BEIJING - China on Friday issued a report on the human rights violations in the United States.



According to the report titled The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019, the facts detailed in the document show that "in recent years, especially since 2019, the human rights situation in the United States has been poor and deteriorating".

READ MORE: Full text: Record of human rights violations in US in 2019

The report was issued by the State Council Information Office based on published data, media reports and research findings.

Consisting of foreword and seven chapters, it detailed facts on human rights violations in the United States relevant to civil and political rights, social and economic rights, discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities, discrimination and violence against women, living conditions of vulnerable groups, and abuses suffered by migrants, as well as US violations of human rights in other countries.

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The United States has released annual reports to "distort and belittle" human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform to US strategic interests, but turned a blind eye to the "persistent, systematic and large-scale" human rights violations in its own country, according to the report



'Deteriorating' situation



The human rights situation in the United States has been deteriorating in recent years, according to the report

It began by citing a quote by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech on April 15, 2019: "We lied, we cheated, we stole ... It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."

"The remarks of U.S. politicians have completely exposed their hypocrisy of adopting double standards on human rights issues and using them to maintain hegemony," reads the report.

The United States has released annual reports to "distort and belittle" human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform to US strategic interests, but turned a blind eye to the "persistent, systematic and large-scale" human rights violations in its own country, according to the report.



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Facts detailed in the report covered a range of topics, including rampant gun violence, money politics, polarization between rich and poor, racial hate crimes, shootings and abuse of African Americans, racial gap in employment and wealth, religious intolerance, discrimination and violence against women, child poverty, poverty among the elderly, and US treatment of immigrants.

Gun violence

The lack of restraint in the right to hold guns has led to rampant gun violence, posing a serious threat to citizens' life and property safety in the United States, according to the report.

"The United States is a country with the worst gun violence in the world," reads the report.

In total, 39,052 people died from gun-related violence in the United States in 2019 and a person is killed with a gun in the United States every 15 minutes, it said.



The United States is a country with the worst gun violence in the world. The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019 report

"Politics has led to a proliferation of guns," reads the report.

Wealth polarization



The gap between the rich and the poor in the United States hit a 50-year high in 2018 as the Gini Index of the country grew to 0.485, according to the report.

The basic trend of widening income gap in the United States is casting negative influences on the enjoyment and realization of human rights, according the report.



In the United States, "the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power," reads the report, citing Philip G. Alston, United Nation special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.



While some 39.7 million people lived in poverty in 2018, the US Congress has refused to raise the federal minimum wage of US$7.25 per hour for a decade.



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Meanwhile, the health gap between the United States and countries with the same level of development continues to widen, as 13.7 percent of US adults were uninsured at the end of 2018, up from 10.9 percent at the end of 2016, according the report.

Discrimination

Women in the United States still face systematic, broad and institutional discrimination, with shocking overt and covert gender discrimination in various forms, according to the report.



Women in the United States were 21 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than women in peer nations, it noted, adding that sexual assault cases against women kept increasing.

Race-related and anti-religious hate crime rates have climbed to a higher level in the United States in recent years, according the report

Separately, the political structure and ideology of white supremacy in the United States have caused ethnic minorities to suffer all-round discrimination in various fields such as politics, economy, culture and social life, according to the report.



As a vestige of slavery and racial segregation, African American adults are 5.9 times more likely to be incarcerated than white adults, according to the report, adding that racial inequality in the workplace and people's livelihood have not improved.



Meanwhile, race-related and anti-religious hate crime rates have climbed to a higher level in the United States in recent years, according the report.



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Vulnerable groups

Tens of millions of US children, elder people, and disabled people live without enough food or clothing, and face threats of violence, bullying, abusing and drugs, according to the report



The US government not only has insufficient political will to improve the conditions for vulnerable groups, it also keeps cutting relevant funding projects.

While levels of extreme poverty worldwide had dropped dramatically, the poverty ratio of US children was about the same rate as 30 years ago, according to the report.

While levels of extreme poverty worldwide had dropped dramatically, the poverty ratio of US children was about the same rate as 30 years ago, according to the report

It also noted that one in four Americans with disabilities faced unique challenges in securing employment and establishing financial security.

Treatment toward immigrants

Decades of US intervention in its "backyard" Latin America directly led to the worsening of the immigration problems in the Americas, according to the report



In recent years, the US government had adopted increasingly strict and inhumane measures against immigrants, in particular the "zero-tolerance" policy which caused the separations of many immigrant families, according to the report.



The report noted grave abuses at detention facilities for immigrants, including injecting them with sedatives, keeping them in handcuffs and depriving them of clothing and mattresses.



Trampling on human rights in other countries

The United States was responsible for many humanitarian disasters around the world, according to the report.



The United States had been engaged in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, causing enormous civilian casualties and property losses, according to the report.

The United States hindered the International Criminal Court (ICC) from carrying out its duties to investigate the alleged war crimes committed by the United States, threatening the ICC staff with fund freeze and economic sanctions, the report added.

It was also mentioned in the report that the United States had withdrawn from several multilateral mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Global Compact on Migration, shirking off its international obligations and making troubles to the international governance system.









