China Calls U.S. Out on Human Rights
Ethic
from the United Nations Human Rights Commission
SEE BELOW "CHINA CALLS US ...."
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China Calls U.S. Out on Human Rights
By Ted Anthony - March 11, 2002
BEIJING - AP - Responding to U.S. criticism of
its human rights record, China returned fire in a
blistering rebuttal Monday -- a point-by-point
dismantling of American society that depicted
a nation beset by crime, violent media images,
indifference to poverty and arrogant foreign policy.
Despite the harsh tenor of the Chinese report on
American human rights, there was little to indicate
that it, like its counterpart report issued by the U.S.
State Department last week, would affect the
increasing warmth of Beijing-Washington relations.
Most of the Beijing report, the latest in a series
issued annually in recent years by the government's
State Council Information Office, was based on a
single cornerstone: that the U.S. government has no
business criticizing other nations' human rights records
before it cleans its own house.
"Once again the United States, assuming the role of
`world judge of human rights,' has distorted human rights conditions in many
countries and regions in the world,
including China, and accused them of human rights
violations, all the while turning a blind eye to its own
human rights-related problems," the report said.
Especially notable was the document's scant criticism
of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks -- something
China is loath to condemn, since it, too, has a vested
interest in fighting terrorism, a term it uses to justify
crackdowns on domestic dissent.
The 20-page report was released on the English-language
service of Xinhua, China's official news agency, thus
assuring an audience of foreign reporters. There was no immediate comment
from Washington, where it was late
Sunday when the report was issued.
The report's assertions, which it buttressed with a flurry
of statistics and citations of news reports about violent
incidents :
* The United States is "wantonly infringing upon human
rights of other countries" with military and political
actions.
* American mass media are "inundated with violent
content," which in turn encourages more violence.
A culture beautifying violence has made young
people believe that the gun can `solve' all problems",
the report says.
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
* Racism and discrimination continue unabated.
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
* Police brutality, torture and forced confession are
common, and death row is full of "misjudged or
wronged inmates. Prisons are overcrowded and
inhumane.
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
* Americans living in poverty are "the forgotten third
world within this superpower", and the gap between
rich and poor is growing.
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
* Violence against women and sexual abuse of children
are common. It cited sexual molestations of children
by American clergy, calling that "the greatest scandal
in the United States" .
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
The criticism of American response to the Sept. 11
attacks was limited to this, a reflection of China's
unease at the historical Western military presence
in Asia :
"Before the Sept. 11 incident, the United States had
stationed its troops in more than 140 countries. Today,
the United States has expanded its so-called "security
interests" to almost every corner of the world."
(comment : Face it, it's true ! )
Despite improving relations during the past 10 months,
Beijing and Washington remain deeply divided over human
rights. In the years after China's bloody 1989 crackdown
on pro-democracy demonstrators centered on Beijing's
Tiananmen Square, the rights issue threatened to affect
the two nations' pivotal economic relationship.
(comment : at least China has demonstrators, they
are not all anaesthetized like in the U.S. ! )
China says it has made great strides and insists that
much of what the U.S. government criticizes as rights
violations is simply efforts to maintain order.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-china-us-human-rights031
1mar11.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines
America's ouster from the U.N. Human
Rights Commission reveals the arrogant incompetence
of Bush's vaunted "wise men." By Joe Conason
May 2001 - the United States has been excluded
from the United Nations Human Rights Commission
The ouster of the United States from the United
Nations Human Rights Commission has damaged
not only America's international prestige but the
cause of human rights around the world. .
To conservatives from Jesse Helms to Condoleezza
Rice it was an "outrage" and a "travesty" for the
United States to be excluded from the world's most
important forum on human rights
To human rights advocates, it was disheartening to
see the United States ejected for the first time since
the drafting of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights
in 1947.
And according to the White House and the State
Department, the vote came as a "surprise" -- because
at least 14 of our usual allies unexpectedly turned
against us in the secret-ballot contest. (The same day,
the U.S. lost its seat on the International Narcotics
Control Board, the U.N. committee that monitors
international substance abuse and illegal drug
trafficking, in a similar clandestine vote.)
Political leaders and prominent commentators in
countries nominally or actually friendly to the United
States regarded the vote with ambivalence or, even
worse, as a deserved comeuppance.
What this incident demonstrates, among other things,
is how lamely the Bush administration is managing
foreign policy -- despite the supposed competence
of the president's courtiers.
Given the opportunity to cast a secret ballot, more than
a dozen friendly nations chose to punish the U.S. for
what Bush has done over the past 100 days to
undermine arms control.
There are, of course, much deeper reasons underlying
the human rights fiasco. International disillusionment
with American policy has been growing for years at
the U.N., among allies as well as enemies of the
United States. The Clinton administration -- with its
failure to support the treaty banning land mines, its
insistence on the inhumane Iraqi sanctions and its
defeat on ratification of the comprehensive nuclear
test ban treaty -- didn't leave an ideal legacy for its
successor.
Some U.N. are urging that the U.S. withhold money
it has agreed to pay the U.N. to settle its back dues.
Instead, this vote ought to be taken by policymakers
in the White House as a rather mild warning. The
advancement of human rights and democracy around
the world, while never a Republican priority. This latest
fiasco only indicates how poorly such vital interests
have been served by the people who now wield power
in Washington. The extent of the damage they have
done already may impress their tiny minds only after
it is too late to be repaired. Let's hope they change
their ways before a real crisis erupts. Full :
http://www.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/05/08/commission/?x
GO TO :
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm
you will find the most comprehensive collection
of translations of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by
General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of
10 December 1948.
Over 300 different language versions are available
in HTML, PDF and graphical forms.
© The Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights - Geneva, Switzerland
U.S. Army Silent on Prisoners
By Charles J. Hanley
March 11, 2002 - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - AP -
The American military maintained official silence
Monday, including to the Red Cross, about the
reported detention of nine Iranians at the U.S.
Army-run stockade in Kandahar.
The International Committee of the Red Cross,
which by treaty has oversight of such detainees,
has waited since Saturday for the Army to confirm
or deny it holds any Iranians, said Gian-Battista
Bacchetta, the agency's chief in this southern
Afghan city.
Bacchetta of the Red Cross said he personally visited
the base on Saturday and inquired of U.S. Army officers
about the reported new group, which Wasafi said also
included three Afghans, as well as six Revolutionary
Guard members and three Iranian border guards.
"I asked the American authorities about their whereabouts," Bacchetta said.
"Do you have them or not ?'" He said he
would wait another couple of days for a response, and
"then we would step up our interventions."
Asked by The Associated Press to confirm or deny that
an Iranian group was being detained, a U.S. military
spokesman in Kandahar, Maj. A.C. Roper, said
policy" prevented discussion of individual detainees.
In Washington, Condoleeza Rice, President Bush's
national security adviser, said Sunday that a group
in custody has "some relationship with Iran" but
their individual origins had not been determined.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-afghan-detainees0311mar1
1.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines