Human rights report

Following up my recent post...

"Unfortunately, the contents of the annual human rights report by the US State Department again gives grounds for saying that double standards are characteristic of the American approach to this important subject," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

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"The whole report appears to be politically biased."
  ABC article

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004

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

March 3, 2005

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American society is characterized with rampant violent crimes, severe infringement of people's rights by law enforcement departments and lack of guarantee for people's rights to life, liberty and security of person.

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Police violence and infringement of human rights by law enforcement agencies also constitute a serious problem.

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The New York Times reported on Apr. 19, 2004 a comprehensive study of 328 criminal cases over the last 15 years in which the convicted person was exonerated suggests that there are thousands of innocent people in prison today.

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According to statistics from the Department of Justice, the number of inmates in the United States jumped from 320,000 in 1980 to 2 million in 2000, a hike by six times. From 1995 to 2003, the number of inmates grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the country, where one out of every 142 people is behind bars.

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Most prisons in the United States are overcrowded, but still cannot meet the demand. The country has spent an average of 7 billion US dollars a year building new jails and prisons in the past 10 years. California has seen only one college but 21 new prisons built since 1984.

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The NewsWeek of the United States also reported last May that in Pennsylvania, Arizona and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of others before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison. Male inmates are often made to wear women's pink underwear as a form of humiliation. New inmates are frequently beaten and cursed at and sometimes made to crawl.

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The New York Times reported last October that at least 13 percent of inmates in the country are sexually assaulted in prison (Ex-Inmate's Suit Offers View Into Sexual Slavery in Prisons, The New York Times, Oct. 12, 2004). In jails of seven central and western US states, 21 percent of the inmates suffer sexual abuse at least once after being put in prison. The ratio is higher among women inmates, with nearly one fourth of them sexually assaulted by jail guards.

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Elections in the United States are in fact a contest of money. The presidential and Congressional elections last year cost nearly 4 billion US dollars, some 1 billion US dollars or one third more than that spent in the 2000 elections. The 2004 presidential election has been listed as the most expensive campaign in the country's history (see http://www.opensecrets.org/overview), with the cost jumping to 1.7 billion US dollars from 1 billion US dollars in 2000.

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In the elections, political parties and interest groups not only donated money for their favorite candidates, but also directly spent funds on maximizing their influence upon the elections. In Maryland, some corporate bosses donated as much as 130,000 US dollars. In return, the candidates after being elected would serve the interests of big political donators. The Baltimore Sun called this "Buying Power" (see "Buying Power", The Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004).

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The newly adopted Help America Vote Act of 2004 requires voters to offer a series of documents such as a stable residence or identification in registering, which in reality disenfranchises thousands of homeless people.

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The 2004 US presidential election reported many problems, including counting errors, machine malfunctions, registration confusion, legal uncertainty, and lack of respect for voters.

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The US freedom of the press is filled with hypocrisy. Power and intimidation hang over the halo of press freedom. The New York Times published a commentary on March 30, 2004, saying that the US government's reliance on slandering had reached an unprecedented level in contemporary American political history, and the government prepared to abuse power at any moment to threat potential critics.

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Poverty, hunger and homelessness have haunted the world richest country.

The population of people living in poverty has been on a steady rise. According to a report by The Sun on July, 6, 2004, from 1970 to 2000 (adjusted for inflation), the bottom 90 percent's average income stagnated while the top 10 percent experienced an average yearly income increase of nearly 90 percent.

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According to the statistics released by the US Census Bureau in 2004, the number of Americans in poverty has been climbing for three years. It rose by 1.3 million year-on-year in 2003 to 35.9 million. The poverty rate in 2003 hit 12.5 percent, or one in eight people, the highest since 1998.

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The homeless population continues to rise nationwide. On Dec. 15, 2004, an annual survey report released at the US Conference of Mayors showed that the number of people seeking emergency food aid increased by 14 percent year-on-year while the number of people seeking emergency shelter aid increased by 6 percent. (http://www.usmayors.org). It is estimated that the homeless population reached 3.5 million in the United States. But the US Federal budget has stopped providing fund to build new affordable housing, which forced many local governments to cut the public housing projects. The city of San Diego has a homeless population of 8,000, but the government could only provide 3,000 temporary beds. Those without lodging tickets are regarded illegal to live on the streets. They would be summoned or detained. In January 2004, an investigator with the US Commission on Human Right denounced the US for large-scale infringement on human rights on housing issue.

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Racial discrimination has been deeply rooted in the United States, permeating into every aspects of society.

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Reports of hate crimes motivated by anti-black bias totaled 2,548 in 2003, accounting for 51.4 percent of the total, more than double the total hate crimes against all other racial groups.

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The rates of women and children physically or sexually victimized were high. According to FBI Crime Statistics, in 2003 the United States witnessed 93,233 cases of raping. Virtually 63.2 in every 100,000 women fell victims. The statistics also showed that every two minutes one woman was sexually assaulted and every six minutes one woman was raped.

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Sex crimes in the US military were on the rise. According to the Washington Post (Jun. 3, 2004), from 1999 to 2002 the number of lawsuits against sexual crimes in the US army that were formally filed grew from 658 to 783, up 19 percent. And the number of rape cases went up from 356 to 445, up 25 percent.
  People's Daily article

Okay, you get the picture. Russia and China aren't amused by the U.S. State Department's portrayal of global human rights violations.

And some U.S. scientists are getting concerned about a possible increase of U.S. violations in the future.

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.

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Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.
  New Scientist article

And they are right. And very possibly - perhaps very likely - the weapon will be used on American citizens in the not-too-distant future during protests against government policies. But, these researchers are very naive if they think that there is any research conducted that the purveyors of war and control will not use in developing weapons.

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act. [Ed: link added]

Torture is currently enjoying its 15 minutes of fame, courtesy of the war on terrorism. But, as we are all unfortunately learning, torture American-style is refusing to make a graceful exit from the public stage.

According to the Bush administration -- in the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the president himself -- the Abu Ghraib horrors were an anomaly, a deplorable and isolated case of misconduct among a few in the lower ranks.

Yet, as that scandal fades from view, we are confronted with new revelations.

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At Survivors International, we see the effects of torture firsthand. As providers of services to survivors of torture now living in the Bay Area, we note sadly that we have no shortage of clients. In 15 years, we've helped 1, 700 survivors from more than 80 countries.

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We see men and women totally overwhelmed by the memories of what was done to them. I think of a man so traumatized that he would shake and sweat every time he came to see me. He cried out through his tears: "Doctor, they turn you into a piece of meat!" Another client vomited in my wastebasket after the memories of torture overwhelmed him. Many women sat with their heads buried in shame, sobbing uncontrollably. The physical wounds had healed, but the psychological trauma lived on.

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The techniques employed by the American torturers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay are among the most insidious and effective.

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Sexual and other types of humiliation do not leave physical scars, and so it is tempting to think of psychological abuse as less damaging than physical abuse. No one is immune from making this mental mistake. The body is visible and tangible whereas the mind seems elusive. The aim of torture, however, is always psychological.

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I urge readers to ask their elected representatives in Congress to hold open hearings in which torture survivors, and their allies in medicine, psychology and law, are invited to give testimony. Whether there are "acceptable forms of torture" is not a question that can or should be answered by government officials and academics who have no experience with the price that torture exacts. It is time for the voices of survivors to be heard.
  SF Gate article