China Goes After U.S. on Rights

BEIJING —  Responding to U.S. criticism of its human rights record, China returned fire in a blistering rebuttal Monday--a point-by-point dismantling of American society that depicts a nation beset by crime, violent media images, indifference to poverty and arrogant foreign policy.

Most of the report, the latest in a series issued annually in recent years by the State Council Information Office, is based on a single cornerstone: that the U.S. government has no business criticizing other nations’ human rights records before it cleans its own house.

The 20-page report was released on the English-language service of the official New China News Agency.

Among the report’s many assertions:

* The U.S. is “wantonly infringing upon human rights of other countries” with military and political actions.

* American mass media are “inundated with violent content,” which encourages more violence.

* Racism and discrimination continue unabated.

* Police brutality, torture and forced confessions “are common,” and death rows are full of “misjudged or wronged” inmates. Prisons are overcrowded and inhumane.

* Americans living in poverty are “the forgotten ‘third world’ within this superpower,” and the gap between rich and poor is growing.

China says it has made great strides in improving its own human rights record and insists that many of what the U.S. criticizes as rights violations are simply efforts to maintain order.