China Daily
March 10, 2006

Editor’s note:

China’s Information Office of State Council released a white paper on the human rights record of the United States in 2005 yesterday. The following is a full text of the paper.

On March 8, the US Department of State, posing once again as “the world’s judge of human rights,” released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005. As in previous years, the US State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States. To help people realize the true features of this self-styled “guardian of human rights,” it is necessary to probe into the human rights abuses in the United States in 2005.

I. On Life and Security of Person

For a long time, the life and personal security of people of the United States have not been under efficient protection. American society is characterized with rampant violent crimes. Across the country each year, 50,000 suicides and homicides are committed (Va.Violent Deaths Are Mostly Suicides, The Washington Post, October 12, 2005).

The US Justice Department reported on September 25, 2005 that there were 5,182,670 violent crimes in the United States in 2004. There were 21.4 victims for every 1,000 people aged 12 and older, which amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 47 US citizens (Crime Rate Remains at 2003 Level, Study Says, The Washington Post, September 26, 2005).

According to figures released by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), murder increased by 2.1 per cent across the United States during the first six months of 2005, compared with the same period of 2004. A total of 4,080 murders were reported in cities with more than 10,000 people, while homicides were up 13 per cent in cities with a population of 10,000 or less (Murder Rate in Small Cities Jumps 13 per cent, USA Today, December 20, 2005).

The Washington DC, with a population of less than 600,000, had 194 slayings in 2005 (DC Area Slaying Climbed In 2005, The Washington Post, January 2, 2006).

In Chicago, the number of various crimes exceeded 125,000 from January to September of 2005, including 352 murders, 11,564 robberies, 8,903 assaults and 534 arsons (http://egov.cityofchicago.org).

From January to mid-November of 2005, 334 persons were murdered in Philadelphia, exceeding the total number of murders in the city in 2004 ( Philly: 334 Killings So Far This Year, Philadelphia Daily News, November 14, 2005).

During the first half of 2005, 198 murders were reported in Los Angeles, 11 per cent more than the same period of 2004 (Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2005).

Seventy-two people were murdered in Compton, California, with a population of only 96,000 (Compton Killings Highest in Years, Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2006). Camden in New Jersey has become the most dangerous city in the United States, with its homicide rate more than 10 times the national average and robbery rate, more than seven times the national average (Camden, N.J., Ranked Most Dangerous US City, The Washington Post, November 22, 2005).

The United States has the largest number of privately owned guns in the world. According to statistics released in June 2005 by the Brady Campaign, an organization aiming to prevent gun violence, there were approximately 192 million privately owned firearms in the United States (Firearm Facts, Issued by The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, June 2005, in: http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/).

A survey conducted by the Washington Post and the American Broadcasting Company showed that about 10 per cent of the surveyed were once shot, and 14 per cent threatened by guns.

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