China suggests U.S. examine its own human rights record
/China took a tit-for-tat swipe at the
United States on Thursday for abusing Iraqi prisoners of war and other
human rights violations in a report released days after Washington
criticized China's rights record. The State Department accused China in
its annual human rights report on Monday of using the global war
against terrorism to crack down on peaceful opponents of its rule in
Muslim Xinjiang and of committing persistent rights abuses in 2004.
China's State Council, or cabinet, issued its own report for the sixth
year in a row, citing atrocities by U.S. troops against Iraqi prisoners
of war which "exposed the dark side" of the human rights record of the
United States. "The scandal shocked ... humanity and was condemned by
the international community," said the report, carried by the official
Xinhua news agency. Ironically, the United States posed as the "world
human rights police" while keeping silent on its own misdeeds, it said.
Iraqi prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web
sites) were kept naked, stacked on top of each other, forced to engage
in sex acts, struck by American jailers and photographed. In
the only trial so far in the scandal, the alleged leader of the abuse
was jailed for 10 years. Instead of indulging itself in "unreasonably censuring" other
countries for human rights abuses, Washington should reflect on its
behavior and take its own human rights problems seriously, the Chinese
report said. "The double standards of the United States on human rights
and its exercise of hegemonism and power politics under the pretext of
promoting human rights will certainly put itself in an isolated and
passive position and beget opposition from all just members of the
international community," it added. The report accused Washington of
keeping under wraps half of its 20-odd detention centers worldwide
which hold "terrorist suspects" to avoid international scrutiny.
China's performance on rights was "far from perfect," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference, citing the gap between
rich and poor and between the booming coastal provinces and the
impoverished hinterland. China broke off a human rights dialogue last
March after the United States urged a UN watchdog to condemn what it
called China's backsliding on rights. [more] and [more] and [more]
