Washington/Beijing: US on Friday slammed
China for its "poor" human rights record of repressing
Tibetans and other ethnic minorities, prompting an angry
reaction from Beijing, which accused Washington of hypocrisy
and blamed it for the global economic crisis.
In China, the government's human rights record
"remains poor and is worsening" in some areas, including
increased cultural and religious repression of ethnic
minorities, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights
and Labour, Michael Posner, claimed.
"In Xinjiang... (there has been) harassment of
activists and public interest lawyers who are increasingly
under surveillance and are being repressed. There's continuing
repression in the Tibetan areas, limits on free expression,
and control of the Internet," he told reporters soon after
release of the annual State Department Human Rights Report
yesterday.
The State Department report said the Chinese
government increased its efforts to monitor Internet use,
control content, restrict information, block access to foreign
and domestic websites, encourage self-censorship and punish
those who violated regulations.
China hit back at Washington, accusing it of hypocrisy
while blaming the US for the global financial crisis.
"As in previous years, the (U.S.) 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," said the Information Office of the State
Council in its report on the U.S. rights record.
China today issued the Human Rights Record of the
United States in 2009 in retaliation for the Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices for 2009 issued by the U.S.
Department of State on March 11.
"At a time when the world is suffering a serious human
rights disaster caused by the U.S. subprime crisis-induced
global financial crisis, the U.S. government still ignores its
own serious human rights problems but revels in accusing other
countries. It is really a pity," it said.
The report is "prepared to help people around the
world understand the real situation of human rights in the
United States," China's official Xinhua news agency quoted the
report as saying.
China alleged that US workers' rights had been
"seriously violated", lamenting the millions who were without
health insurance, and accusing Washington of post-9/11 curbs
on freedoms.
It criticised the United States for using human rights
as "a political instrument to interfere in other countries'
internal affairs, defame other nations' image and seek its own
strategic interests."
The US State Department report accused Beijing of
harassing activists and lawyers, repressing Tibetans and
censoring e-mails.
It said the Chinese government increased its efforts
to monitor Internet use, control content, restrict
information, block access to foreign and domestic websites,
encourage self-censorship and punish those who violated
regulations.
PTI
First Published: Friday, March 12, 2010, 18:39