Human Rights Record of the United States


 * ''See also Human rights in the United States.

The Human Rights Record of the United States (informally referred to as the "China Human Rights Report") is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The report was first issued in 1998 as a response to the United States' practice of criticizing China in its own annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which each of the Chinese reports cites in the first paragraph. It has since been published annually since 2000.

The Report is typically critical of various alleged shortcomings in U.S. domestic human rights, including difficulties with poverty, race relations, and high rates of both violent crime and incarceration. More recently, the report has condemned U.S. military actions abroad, particularly the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

2003 Report
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003, published on March 1, 2004, again criticizes the human rights record of the United States from six aspects: personal freedom and safety, political rights, labor conditions, racial discrimination, conditions of women, children and the elderly and U.S. infringement upon human rights in other countries. The report claims that the USA PATRIOT Act has "encroached upon rights and freedom of citizens, especially the people of ethnic minorities". It also argues that the freedom of press has been neglected, citing examples like the firing of Peter Arnett and limited access to al Jazeera television broadcasts. The report put an emphasis on the U.S. military actions abroad, including the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, conducted without the approval of the United Nations. The detention without trial of over 3,000 Taliban and Al-Qaeda suspects is cited as another example of the United States' "infringement" upon human rights of non-U.S. citizens.

The report concludes that the United States should "reflect on its erroneous position and behavior on human rights, and stop its unpopular interference with other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of promoting human rights".

2004 Report
The 2004 report focused on facts arising in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, stating:


 * In 2004 the atrocity of U.S. troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States. The scandal shocked the public and was condemned by the international community. It is quite ironic that on Feb. 28 of this year, the State Department of the United States once again posed as 'the world human rights police' and released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004. As in previous years, the reports pointed fingers at human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions (including China) but kept silent on the U.S. misdeeds in this field. Therefore, the world people have to probe the human rights record behind the Statue of Liberty in the United States.

Criticisms and Supports of the Report
Critics of the People's Republic of China's report claim that it contains nothing of substance, but disconnected allegations used as propaganda intended to divert attention from PRC's own troubling record.

Supporters say that just as the USA is free to criticize the PRC, the PRC should also be free to criticize the USA. Moreover, since United States' Country Reports on Human Rights Practices didn't evaluate its own human rights conditions, the Human Rights Record of the United States may be used as a complement.

Position of the U.S. Government and Department of State
The official position of the United States Government and the United States Department of State is that it doesn't engage in reporting on human rights within the United States due to the possibility that any such reporting might be viewed as governmental propaganda, and would lack credibility. No implication should be inferred from the lack of self-criticism or self-reporting in the U.S. Human Rights Reports that the U.S. has no issues with human rights, which the State Department acknowledges.

The United States Government and the United States Department of State take no position on this report, noting that it is fully proper and consistent with the principles of reciprocity that govern diplomatic relations between sovereign states, and that it will surely point out problems to be worked on, as do the reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and numerous other international and United States NGOs.

Traditionally, the PRC's Golden shield internet censorship project blocks off access to the U.S. Human Rights Reports to its citizens in Mainland China, along with other sources that (potentially) deal with the subject including NGOs such as human rights watch and numerous media sources including personal blogs. No U.S. program analogous to the golden shield project is known to exist, and the Chinese report is legally available to U.S. citizens.

Recently, however, the Chinese government has allowed access to texts of such reports, including the US State Dept's report on the Human Rights Situation in China.