Chinese human rights experts Tuesday unanimously condemned the
abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers, saying that the issue
exposed the United States' double standard in human rights and
unmasked its true features as a hypocrite rather than a "world
human rights guard".
"The mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers was an
inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of
hegemony and power politics in the world," said Dong Yunhu, vice
chairman and secretary-general of the China Society for Human
Rights Studies.
"The United States always pursued a double standard in the human
rights sector," he added. "It regarded itself as the incarnation of
human rights, often criticizing other countries' human rights
'problems' and forcing other countries to obey international
conventions on human rights, while it ignored its own human rights
problems and willfully offended international conventions."
Dong pointed out that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US
soldiers ruined mankind's basic dignity and ruthlessly trampled
human rights.
The abuse has severely violated international human rights
conventions and international humanitarian laws, such as the
universal declaration of human rights, international covenant on
civil and political rights, convention against torture and other
cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the
Geneva Convention related to the treatment of prisoners of war.
At the end of April, the American CBS broadcasting network took
the lead in exposing a variety of mistreatments of Iraqi prisoners
by US forces at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, capital of Iraq.
The more than 20 forms of abuse by US soldiers include forcing
prisoners to masturbate, to be naked and to build up a "human
pyramid", as well as letting dogs bite prisoners.
"This is a new record of US human rights violation," said Gu
Chunde, vice director of the Human Rights Research Center under
Renmin University of China, adding that it was not an accidental
issue, but a reflection of US long-term existing human rights
problems.
Gu said sexual harassment and encroachment are common in jails
in the United States. A report issued by Human Rights Watch in
September 2003 said that one in five male inmates in the country
had faced forced sexual contact in custody and one in 10 had been
raped. For women inmates, they are subject to sexual assault by
jail guards, and one fourth of the women inmates are sexually
assaulted in a few jails.
According to a report by the US-based Newsweek magazine,
in Afghanistan's US military prisons, the abuse of prisoners led to
several deaths two years ago. And when prisoner abuse scandals were
exposed at US military prisons in Guantanamo, Cuba in 2002, the US
government even declared that they were not necessarily going to
follow the Geneva Convention rules.
Tian Jin, a member of the China Society for Human Rights Studies
said the United States released a human rights report every year to
distort and criticize more than 190 countries' "problems" in human
rights sector, while it ignored its own human rights problems. Its
double standard in the human rights sector turned out to be very
obvious.
On the fact that the US national leaders and military leaders
have apologized about the issue and promised to give criminal
punishment to those involved soldiers and military officers, Prof.
Chen Zhishang commented that "what they did was not enough".
Chen said the fundamental solution to the prisoner abuse scandal
is hinged on a fundamental change of US human rights policies. The
United States should acknowledge its own problems in the human
rights sector and give up its human rights double standard when
dealing with international affairs.
(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2004)