World

China lashes out at "serious" US human rights violations

BEIJING, Thursday (AFP) China accused the United States of serious human rights violations and told Washington to clean up its own act before "wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries".

In its annual Human Rights Record of the United States, China hit out at the "atrocity" of US troops in Iraq and criticised the Bush administration for failing to deal with poverty, racial discrimination and crime at home.

It was published just days after the US released its own annual human rights report, which accused China of muting dissent, suppressing religious rights and restricting freedom of speech.

"Despite tons of problems in its own human rights, the United States continues to stick to its belligerent stance, wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries," the Chinese report said.

"The United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously instead of indulging itself in publishing the 'human rights country report' to censure other countries unreasonably."

The Chinese report focused on US abuse of Iraqi prisoners."In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States," it said, adding that the US "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks".

Domstically, Americans were "threatened by rampant violent crimes and severe infringement of civil rights by law enforcement departments"."Police violence and infringement of human rights by law enforcement agencies also constitute a serious problem," the report said.

It highlighted the widely publicised case of Chinese citizen Zhao Yan who was handcuffed and beaten last year while in the United States on a business trip..The report also lashed out at the US being a democracy "manipulated by the rich", saying four billion dollars was spent on the presidential election while "poverty, hunger and homelessness haunt the United States".

Earlier Russia rejected criticism on human rights from the United States, attacking the US State Department's annual human rights report as a "politically biased" document that ignored the rest of the world's concerns on alleged US violations of human rights.