.merchantcircle.com). According to a report of the Associated Press on April 12, 2011, a single mother named Lashanda Armstrong drove her four kids in a minivan into the Hudson river in Newburgh, New York due to the unbearable burden of raising the kids. Only her 10-year-old boy survived.

Women in the United States often experience discrimination, violence and sexual assault. Ethnic minority women face discrimination during pregnancy. According to a report provided by the LAMB (The Los Angeles Mommy and Baby Project), 32.4 percent of Asian-American mothers felt discriminated against during pregnancy, second only to African-American mothers among whom the ratio amounts to 47.9 percent, while the ratio among Latin American mothers is 31.1 percent (The China Press, June 1, 2011). According to statistics from the website of the Los Angeles Police Department, more than 2 million American women are victims of domestic violence annually. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey shows nearly one in five women has been raped in her lifetime, and one in four has experienced serious physical violence from an intimate partner at some point in her life (Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2011). Throughout the military, sexual assault affects about 19 percent of female troops but most of them choose to keep silent, according to a survey of sexual assault conducted by the US military (www.csmonitor.com). From March to October in 2011, a string of 20 sexual assaults happened in Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Park Slope and the victims were all young women (The New York Times, October 19, 2011). Reports say many of the 1 million women in prison in the United States experienced harsh treatment and even had their arms and legs chained when they were giving birth (www.globalissues.org).

Poverty rate for children in the United States reached record high. According to the report released by the US Census Bureau, more than 1 million children were added to the poverty population between 2009 and 2010, making the total number of children living below the poverty line reach more than 15 million, the greatest since 2001. The poverty rate for children in 2010 climbed to 21.6 percent in 2010 from 20 percent in 2009, with 653 counties seeing a significant increase in poverty rate for children aging 5 to 17 and about one third of counties having school-age poverty rates above the national poverty rate (www.census.gov). The Daily Mail reported on August 17, 2011, that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009 and Mississippi is the state with the highest level of 31 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau said that children living in poverty, especially small children, are more likely to develop cognitive and behavioral difficulties and may have a shorter education time and a longer time being unemployed when they grow up (The China Press, November 21, 2011).

The number of homeless children has surged. In 2010, 1.6 million children in the United States were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, up 33 percent from that in 2007, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness (USA Today, December 15, 2011). According to the Education Department of New York, there are 53,503 homeless students and children of 3 to 21 years old in New York, and the Homeless Service Department's count also shows an average of 6,902 children of 6 to 17 years old a month are homeless in the city (The New York Times, November 14, 2011). Nearly 17,000 children slept in the municipal shelters in New York on the Halloween night in 2011. From May 2011 to November 2011, children in shelters rose 10 percent (The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2011).

Children are severely exposed to violence and pornography. BBC reported on October 17, 2011, that over the past 10 years, more than 20,000 American children were believed to have been killed by their family members. More than 1 million children are confirmed each year as victims of child abuse (www.preventchildabuse.org), and one of every two families in the U. S. is involved in domestic violence at some time (www. reverepolice.org). The Wall Street Journal reported on November 14, 2011, that roughly 120,000 calls were made to the state hot line for child abuse calls administrated by the state Department of Public Welfare in Pennsylvania, but only about 24,000 cases were investigated. A 13-year-old boy named Christian Choate was allegedly beaten to death in 2009 by his father. The report said prosecutors had alleged that the boy endured beating daily and was kept locked in a 3-foot-high dog cage, where he had little to eat and often soiled himself (Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2011). Campus violence and cyber bullying are growing more malicious in the U. S. According to a report of the US News & World Report on June 3, 2011, at least 40 percent of high school students have been bullied by cyber bullies (www.usnews.com). The Women's Enews reported on May 23 last year, the sex-trafficking problem is acute in the state of Georgia, with an estimated 250 to 300 underage teens and girls being sexually exploited each month there (womensenews. org). According to a report published by the Stanford University, the number of reports of sexual assaults received in its campus in 2010 rose by 75 percent over that in 2009 (CBS, September 30, 2011).

Infant mortality rate remains high in the United States. According to a report of The New York Times on October 15, 2011, the infant mortality rate in the United States is 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. The rate among the African-Americans is 13.3 deaths per thousand, while the rates among the whites, Hispanics and Asian-Americans are respectively 5.6, 5.5 and 4.8 per thousand. In Pittsburgh, the infant mortality rate for black residents of Allegheny County was 20.7 per thousand in 2009, while the rate among whites in the county was only 4 per thousand in the same period. Nationally, black babies are more than twice as likely as white babies to die before the age of 1.
VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations

The United States has been pursuing hegemony in the world, grossly trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and capriciously violating human rights against other nations. It "appears more and more to be contributing to international disorder" ("After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order," by Emmanuel Todd).

The revelation of the history of human experiments conducted in the United States is yet another scandal sparking public outcry around the world after the prisoner abuse scandal. The British newspaper The Telegraph reported on August 30, 2011, that from 1946-1948, a U.S. government-paid medical experiment program had made nearly 5,500 people in Guatemala subjected to diagnostic testing, and the researchers deliberately exposed more than 1,300 people, including soldiers, prostitutes, prisoners and mental patients, to syphilis and other venereal diseases. Seven women with epilepsy were injected with syphilis below the back of the skull, and a female syphilis patient with a terminal illness was infected with gonorrhea in her eyes and elsewhere. These experiments had caused over 80 deaths. An article on a U.S.-based journalistic website said that "these revelations are only the latest in an ongoing series of scandals regarding government illegal and unethical experimentation" and that "there are plenty of other underreported and important stories out there on the terrible scandal that has been U.S. illegal experimentation. "The article said that the list of such illegal experiments is quite long, including government radiation experiments, human mind control (also known as MKULTRA) experiments and the CIA and DoD (Department of Defense) experiments on "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror" (Pubrecord.org). Newspaper The Hindu reported on August 30, 2011, that in 1932, the U.S. public health service agency started a study of untreated syphilis in the human body in Alabama. The researchers told the subjects that they were being treated for some ailments, and nearly 400 African-American men were infected with syphilis without informed consent. In fact, the men infected did not receive proper treatment needed. The study lasted until 1972 after media disclosures. Austrian national TV commented that this was a disgraceful event in the U.S. history and a dark period in U.S. medical ethics.

The U.S.-led wars, albeit alleged to be "humanitarian intervention" efforts and for "the rise of a new democratic nation," created humanitarian disasters instead. For Iraqis, the death toll in the U.S.-initiated Iraq war stands at 655,000 (Tribune Business News, December 15, 2011). According to figures released by the Iraq Body Count, at least 103,536 civilians were killed in the Iraq war (Reuters, December 18, 2011). In 2011, there were an average of 6.5 deaths per day from suicide attacks and vehicle bombs (www.iraqbodycount.org). It is estimated that civilian casualties in the military campaign in Afghanistan could exceed 31,000 (Tribune Business News, October 17, 2011). According to a news report, on May 28, 2011, a U.S.-led NATO airstrike killed 14 civilians and wounded six others in the southern region of Afghanistan (The New York Times, May 29, 2011). Separately, on May 25, a total of 18 Afghan civilians and 20 police were killed in a NATO airstrike in the province of Nuristan (BBC News, May 29, 2011). The British newspaper The Guardian reported on March 11, 2012, that an American soldier stationed in Afghanistan burst into three civilian homes in two villages in the small hours of March 11, shot dead 16 sleeping Afghan villagers, injured five others, and burned the dead bodies. The victims included nine children and three women. According to a Reuters report, witness accounts said there were several U.S. soldiers involved (Reuters, March 11, 2012). Another dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) report quoted a member of the Afghan parliamentary investigative team as saying that there were 15 to 20 soldiers who had conducted the night raid operation in several areas in the village. The source also told dpa that some of the Afghan women who were killed were sexually assaulted, according to the findings (dpa, March 18, 2012). Such "American-style massacre" against innocent civilians has once again pierced the veil of the United States proclaiming itself "a country under the rule of law" and "a human rights defender." Incomplete statistics revealed that the United States has launched more than 60 drone attacks in Pakistan in 2011, killing at least 378 people (USA Today, January 11, 2012; Newamerica.net). The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan increased 15 percent in the first half of 2011 over the same period of 2010 (The New York Times, August 6, 2011). According to media reports, on the night of February 20, 2012, some American soldiers of the NATO troops at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan transported copies of Koran and other religious books to a rubbish pit and burnt them (BBC News, February 23, 2012). The acts of desecration of Koran have sparked strong protests and large-scale demonstration activities among the people across Afghanistan as well as in countries of Pakistan and Bengal (www.pakistantoday.com.pk; www.firstpost.com).

The United States does not support the right to development, which is a concern of most of the developing countries. In September 2011, the 18th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on "the right to development." Except an abstention vote from the United States, all the HRC members voted for the resolution.

The United States continues its conducts that seriously violate the right of subsistence and right of development of Cuban people. On October 26, 2011, the 66th session of the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution titled "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," the 20th such resolution in a row. A total of 186 countries voted in favor of the resolution, three countries abstained, and only the United States and Israel voted against the resolution. The resolution urged the United States to repeal or invalid the almost 50-year-long economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba as soon as possible (www.un.org). The United States, however, continues to defy the resolution. The blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba qualifies as an act of genocide under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was adopted in 1948.

The above-mentioned facts are but a small yet illustrative enough fraction of the United States' dismal record on its human rights situation. The United States' own tarnished human rights record has made it in no condition, on moral, political or legal basis, to act as the world's "human rights justice," to place itself above other countries and release the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other countries. We hereby advise the U.S. government once again to look squarely at its own grave human rights problems, to stop the unpopular practices of taking human rights as a political instrument for interference in other countries' internal affairs, smearing other nations'images and seeking its own strategic interests, and to cease using double standards on human rights and pursuing hegemony under the pretext of human rights.






Pengumuman / 启事 / Notification

Pertukaran alamat blog dan e-mel

Selamat sejahtera, Sahabat Rakyat Working Committee akan menggunakan alamat e-mail dan alamat laman web (Blog) yang baru seperti berikut bermula 1 Januari 2014:

Emel: sahabatrakyat.my@gmail.com
Blog: http://sahabatrakyatmy.blogspot.com

Sekian, terima kasih dan Selamat Tahun Baru!

*********************************************

更换部落格网址与电邮地址

本工委会由2014年1月1日起,开始全面使用以下新电邮地址及部落格:

电邮地址:
sahabatrakyat.my@gmail.com
部落格:http://sahabatrakyatmy.blogspot.com

谢谢关注。祝大家新年进步!

*********************************************

Change of blog and email addresses

Please be informed that Sahabat Rakyat Working Committee will be using the new email and blog addresses below commencing 1 Jan 2014:

Email:
sahabatrakyat.my@gmail.com
Blog: http://sahabatrakyatmy.blogspot.com

Wishing you a progressive new year!

通告

    欢迎热心人士下载印发、
资助印制大选告人民书
把国阵抛弃到历史的垃圾堆中去!

作为活跃于柔佛州的为民主人权和民族尊严而奋斗的两个组织——柔佛州人民之友工委会与柔州兴权会(HINDRAF JOHORE)针对第13届大选,在去年底联合发表了一篇主题为“打破巫统霸权,建立民主联合阵线;团结全州人民,实现三大迫切诉求”的《告柔佛州人民书》;我们毫不犹疑,也毫不含糊主张“把国阵抛弃到历史的垃圾堆中去”。

我们在去年底的几个大规模群众集会期间,将《告柔佛州人民书》的四种语文(巫、华、印、英)传单派发给群众。我们也想要到各地去分发这份传单又力所不逮,特在此提供四种语文的PDF版本,以便各方热心人士下载、印制成传单,分发给需要阅读它而又不懂上网的亲戚朋友和各界人士,帮助我们把传单传得更广。
……

点击此处以阅读全文

 

Malaysia Time (GMT+8)