On April 12, the United States released the 2021 national human rights report, which is full of platitudes as usual and wantonly criticizes the human rights situation in other countries. While seeking an excuse for the deteriorating human rights situation in the United States, the United States arrogantly uses the posture of a "human rights teacher" to dictate to other countries and waves a human rights stick around. Hypocrisy and arrogance have become prominent features of contemporary American human rights.
The American concept of human rights takes the so-called liberalism as the tradition, emphasizes the individual's "right to freedom", and ignores the significance and value of other types of human rights. International human rights law allows the derogation of relevant human rights obligations to the extent necessary under emergencies such as public health crises. Despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the United States still allows people to gather and move, and ignores citizens' rights to life and health. This is obviously an old-fashioned understanding of state human rights obligations and a serious neglect of the "obligation to respect, protect and realize human rights" advocated by international human rights law.
Historically, the United States boasts that it has created "prosperity under human rights", but in fact it has accumulated capital through long-term colonization and plundering of Asia, Africa and Latin America. From a practical point of view, there are many "disorders" in American human rights at home and abroad, as well as in slogans and actions.
There are a large number of human rights violations in the United States. The United States has the most developed medical system in the world, but it neglects the epidemic prevention and control, desalinates the epidemic risk, misleads the American people, and has become the country with the largest number of confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19. The shocking figures reflect the indifference of the United States towards human rights. The uncontrolled epidemic has worsened the situation of special groups. American politicians advocate the "survival of the fittest", ignoring the lives and health of the elderly. More than 200000 American children have unfortunately become "epidemic orphans".
Gun violence is an epidemic in American society. In 2021 alone, the death toll of shooting incidents in the United States reached more than 44000. The proliferation of guns has made the American people uneasy and anxious, and they have turned to buying guns for self-protection. The United States has fallen into a "strange circle" of gun violence that is difficult to crack. Domestic political polarization and manipulation by interest groups and politicians have led to the hopelessness of banning guns and the obstruction of gun control.
The chronic disease of racial discrimination makes equal rights illusory. The United States evaded its obligations under international human rights conventions, the police brutally enforced the law and arbitrarily deprived ethnic minorities of their right to life. The "black life is life" movement swept the United States, exposing "breathless racism". The epidemic further magnified the racial war. Some politicians in the United States use the virus to trace its source, and hate crimes against Asian and other groups are becoming more and more serious.
Money politics makes democracy an absurd farce. In 2020, the US presidential and Congressman elections directly cost more than US $14.4 billion, becoming the most expensive political election in US history. Power competition depends on political lobbying, and the so-called "democratic politics" has become "capitalist politics".
Private prisons and others have seriously violated the rule of law and human rights. Private prisons facilitate the collusion between officials and businessmen, bend the law for selfish ends, and become a hotbed for corruption and corruption. "Modern slavery" was staged inside the prison. The United States has carried out a series of human rights violations in Guantanamo and other overseas "black prisons", such as secret transfer, separate interrogation, torture, enforced disappearance and so on. The "immigration card" has become a bargaining chip for political parties, and immigrant groups have been subjected to inhuman treatment such as violent eviction and forced labor.
Under the banner of democracy and human rights, the United States interferes in other countries' internal affairs and exports turbulence and disasters. The United States often incites public opinion, maliciously slanders the image of other countries, interferes in other countries' policy-making, and intervenes in regional affairs through preset negative positions and even fabricates false news. Its fundamental purpose is to engage in political confrontation, seize economic interests, and seek hegemony.
The United States has flagrantly violated the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international law and has repeatedly committed war crimes. Recently, the United States has acted as the "behind the scenes" of the Ukrainian crisis to fuel regional conflicts. In February this year, US President Biden signed an executive order, planning to use half of the frozen assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan in the United States to compensate the victims of the September 11 incident, and the other half to transfer to an account of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It is the hegemonic interference of the United States that has led to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and about 95% of the Afghan people are hungry. Now the United States has stepped up its efforts to illegally misappropriate and plunder the legitimate property belonging to the Afghan people. The practice of banditry has been widely condemned by the international community.
At present, human society is facing many severe challenges due to the superposition of the century changing situation and the century epidemic situation. Protecting human rights should become a common cause of all countries in the world. The realization of global human rights governance requires close cooperation and joint efforts of all countries. Human rights should not become a tool for political repression, let alone an excuse for interfering in internal affairs. The human rights problem in the United States is so serious that we should reflect on ourselves and think about how to really improve our human rights level.