Human rights in the United States
The United States has an established legal tradition of providing strong protection for civil rights and human rights. Its founding document, the United States Constitution and in particular the Bill of Rights, provides for a long list of guaranteed rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to trial, right to a jury, right against self-incrimination, right against unwarranted search and seizure, banning of cruel and unusual punishment, and so on.
Many view the United States as an exemplary human rights leader and consider these enumerated rights to be among the strongest in the world, while critics point to what they see as hypocrisy both in domestic and foreign policies of the United States government. To them, the rights formally guaranteed by the American constitution have been eroded in reality.
Such views are often described as "anti-Americanism", but are also held by many political liberals in the United States. At stake in the debate are controversial issues such as capital punishment, police brutality, the "War on Drugs" and sexual morality. Finer points which are sometimes debated are a perceived media concentration that might drown out voices of dissent, and the details of the justice system (minimum sentencing laws, coercion into plea bargains, inadequate public defenders, etc.).
After the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, pressure from the government of the United States for more surveillance of the general population has led to heightened criticism of the government's violation of citizens' privacy and of control measures that do not respect prisoner dignity.
Issues
Death penalty
The use of the death penalty is controversial both in the United States and outside it. Some allege that erroneous convictions have led to many executions and incarcerations of innocent people, which by their nature are irreversible. However, there remains no proof that any innocent person has been put to death in the death penalty was reinstated since 1973.
Recently the governor of Illinois placed a moratorium on all executions due to these concerns.
Prison
The US has one of the highest percentages of people in prison of any modern nation—as of 2004, the highest in the world, with the exception of war-torn Rwanda. [1] Roughly 2 million, or roughly 2 out of every 300, Americans are in jail at any moment. The social cost of this phenomenon is increased when one considers the difficulty that prisoners have finding jobs and their being banned from voting.
Racial minorities, notably Blacks and Hispanics, are vastly overrepresented in the US's prison population. According to Human Rights Watch, "black men [in 2000] were eight times more likely to be in prison than white men". [2]
Sexual abuse in US prisons is believed by many to be widespread. It has been fought against by organizations such as Stop Prisoner Rape, some of whom allege that some wardens use sexual abuse as a control tool in the prisons.
Subversion of legal freedoms
The US government has taken measures some regard as inconsistent with the United States Constitution. COINTELPRO gained notoriety after becoming publically known. The USA PATRIOT Act has also been attacked by critics as eroding such legal protections as security from search and seizure without a warrant.
The US has also detained US citizens without charges, as most recently in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, who in September 2004 was also compelled to forfeit his US citizenship. While the Bush administration claimed that such treatment was justified for an "enemy combatant," critics regarded it as a violation of Hamdi's civil rights. In addition, the US routinely detains non-citizens, who do not enjoy the same legal protections.
Amnesty International assessment of the human rights record of the United States
Amnesty International states for the year 2000:
- Police brutality, disputed shootings and ill-treatment in prisons and jails were reported. In May the U.N. Committee against Torture considered the initial report of the USA on implementation of the U.N. Convention against Torture. Eighty-five prisoners were executed in 14 states bringing to 683 the total number of people executed since 1976. Those executed included individuals who were children under 18 at the time of their crimes, and the mentally impaired.
Many people disagree with the UN and Amnesty International assessment. Some of the reasons given by those who disagree with various aspects: they do not consider execution to be torture (especially since it is usually administered via lethal injection), they do not accept low intelligence quotient as an excuse for capital crimes, and they feel that some older teenagers should be tried as adults due to the nature of the offense. Not all US citizens who support execution share all of these views.
China's assessment of the human rights record of the United States
Since 2001 (with the exception of the year 2003), the People's Republic of China has been publishing reports on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, as her response to the criticisms from the United States on China's human rights issues. These reports, entitled "Human Rights Record of the United States", and published by the Information Office of the State Council, are scathing attacks on the state of human rights in the United States and have been published subsequently to the "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" for China by the United States Department of State, which all reports cite in the first paragraph.
The 2002 documents attempt to blunt U.S. criticism of the PRC by pointing out both perceived violations of rights and social problems such as crime and poverty. The reports do not significantly criticize the United States for violating freedom of speech or freedom of the press. They do charge that the United States political system is undemocratic (citing the 2000 US presidential election as an example), that the justice system is racially biased and excessive, that workers have little protection against corporate abuse, and that the US "sabotage the world's peace and stability" through international military actions. They further detail the economic and social situation of the US and describe it as a human rights violation, thereby using an expanded definition of human rights.
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003, published on March 1, 2004, again criticises the human rights record of the United States from six aspects: personal freedom and safety, political rights, labour conditions, racial discrimination, conditions of women, children and the elderly and US' infringement upon human rights in other countries. The report noted 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 expulsion of Peter Arnett, and the ban of Al-Jazeera. The report put an emphasis on the U.S. military actions abroad, including the unauthorised War on Iraq in March 2003. 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-US citizens. The report concludes, as usual, 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. "
See also: Human rights in China
External links
- Current US-related reports from Amnesty International
- China section of "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices -- 2001" (United States Department of State)
- China's report on U.S. human rights records (all from People's Daily):
- Human Rights Watch: [3]