China: US Human Rights Record in 2009

[Subdivisions]

Did you know that, just like the U.S. releases reports on the state of human rights in China, that China does it's own studying of human rights in the United States? Here's the full text of the US Human Rights Record in 2009 (9 pages), produced by China's Information Office of the State Council.

BEIJING - China's Information Office of the State Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009" here Friday. Following is the full text:

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing as "the world judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States.

I. On Life, Property and Personal Security

Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people.

In 2008, US residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over, according to a report published by the US Department of Justice in September 2009 (Criminal Victimization 2008, US Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov). In 2008, over 14 million arrests occurred for all offenses (except traffic violations) in the country, and the arrest rate for violent crime was 198.2 per 100,000 inhabitants (Crime in the United States, 2008, http://www.fbi.gov). In 2009, a total of 35 domestic homicides occurred in Philadelphia, a 67 percent increase from 2008 (The New York Times, December 30, 2009). In New York City, 461 murders were reported in 2009, and the crime rate was 1,151 cases per 100,000 people. San Antonio in Texas was deemed as the most dangerous among 25 US large cities with 2,538 crimes recorded per 100,000 people (The China Press, December 30, 2009). The murder rate rose 5.5 percent in towns with a population of 10,000 or fewer in 2008 (http://www.usatoday.com, June 1, 2009). Most of the United States' 15,000 annual murders occur in cities where they are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods (http://www.reuters.com, October 7, 2009).

The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns. According to the data from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), American gun owners, out of 309 million in total population, have more than 250 million guns, while a substantial proportion of US gun owners had more than one weapon. Americans usually buy 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, but in 2008 the figure jumped to about 9 billion (The China Press, September 25, 2009). In the United States, airline passengers are allowed to take unloaded weapons after declaration.

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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/12/content_9582821.htm

Please feel free to quote the report and comment.

[tom_paine]

1. What's TRULY funny is that China and our Empire are moving closer to being the same

Totalitarian Capitalism

Inverted Totalitarianism

The American Empire (for now) is a much more Inverted Totalitarianism, due to it's previous traditions and history. China is still much more "classically" totalitarian, due to it's previous traditions and history, but as the years go on and their middle-class grows, it will become "kinder and gentler" while our American Empire is becoming more brutal and China-like daily.

China is our "Sister Nation", which makes these dueling human rights reports amusing in that they are merely an internecine scrap between two nations both evolving into similar "New Totalitarian" molds.