Tuesday 15 September 2015
Report of the Korean Institute for the Research of Human Rights on Violations of Human Rights by the United States and Western Countries
September 7, Juche 104(2015)
Pyongyang Table of contents
Preface ............................................................................................................................ - 1 -
1 Infringement upon Political Freedom and Rights ................................................ - 2 -
1-1 Ideology and Freedom ..................................................................................... - 2 -
1-1-1 Restriction of Ideas and Freedom of Conscience ................................... - 2 -
1-1-2 Suppression of the Freedom of Religion ................................................ - 4 -
1-2 Freedom of Speech and the Press ..................................................................... - 6 -
1-2-1 State Interference in and Control on the Media and the Press ................. - 6 -
1-2-2 Crackdown and Persecution on Freedom of Speech and the Press ......... - 8 -
1-2-3 Leaks of Distorted Information.............................................................. - 9 -
1-3 Freedom of Assembly and Association .......................................................... - 11 -
1-3-1 Bloody Crackdown on Peaceful Demonstration ................................... - 11 -
1-3-2 Suppression of Freedom of Association ............................................... - 12 -
1-3-3 Patronage and Financial Support to Anti-Government Organizations .. - 14 -
1-4 Right to Vote ................................................................................................. - 15 -
1-4-1 Restrictions and Reservations through the Unpopular Election ............ - 15 -
1-4-2 Election Campaign with Money .......................................................... - 18 -
1-4-3 Meddling in and Criticism of other Countries in their Elections ........... - 19 -
1-5 Right to Take Part in Government Administration ......................................... - 21 -
1-5-1 Exclusion of the Working People from Composition
in Government Structures ........................................................................ - 21 -
1-5-2 Protecting Interests of Elite Circles in State Governance ..................... - 22 -
1-6 Right to Self-Determination ........................................................................... - 24 -
1-6-1 Open Intervention in the Internal Affairs of Sovereign States .............. - 24 -
1-6-2 Overthrow of Government .................................................................. - 26 -
1-6-3 Infringement upon Sovereignty by Force ............................................. - 28 -
2 Grave Violation of Civil Rights ............................................................................... - 30 -
2-1 Right to Life .................................................................................................. - 30 -
I2-1-1 Threat to Personal Safety by Crimes with Firearms ............................. - 30 -
2-1-2 Murder owing to All Kinds of Crimes ................................................. - 33 -
2-1-3 Violence against the Life by Police Officers ........................................ - 35 -
2-1-4 Terrorism under the Pretext of “Counter-Terrorism” ........................... - 36 -
2-1-5 Killing of Civilians by Drone Strike .................................................... - 38 -
2-1-6 Crimes that Foster Atrocious Massacre ............................................... - 40 -
2-2 Freedom from Torture or Inhumane and Disgraceful Treatment .................... - 41 -
2-2-1 Appalling Torture ................................................................................ - 41 -
2-2-2 Sexual Abuses on Prisoners ................................................................. - 42 -
2-2-3 Poor Conditions of the Prisons ............................................................ - 43 -
2-2-4 Establishment of Overseas Secret Detention Centers and
Mistreatment of Detainees....................................................................... - 45 -
2-3 Freedom from Slavery ................................................................................... - 48 -
2-3-1 Slave Trade, Prostitution and Human Traffic ....................................... - 48 -
2-3-2 Forced Labor ....................................................................................... - 49 -
2-4
Rights to Physical Freedom and Security ................................................ - 50 -
2-4-1 Illegal Arrest and Detention ................................................................ - 50 -
2-4-2 Abduction by Means of Force ............................................................. - 51 -
2-5 Right to Private Life and Freedom of Correspondence ................................... - 53 -
2-5-1 Illegal Collection and Use of Private, Confidential Information ........... - 53 -
2-5-2 Violation of Human Rights through Wiretapping ................................ - 54 -
2-6
Right to Fair Trial ................................................................................... - 56 -
2-6-1 Illegal Verdict and Execution .............................................................. - 56 -
2-6-2 Lack of Independence in Justice Organs .............................................. - 58 -
3 Indifference to and Infringement upon Economic and Social Rights .................... - 58 -
3-1 Right to Work................................................................................................ - 59 -
3-1-1 Increase in Unemployment Rate .......................................................... - 59 -
II3-1-2 Infringement upon Three Rights of Labor............................................ - 60 -
3-1-3 Unlimited Working Hours and Bad Payment for Labor ....................... - 62 -
3-1-4 Vulnerable Working Condition ........................................................... - 64 -
3-2 Rights to Social Security ............................................................................... - 65 -
3-3 Right to the Sufficient Living Standard .......................................................... - 67 -
3-3-1 Famine and Poverty............................................................................. - 67 -
3-3-2 Increase in the Homeless and Inadequate Housing Conditions ............. - 68 -
4 Negligence and Violation of the Social and Cultural Rights .................................. - 70 -
4-1 Right to Education ......................................................................................... - 70 -
4-1-1 Money-centered Education .................................................................. - 70 -
4-1-2 Serious Problem of Illiteracy ............................................................... - 71 -
4-1-3 Discrimination and Violence in Education........................................... - 72 -
4-1-4 Campus - a Den of Offense ................................................................. - 73 -
4-2 Right to Participation in Social and Cultural Life ........................................... - 75 -
4-2-1 Culture of Decadent and Perverted Cultural Life ................................. - 75 -
4-2-2 Perverted and Deformed Cultural Life of the Privileged Circle ............ - 76 -
4-3 Right to Health .............................................................................................. - 78 -
4-3-1 Health judged by Money ..................................................................... - 78 -
4-3-2 Proliferator of Various Epidemics ....................................................... - 79 -
5 Encroachment upon Rights of a Certain Group ...................................................... - 80 -
5-1 Rights of the Child ........................................................................................ - 80 -
5-1-1 Child Poverty ...................................................................................... - 80 -
5-1-2 Child Abuse ........................................................................................ - 82 -
5-1-3 Forced Child Labor and Abduction or Kidnapping of Children ............ - 83 -
5-2 Rights of Women .......................................................................................... - 84 -
5-2-1 Discrimination against Women ........................................................... - 84 -
5-2-2 Maltreatment and Abuse against Women ............................................ - 86 -
5-3 Rights of the Indigenous and Ethnic Minorities ............................................. - 87 -
III5-4 Rights of Disabled Persons ............................................................................ - 89 -
5-5 Human Rights during Wartime and Armed Conflicts ..................................... - 90 -
5-5-1 Killing of Innocent Civilians and Destruction of
their Living Conditions .........................................................................- 90 -
5-5-2 Use of Banned Weapons of Mass Destruction ..................................... - 92 -
5-5-3 Ill-treatment of POW ........................................................................... - 93 -
5-6 Rights of Refugees, Immigrant Workers and Foreigners ................................ - 94 -
5-6-1 Main Culprit for the Origination of Refugees ...................................... - 94 -
5-6-2 Violation of the Rights of Migrant Workers ........................................ - 95 -
5-6-3 Xenophobia ......................................................................................... - 97 -
6 Racial Discrimination ............................................................................................... - 98 -
6-1 Racial Expulsion ........................................................................................... - 99 -
6-2 Racial Suppression ...................................................................................... - 101 -
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. - 103 -
IVPreface
Recently, the US and Western countries, while professing themselves as
“defenders of humanrights”, are becoming even more undisguised in their acts of
interference into the internal affairs of other countries and infringement upon their
sovereignties over their alledged “human-rights issues”.
In particular, the US and Western countries have placed the cap of “human rights
violators” over the anti-imperialist and independent countries such as DPRK and
those who stand in the way of their ambitious attempt to dominate the world. With
this brand on, they are resorting to mean tricks to lead them by their noses, impair
their international images and seek an eventual “regime changes” in those countries.
But, it is none other than the US and the Western countries which should be the
first target of condemenation as most brutal states of human rights violation and
human rights crimes in the world.
There is a Korean saying “Mind your own business”. The US and the Western
countries are well advised to admit their own appalling human rights abuses and take
steps to set right their own shameful records of human rights violation before making
fuss about the human rights situation of the others.
The Korean Institute for the Research of Human Rights Institute, out of its
intention to speark for justice and consciousness of the world which wants to defend
and enjoy genuine human rights, issues this report to make a comprehensive
exposure to the worst human rights situation and savage human rights abuses of the
US and the Western countries, main barriers to independence and progress, peace
and security of the present world.
The report was written in such a way of analyzing and appraising criminal nature
and injustice committed by the US and Western countries in different theaters, which
is based on the verified and authentic evidences and the international laws such as
International Human Rights Law.
The drafting of this report was assisted by such state organizations as the Supreme
Peoples’ Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DPRK as well as by the
educational institutions, mass media, scientific research institutes including
KIM IL SUNG University, Academy of Social Science, Research Institute of
international Issues and other social organizations. This report also used reference materials from various libraries and publications both at home and abroad.The US became the focus in this report. It is based on recent data and “in somecases, on the past data”.
1 Infringement upon Political Freedom and Rights
Political freedom and rights are the most valuable rights for the mankind and the most important rights for the nations which are all bound by international human rights legislations, but these freedom and rights are wantonly violated in the US and the Western countries.
Criminal acts of the US and the Western countries violating political freedom and rights find their typical expressions in the fields of ideas, religion, press, assembly and association, election, etc.
1-1 Ideology and Freedom
1-1-1 Restriction of Ideas and Freedom of Conscience
An independent human being has his or her due right to choose for and believe in any ideas. Nobody can put a curb on the other’s wish to study and disseminate progressive ideas and give a free expression to one’s view and stand thereon, according to one’s belief and conscience.
“Universal Declaration of Human rights” made it clear that everyone has the right to freedom of thought and conscience and “International Covenant on Civil and Political rights” stipulates that everyone has the right to freedom of ideas and conscience, this right includes right to maintain, believe and express ideas one has chosen and should not be subject to coercion detrimental to this right. (Article 18 “Universal Declaration of Human rights”)
But, the US and the Western countries have become the ones that do not allow
freedom of ideas and conscience which are stipulated by the international human rights covenants. They are also the ones devoid of democracy as they restrict freedom of choice for ideas.
According to data, 200,000 personnel are engaged in suppression of progressive ideas and there are 21,000 violent criminal organizations in the US.
CIA and FBI of the United States are running a vast intelligence network to keep a watch on ideological tendencies of the citizens. Investigative and finger-print cards are well kept for the citizens. By relying on this, CIA and FBI of the US are
watching on almost all adults while making a detailed survey and control over the data of private life of the indivisuals, let alone their political and ideological views, and, if one is considered to be in question, he or she is arrested, put into jail and tortured at all events.
As New York University professor deplored that “the United States is more and
more turning into a military and police state”, United States and the Western
countries are covered with the network of plain clothesmen and secret agents, and ideas and conscience are restricted by clubs, prisons and chains.
The number of prisoners in the United States constitutes 25% of total prisoners in the world, and majority of them are prisoners of conscience who had once opted for political freedom and rights including the freedom of ideas and conscience.
Many of the US laws stipulate for the control of freedom and rights of the citizens to choose and believe progressive ideas freely and for the suppression of those freedom and rights under the pretext of “national security”. Typical laws are “Internal Security Act” (September 1950, so called “McCarran Act”), “Smith Act” (Jun 1940) and “Communist Movement Control Law” (1954), etc.
“Internal security act” strictly prohibits dissemination of the progressive books in the US.
The US and the Western countries disregard the requirements of the international human rights covenants to respect freedom of ideas and cultural diversity of other countries and disseminate their corrupted and reactionary ideas and cultures by coercive means using all leverages such as travel, export of goods and economicexchanges and through various kinds of publications, radio network, newspapers and periodicals.
In particular, the US runs “Cultural Centers” and “Information Centers” in 100
countries in the world and publishes the large number of periodicals, which includes “America”, “Span” and “Trait U.S.A.”, and disseminates them systematically to specific countries and regions with a view to imbue them with reactionary ideas and American way of life.
The US Foreign News Exchange Agency is notorious in transmitting reactionary
publications and pictures to foreign countries through Foreign Publications
Production and Dissemination Agency and TV network and “International Radio of the US Government” under the US Intelligence and Cultural Exchange Bureau. The “Voice of America” and “Free Radio”, which serve as US foreign broadcasting centres, are infamous in disseminating on “Superiority” of the American way of “Democracy”. The US established “Radio Free Asia” by dint of law passed in US Congress on January 25, 1994. It is running a 15-hour broadcast on a daily basis in different
languages (Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.), and more than
80% of which is consistent with the infusion of American ideology and culture while slandering and criticizing ideas and cultural systems of other countries.
In order to rationalize its criminal act of violating freedom of ideas in foreign
countries, the US went the length of saying that only “American civiliazation” holds value and Islamic civilization in southeast Asian countries can’t give a rise to democracy due to its “backwardness”, and it makes an absurd allegation that it is an American mission to disseminate “freedom” and “democracy” to “backward and uncivilized” countries and nations and that it is also tantamount to fulfilment of its moral duty to wage a war to alleviate conflicts between different cultures.
Several EU countries, Japan and south Korea, following in the footsteps of the US, are also engaged in the criminal acts of slandering and criticizing other countries’ ideas and systems and mass production and dissemination of the reactionary publications that paralyze sound ideological consciousness of the people.
1-1-2 Suppression of the Freedom of Religion
The US and Western countries severely violate and suppress the freedom of other nations for region and its faith.
The US Senate Judicial Committee released a data of showing that those, who
believe in Islam, took up 14% of the religious discrimination though they constitute only 1% of US citizens.According to the data released by human rights activists, there exist 30 groups in the US which agitate the theory of “Islamic Conspiracy”. 15~20% of US citizens believe that Muslims should not be allowed to work in the government.
The police report obtained by AP said that the New York Police, since 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, have conducted regular surveillance on those who make pilgrims to Islamic mosques as well as those who get together at bookstores and kiosks.
The Islamic world was in a rage of anger when an anti-Islamic film under the title of “Naivety of Islam” was on internet in September 2012. In April of the same year, a Christian priest in Florida was reckless enough to have burnt the Koran and the portrait of the founder of Islam.
US, at the time of its invasion of Iraq in 2003, drove a wedge between Shi’a and
Sunni and egged them to fight each other in the country where Islam is a state
religion.
In relation to this, Al Jazeera TV reported as follows: “Once a unified, strong
country is now in a bloody civil war. Shi’a and Sunni in Iraq lived in harmony
without even trying to interfere into religious activities of each other before the U.S. invaders set their feet on this land. However, due to the American “Model of
Democracy”, Iraqis are now divided into Shi’a and Sunni. Each is trying to eliminate the other and take grips to power.”
In February 2012, the US soldiers based in Afghanistan burned scores of Islamic
books including the Koran and threw them into dust-bins at secret prison in Bagram US air-base on the outskirts of Kabul.
On January 13, 2015, Tokyo Shimbun reported that there were series of vicious
cases of maltreatment and violence against Islamic mosques and Muslims in every corner of France.
According to AFP, almost 20 cases of profanity against Muslim broke out in France recently. These include incendiary to Islamic mosques, violence and scribbling against it.
For instance, a pig head, a forbidden food to Muslims was placed at the entrance of Islamic mosque in South Corsica. A scribbling was found which read “Out you go, Arabs!” in the northern part of the island. An Islamic mosque was on fire in the middle of the night in one province.
The French Weekly Newspaper Charlie Hebdo published recently millions of
copies that carry a caricature of insulting the Prophet of Islam. For this, the
newspaper became the subject of international condemnation.
Anti-Islamic movement is well-organized in its nature in Germany. In October
2014, Pegida (Europeans that stand against the Islamization of the Western World) was organized in Dresden. This was followed by the formation of 8 regional anti-Islamic bodies in Bayern, Germany.
On October 26, 2014, an anti-Islamic organization, which has its members as
football hooligans, waged violent anti-Islamic demonstration in the range of 5,000 people in Koln, Germany.
For almost 10 years since 2001, more than 200 mosques were attacked in European countries.
39 mosques were under attack in 7 European countries by the end of 2014.
In 2014, 44% of Islamic mosques in Sweden received threat and 66% of them
suffered material loss from violence.
Deliberate act of incendiary was committed in the mosque of the central part of
Sweden leaving 5 people to be burnt in December 2014. Another incendiary also
occurred in the southern part of Sweden.
The wanton violation of the freedom of the religion and faith by other nations finds its typical expression in suppression of Islam. This is a clear violation of the Article 18.2 of the “International Convention on Civil and Political Rights” which stipulates that “no one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.”
1-2 Freedom of Speech and the Press
1-2-1 State Interference in and Control on the Media and the Press
Several international human rights instruments including the “Universal
Declaration of Human Rights” and the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” provide that everyone shall have the freedom to choose for and express opinions free from intervention by others.
The US, however, showed once again that it is the worst in keeping tight control on the media under the pretext of “national security” when the US Senate adopted “the Law on the Protection of Cyberspace as State Property” on June 24, 2010. This law gives the US administration an absolute right to shut down the internet when deemed necessary and any individual or organization must obtain permission from the US administration when they want to run websites even in the limited system of the internet. BBC criticized the US for making a legal framework for the internet restriction in the US territory, recalling that the US has the way of talking to other countries taking steps to restrict the internet that they must ensure the freedom of the internet, while calling them “closed societies” or whatever.
The US government holds sway over the media in all manners in order to keep
them from expressing opinions which would not stand in favor of realizing its
dominating policy. The case in point is the official apology by “Newsweek”, US
magazine, after its report about profanity to Koran by the US military.
The delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross proved, after their contacts with the Muslim inmates at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, that the profanity to Koran is still going on there by the US military. The White House, however, pressured “Newsweek” to apologize, blazed in fury that it was put to shame in the world. In the end, “Newsweek” had to make an apology for reporting the truth.
“Transnational Journalists”, an international organization of journalists, stated in its annual “Universal Freedom of Report” that “the US continues to put pressure on the media and restrict its freedom when it comes to the issue on “counterterrorism”.
According to the data, the Western countries take control of a quarter of internet infrastructure and most of the exchange of international information worldwide. The Western countries, just relying on their economic might and latest science and technology, take a monopoly of the modern, large-scale means of public information, suppress the righteous voices as being dictated by their own interests and demands, and paint a rosy picture of their own unpopular social systems against human rights.
The US and the Western media is the bullhorn of the monopolist capitalists who
have close ties with the political circles. The media, therefore, has lost freedom in its activities and is reduced to being a tool under the thumbs of a handful of the rich and in service for the implementation of their aggressive and dominant policies.Actually, journalists and media persons in the US and the Western countries cannot make free speeches or expressions, and they cannot but speak and write that only pleases their governments.
1-2-2 Crackdown and Persecution on Freedom of Speech and the Press
The US is bluffing as if its citizens were ensured with the freedom of the speech
and the media activities through the stipulated law on it, but, in reality, it has turned away from it by strict censorship on the above activities.
According to “Transnational Journalists”, 80 or more journalists got injured by the police during their coverage of the “Occupy Wall Street ” campaign in the US.According to the survey done by the Independent Association of Lawyers, over 18 correspondents were rounded up in the New York City alone from September, 2011
to July, 2012.
On August 4, 2012, a cameraman of “New York Times” was arrested for taking
photos of a little girl being arrested by the police during his coverage of the “OccupyWall Street” campaign and one policeman took away his camera and beat him in theface with it. In November 2012, two reporters of “Russia Today” TV Broadcast were apprehended during their coverage of the assembly in front of the Fort Benning Military Base in Georgia for the reason of attending a not-permitted assembly and disobeying the authorities. Six people including Bradley Maning, the information provider to the “Wikileaks”, web-database, were prosecuted and received inhuman treatment.
In the US, it is not unusual to see journalists being fired for their “politically
unreasonable” remarks. Typically, Nasre, the senior editor in charge of the Middle East in CNN TV Broadcast Company got fired for his expression of sympathy in Tweeter to the demise of the Shia caliphate in Lebanon in July 2010. With such reality in the US, the international credit rating companies assessed the level of the freedom of speech in the US to the lowest in the world.
The same is true of the Western countries. Turkey newspapers “Sabah” and
“Turkey” under the headlines of “Europe ranks last in Freedom of Speech” and “the West’s Double Dealing” showed up the crackdown on and double standard applied to the media by the Western countries. For example, 180 journalists were taken into custody for the past 25 years in Germany and 6 journalists including the editor-in-chief of the “News of the World”, one of the biggest newspapers in the UK, were arrested in 2013. Victoria De Philipes, editor-in-chief of the “Liberation” newspaper was imprisoned in France.
1-2-3 Leaks of Distorted Information
To get access to safe and reliable news is one of the primary rights of the human
beings. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” provides in its article 19 that
everyone shall have the right to freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers.
These rights are grossly violated due to the spread of distorted information by the US and the Western countries.
The US and Western mass media are weaving in distorted information as true,
which was all fabricated to their flavour, and report them as if authentic by using ambiguous expressions such as “authentic newscast”, “anonymity-requiring Western diplomat”, “political pundits” and “the classified information”.
A considerable number of the US and Western media are spreading across the
world distorted accounts about the true picture of the DPRK human rights system and human rights situation enjoyed by the people. They have also committed to the crime, beyond the century, of manipulating and spreading the public opinion as if the DPRK is to blame for the tension and the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula which was actually caused by the US. Pointing out that the nuclear threat is coming from the US, an expert on international affairs in a certain country denounced both the US and the west by
criticizing that “the Western mass media are stupid enough to dance to the tune of the most demeaning nuclear power that is making frantic efforts to ruin a nation, which is no threat at all to the international community.”
Freedom House, the US international human rights institution, denounced in its
“World Report on Freedom of Press 2012” that the freedom of media persons’
activities in the DPRK ranked low by the international standard. This “Report” made by Carin Karecari is the politicization of the press and the height of double standards, running through all sorts of distortions and fabrications. The US and the Western countries resort to the operations of buying off the press
and open intimidation in order to manipulate the public opinion with false reports.
The US had disguised the “Lincoln Group” staff on the payroll from the DOD as
freelance journalists and made them feed the Iraq mass media with their reports so as to prevent the international criticism when the international condemnation is on the rise against it as the US human rights violations in Iraq were revealed in the mass media. Those newspapers that carry the articles received rewards ranging from 40US$ to 2,000US$ apiece according to their “value”.
The US President threatened to blow up the Al Jazeera satellite TV broadcasting
Center for the reason that they had reported the military achievements of the Iraqi resisting forces.
In April 2012, the DPRK invited mass media from various countries to prove
transparency of the launch of its scientific and technical satellite for peaceful
purposes. At that time, the US pressured news reporters aboard the plane for
Pyongyang to refrain from covering the satellite launch.
In this regard, Talen Bias, a journalist of the US news website “Politico” disclosed that the White House warned the reporters to be careful so as not to be accomplices in the DPRK “propaganda campaign” as such coverage would be free propaganda of the DPRK. In 2014, a letter of blackmail and a pocket knife were delivered by post to the “Asahi Shimbun” head office in Tokyo, Japan, threatening to kill the journalist who had written an article on the truth about sexual slavery crimes committed by the Japanese army if he does not make an apology for the report. This incident is a manifestation of reckless insanity of the Japanese imperialists towards the “Asahi Shimbun”, which often carries true reports on the past human rights violations by Japan. Whenever distorted information is spread by the US and the west, the rights of the sovereign states were infringed upon, human rights of the people violated, antagonism and conflicts created and global peace and security abrogated. It is a well-known fact that the aggression against Iraq by the US and multinational forces was committed based on the fabricated information beforehand.
The false information-based propaganda for aggression against sovereign states is also the crime that breaches the first paragraph of Article 20 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, which provides that “any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law”. In accordance with the “International Convention on the Right to Correction”, the US and Western countries must apologize and be held criminally responsible for the spread of distorted and fabricated information that hurts the dignity of a sovereign state and encroaches upon the rights of human beings to freedom of speech and press.
1-3 Freedom of Assembly and Association
1-3-1 Bloody Crackdown on Peaceful Demonstration
The rights of human beings to peaceful demonstration stipulated in “Universal
Declaration of Human Rights”(Article 20, Para. 1) and the “International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights”(Article 21) are severely violated in the US and the
Western countries, where the police and army are mobilized to bloody crackdown, arrest and lock-up of demonstrators.
By the end of the last century, the US, declaring to “use every available form of
force”, clamped down ruthlessly the large-scale demonstration waged by the black against the policy of racism in Los Angeles with 4,000 National Security Forces,5,000 army troops, let alone the police.
During the widespread large-scale demonstration started in New York under the
slogan of “Occupy Wall Street” in 2011, the US ruling forces used the police to
impose a bloody crackdown on demonstrators.
The world media made fun of the bleak landscape saying that it resembles genocide literally when the mounted policemen brutally cracked down on the demonstrators,swinging truncheons in the dreadful panic-stricken atmosphere with the choppers above the city. The media ridiculed the US by saing that the above reflects the true picture of the US which professes itself to represent “freedom” and “democracy”.
In October 2011, the police beat 24-year-old S. Olsen in his head in Oakland,
California, making him lose his ability to speak for a while. In November that year,the police in Seattle used tear gas to the demonstrators including the elderly and pregnant women and the police, standing guard over the California University, alsofired tear gas into students holding a peaceful assembly.
The police mobilized to the crackdown on the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration even stormed the demonstrators’ camps and rounded up numerous people after - 11 -blockading the area.
In Chicago, the police dragged 175 demonstrators to the prison van like pieces of luggage, who were occupying a closed park. In New York, they imprisoned 70 sit-in strikers in park in a day alone for the reason of violating night-time curfew.
In the US, from the beginning of the street protests under the slogan of “Occupy
Wall Street” to the end of February 2012, about 6,000 demonstrators were arrested in 110 cities.
“Washington Post” reported that about 13 million US$ were spent on the
crackdown on demonstrators. In California, it was 2.4 million US$. People calling for their basic rights to survival are treated like convicts in the US. The US Senate passed a bill imposing sanctions on the government officials responsible for “human rights violation” of the anti-government demonstrators in Venezuela, and Obama signed it into law. The US is in no position to criticize other countries for not being \democratic or not providing enough freedom and civil rights.
The riot police in Athens, Greece used tear gas to break up the mass demonstration of the working people against the unfair austerity pursued by the authorities on November 17, 2014. On November 6, 2014, the working people went on a mass strike in Brussels, Belgium against the unfair economic policy of the authorities. The riot police committed the atrocity of firing tear gas and arresting 10 demonstrators.
1-3-2 Suppression of Freedom of Association
Since freedom of association is one of the principal rights of the human beings, it is an important yardstick of assessing the degree of democratization in a given society.
All sorts of evil laws in the US are restraining and violating to a great extent the
rights of human beings to freely join in political activities and to establish and join in an organization for the purpose of adding luster to their dignity and value.
The US “Internal Security Act” and “Communist Movement Control Act”, which
remain in effect to this day since respective adoption in September 1950 and August 1954, are the typical laws that were enacted for the purpose of curbing the organizing of progressive political and public institutions and their activities.
“Internal Security Act” designated, in its paragraph 4 of article 3, “the communist - 12 -institution” as “conspiratorial organization”. Through this, it provided a legal basis to launch a crack down on progressive political and public institutions.
According to the “Internal Security Act”, communists and heads of progressive
institutions are registered in the Department of Justice, being subjects of strict police surveillance all the time. They are also subject to detention by legal force whenever “the state emergency” like war is declared. In addition, they are not allowed to work for all the factories, enterprises and public institutions which are considered to “have some relations with the defensive industry” and are deprived of the rights to travel abroad.
The “Communist Movement Control Act” enacted afterwards is more reactionary and has more anti-communist nature than the “Internal Security Act” as its article 3 provides that “the US Communist Party or its successor shall not enjoy the rights, privileges and immunities, which legitimate institutions organized in accordance with the US law can enjoy, regardless of their names”.
This law restrains the US communist party from exercising the legitimate rights,
which all US political organizations are entitled to enjoy according to the law. This is just like an open declaration of the disbandment of the Communist Party.
This law is also designed to crack down on any political parties and institutions,
which support socialism and struggle for democratization of society.
Apart from this, the law provides that freedom of organizing a trade union and its activities can be acknowledged only when they cut off all relations with the socialist movement and political organizations that struggle for this.
This law and “Taft-Hatley Act” (taking effect since June 1947) complement each
other, as the later law regulates that the head of trade union must come to relevant authority and vow not to be a member of the communist party under any circumstances.
These laws are still notorious as they provide the excuse and leeway to crack down on the demand of the trade union to increase the wages for workers when they are not in their interests.
Such US laws are in breach of article 20 of “Universal Declaration of Human
Rights” providing that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and no one may be compelled to belong to an association and article 22
- 13 -of “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” that everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests and “Convention on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Unity”.
1-3-3 Patronage and Financial Support to Anti-Government Organizations
The US, in disregard of the requirements of the international human rights
instruments to restrict freedom of assembly that challenges national security, social stability and order, healthy society and protection of morality and rights of individuals, never shrinks from the crime that harbors and instigates the
anti-government organizations into the overthrow of the governments.
During the past years, the US has organized and gave financial support to over 40 terrorist groups that specialize in sabotage and murder in order to suppress the Cuban Revolution.
According to “Granma”, Cuban newspaper, the US financed Cuban
counter-revolutionaries through anti-Cuba institutions in Miami, giving financial
support and instigating their sinister moves. In 2012 alone, the US earmarked
additional 20mUS$ for sabotage against Cuba. Some of the funds were spent for the so-called “Council for Cuban Democracy” in Miami and the anti-government strike organization of “∝66” headquartered in Florida and terrorism.
According to the US “Washington Post”, State Department is giving a covert fund to an anti-government organization in a country in the Middle East, which amounts to 12mUS$.
As the international community raises its voice of denunciation to the US that it is intentionally intensifying internal disputes in sovereign states, US Presidents
unabashedly patronized their guilts, insisting that they gave assistance to
democratization, yet not to anti-government moves.
The US funded over 65mUS$ to a country in Eastern Europe through its NGOs,
namely “America Democracy Institute” and “National Endowment for Democracy”
established for the purpose of helping other countries in “building democracy”.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), an affiliated body of “US
Cooperation Department for International Development”, has its branches in around 100 countries. It is the intelligence agency that hatch anti-government plots while - 14 -financing anti-government institutions under the pretext of “development aid”, “development grant” and “investment guarantee”. The USAID gave 3.4mUS$ to a“human rights” institution in Cuba, instigating ant-government terrorism.
In 2011, the USAID members were expelled from Bolivia for their attempted plot
to overthrow the government, while financing anti-government bodies. Prior to this, the US Agency for International Development in Ukraine hatched an
anti-government plot, financing the Ukrainian Education Center, which is also an
anti-government body.
The President of Venezuela, in his TV speech of February 2014, said that 3 staff of the US Embassy in Venezuela were deported for their conceived plot to cause social unrest, in hands with the anti-government organization of the country.
In the past, the US had opened in the US Embassy in Venezuela the so-called
“Office for Transfer of Power”, whose job was to “help Venezuela promote
democracy”, earmarking 2mUS$ for their work while forming anti-government
organizations and giving them a huge financial support.
The US ambassador in Ecuador attended the movement organized by the
anti-government journalists’ organization in this country, making “an attempt to
create instability”, and the US openly stood for the atnti-government organizations in Venezuela when they claimed for the Presidential reelection.
Not a few Western countries have also funded anti-government institutions in other countries, thereby causing instability in a given country and teaming up with them to overthrow the government.
1-4 Right to Vote
1-4-1 Restrictions and Reservations through the Unpopular Election
The wanton violation of human rights by the US and Western countries against the rights of their nationls to vote and to be elected find their vivid expressions in the US election act, which provides for numerous margins of restriction and reservation.
Historically, the first constitution enacted in the US after its formation was silent on the rights to vote and to be elected and the constitution amendment (article 15) revoked the restrictions of the rights to vote and to be elected by reason of ethnic,
- 15 -color and slavery and the restrictions of the rights to vote and to be elected were lifted several times and legal measures were taken to expand the scope of the rights to vote and to be elected.
US election acts (Federal Election Act and State Election Acts), however, provide
for dozens of all sorts of restrictions and discrimination and abuse the rights of
American nationals to vote and to be elected in disregard of the general, equal and direct principle.
The US is the one and only country that does not give the rights to vote and to be
elected to any persons who had ever prison life in the world.
According to the “Sentencing Project” organization, over 5.8m people with prison
records are deprived of the rights to vote and to be elected in the US. In Alabama,
Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia alone, over 7% of adult
residents do not have the rights to vote.
American election act requires that voters must clarify both their identity and
residence when they are registered, depriving numerous people of the rights to vote.
As far as the requirements for election are concerned, a great number of the youth and hundreds of thousands of the poor without fixed residences are not eligible for parliamentary candidacy due to several restrictions.
In the US, candidates for the Senate must be residents of the states to be elected,
who are over 30 years of age with 9 yearlong state residence period and candidates for the House representatives must be residents of the states to be elected, who are over 27 years of age with 7 yearlong residence period.
According to the election act, candidates can file their candidacies for election to parliament providing that they provide an enormous amount of election grants, which means the property less people, both poor and unemployed can never run for election to parliament.
Most of the working people are excluded from voting due to several complicated
voting procedures and methods provided by the US election act.
The US holds its Congressional election in accordance with several steps and
procedures including division of constituencies, voter registration, ballot casting and counting and the elected identification. Each of these election processes, steps and
- 16 -procedures are specifically tailored to elect candidates supported and aided by the dominant Parties (Democratic Party and Republican Party). “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” provides in its article 21, para 3 that the
will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government: this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
In the US, however, the election is not held directly by the electorate but indirectly by a handful of electoral colleges. Under this system, the voice of the majority of the working people is overtly ignored as had been revealed in the survey conducted by the Census Bureau. It said that 60m citizens cannot vote due to plenty of cumbersome registering procedures.
From 2011 to 2012, several states including Texas, Alabama and Pennsylvania
enacted their own new election laws. These were made and passed with the aim of restricting the rights of the American minorities and poor residents to vote, which is a clear attack on democracy.
This finds its expression in imposing on voters to show state-issued
photo-accompanied identification cards and in the decreased period of preliminary voting and in more restricted rights of ex-convicts to vote and stricter collective registration rules for voters.
During 2012 Presidential election in the US, 25 % of voters were assisted by
electronic direct record device at the time of voting, which is recognized to be easily manipulated by outsiders. Nearly 54.5 % of those who used electronic ballot were totally ignorant of how their ballots would be processed.
Restriction on and deprivation of the right to the election of the working people by election law is, in fact, a violation of the obligation of each state to provide a legal guarantee to ensure that human being can participate in the election freely with no restriction and reservation and express his/her will freely. This shows that the US is not the “heaven of liberty and democracy” but the tundra of freedom.
US and Western countries, to begin with, opposed strongly to include the right to
election of the humankind in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” while insisting that only the obligation to conduct “free election” should be stipulated in it.
- 17 -1-4-2 Election Campaign with Money
In the US, the right to election of the working people has utterly been trampled
down by the money pouring competition.
The cost for the Presidential election in the US has systematically increased.
100,000US$ was spent by Lincoln alone for Presidential election in 1860, 11 million US$ for Presidential election in 1952 and 100 million US$ in 1972 Presidential election. The cost for Presidential election in 1996 reached 900 million US$, one billion US$ in 2000 and 1.7 billion US$ in 2004.
According to the VOA report on 16 April 2012, it was confirmed that Obama raised 45 million US$ in February and 53 million US$ in March for the Presidential election to be held that year, while Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate having raised 75 million US$ by mid-April.
The final report on the cost for election campaign which was submitted before the US Federal Election Committee stated that over two billion US$ had been spent by the end of October during the 2012 Presidential election between the Democratic candidate Obama seeking re-election and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts State.
The book “The President bought by Money 2004” describes that the Presidential
election campaign is so costly that only billionaire or person who is able to get
financial donations from large businesses or powerful organizations can run for
candidacy.
2,000~3,000 US$ is spent for 30-second broadcast of the US Presidential election campaign in ABC TV channel. For this 30-second broadcast to gain the support from the voters, it needs a repetitive broadcast to the tune of 1,200~1,300 times. The total cost for this goes to over 2.8 million US$.
Likewise is for the election of US Congressmen and women. The “Washington
Post” exposed that 3.98 billion US$ had been spent at the time of the mid-term
election in November 2010, highest cost in the US history. The candidates for the
seats at the US Senate and House broke a record of mid-term fund raising by having raked already 1.5 US$ in October before the beginning of the election.
- 18 -Fair election is no word in US under such election system, that is “Money wins the race”. Working people belonging to “We Are 99%” are only spectators in the stadium.
The “New York Times” reported on October 22, 2010 that 8 out of 10 respondents in the poll had said that they would want to see the restriction of the election cost.
The restriction on the campaign cost only can’t change the anti-popular and
reactionary election competition and its system in the US and Western countries
where the “value” based on the law of jungle is deeply embedded.
The election campaign begins, is staged and ends with money in the US and
Western countries. This, itself, is a violation of the human rights, which is
incompatible with the international instruments on human rights.
1-4-3 Meddling in and Criticism of other Countries in their Elections
The US claims that the Presidential or parliamentary elections do not stand up to the international standard, are not fair and are fraudulent in some countries. On the contrary, the US turns away itself from and connives at the elections of some other countries despite the high-pitched call of the international society that those are unfair.
The US logic is that everything is fair if it is in US interest, but not if it is out of.
This is really a double standard.
US high officials stepped in calling for a fair election and freedom of media at a
time of election to choose a new President who would succeed President Chavez of Venezuela when he passed away in 2013. After the election was over, it found a vault in the election process.
The US President, in his statement questioning the legitimacy of the result of the
Presidential election in Venezuela, made such remarks of interference as saying that the election result should be reinvestigated and such process would be useful for political dialogue and help promote democracy in the country.
When the President Lukashenko of Belarus took office in January 2011, the US and Western countries invoked sanctions against Belarus saying the election “was unfair and fraudulent”.
- 19 -Those sanctions include the travel ban on 158 government officials of Belarus to US and the Western countries.
Officials of the US and the Western countries also criticized Central Election
Committee of Russia over its internal procedure on registration of Presidential
candidates.
When some complex issues surfaced throughout the Duma election for the Russian Presidential election at the end of 2011, the US took that opportunity to question the “fair election” criticizing it as fraud and so on and forth. Furthermore, the US attempted to replicate such an occurrence as the “Orange revolution” of Ukraine which took place under the US sponsorship by providing financial support to anti-governmental organizations through the USAID Office in Russia.
Following the US policy against Russia, the European Parliament appealed to
declare the election result null and void in its resolution of December 14, 2011 on the election of Russian Duma.
In his statement delivered at the UN General Assembly in 2013, President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe said that the US and Western countries denied the election result of Russia although the election in Russia was held in peace, freely and fairly.
When Mahanda Rajapaksa was re-elected President in Sri Lanka on January 26,
2010, the US put pressure upon Sri Lanka over an excuse to investigate the doubt of the election calling it “fraudulent one”.
The US and Western countries, while calling unfair the elections being held in the countries they don’t like, instigate the anti-government forces there. Its criminal purpose lies in the fact that they are trying to use the elections as a leverage to change the political systems and establish pro-US and pro-Western governments.
The slander to and interference into “election issue” of other countries is a criminal act which flagrantly violates the principles of respect for sovereignty,
non-interference in internal affairs and national self-determination. These principles were laid down in various documents of international law such as the “Declaration on the Principles of International Law between States based on the UN Charter”.
The US and Western countries can never be free from the liability to piling up a
crime whereby they violate the rights to election of their citizens in their countries while infringing upon the rights to election of other peoples.
- 20 -1-5 Right to Take Part in Government Administration
1-5-1 Exclusion of the Working People from Composition
in Government Structures
The article 21, paragraph 2 of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and
article 25 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” stipulate that everyone has the right to equal access to politics and public service in his country. But, the rights of the human being to freely take part in state affair are not ensured properly in the state administration systems of the US and Western countries, which are all organized and in operation to the contrary of the interests of the majority of the people.
The US and Western countries claim that they provide people with equal
opportunities and conditions to take part in public affairs but all of their power and administrative bodies are filled in by those representing the interests of monopoly plutocracies while excluding those who represent the interests of the people. Some people of worker or peasant origin are allowed to take part in the public affairs but they are just no more than smoke-screens to cover up their unpopularity and reactionary nature.
The US Congress is the anti-democracy and unpopular ruling body formed, in the name of people, by monopoly plutocracies who are disconnected with people.
On its appearance, the US Congress is formed by election according to the
principle of “People’s power”, but it is actually built on a closed basis that excludes the people.
All steps and procedures of the Congressional election including the election
qualification system are designed to exclude the people. This makes the US Congress to be composed only of monopoly plutocracies and their followers who take control of both the Democratic and Republic parties, not of those represented by people.
A political scientist of the US wrote in his work that the US Congress is the most
notorious body as it has not a representation system.
A US organization disclosed the unpopularity and conservatism in the formation of - 21 -the US Congress saying that the fixed number of senators is 100 and 40 among them are billionaires. In addition, over 98% of the sitting members of the House of Representatives have been re-elected for the past 3 terms, leaving no room for a new member.
According to the survey result by the Centre for Responsible Politics, a US civil
society organization, 268 Congressmen, half of the US Congressmen, were
millionaires in 2012.
This does not end in US Congress. All federal and state organs are becoming
life-long serving and bureaucratic bodies completely cut off from the people.
Only 23.3% of registered voters did vote at the time of electing the mayor of Los
Angeles in May 2013. The mayor was elected with 222,300 votes which accounts for only 12.4% of total registered voters.
This demonstrates that the majority of US citizens have turned their backs on the election and activities of state organs which are composed of only privileged circles.
It remains as a dream for a representative of working class origin to become a
President or Congressman in the US society which is anti-popular and anti-human rights.
The same goes for other Western countries who pretend to be a society respecting women. In these countries, percentage of women’s participation in state affairs remains at a very low level.
1-5-2 Protecting Interests of Elite Circles in State Governance
Genuine politics and fair governance for the people are unimaginable in the US and other Western countries where law of the jungle prevails and money decides
everything.
The US Congress – in its composition and activities - is ruling machinery that only serves for the interests of giant monopolies while completely ignoring the interests of its people.
One of the strongest powers exercised by the US Congress is the adoption,
amendment and nullification of a law. However, the proponents of bills to the
- 22 -Congress are monopoly capitalists and not individual Congressman. It is needless to say that those bills proposed, reviewed and adopted by these elite circles contradict to the independent demand of the people.
The US Congress passes only those bills that suit the interests and demand of the
magnates while those contradicting them can never be adopted.
The Congress held more than 100 debates regarding the draft bill on banning
firearms from last century to this century, but failed to adopt it simply because it runs counter to the interests of monopolistic cartels which rely on profit from production and sale of firearms.
According to an article by Francis Fukushima, a researcher at Centre for
Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, Stanford University, US, contributed to “Washington Post” website on October 4, 2013, several political rings representing the views of a handful of individuals can block any actions of majority forces and even that of the government.
At the end of 2012, the “Washington Post” released a data indicating more than 2.5 times increase in average income for the members of the House of Representatives from 1984 to 2009. The amount reached 35 times higher than that of ordinary US citizens in 2009.
It is quite natural that such wealthy Congressmen care nothing about hard life of
the working people that form the majority of US society.
The administrative bodies under each state in the US embellish the system they
have as “democratic” since it guarantees independence. But, that system exists only for the interests of the elite class. They indulge themselves in the “work” that has nothing to do with the “welfare of the people”.
The laws and regulations of each state in the US are a collection of hundreds of
abnormal and inhuman laws and regulations; these include prohibiting bath once a week; fine a person when he frowns at a dog; ban singing in swimming suit; ban licking a frog; no one is allowed to howl in public places; no couple whether or not they are married can sleep naked in a rented house; a tramp cannot beg for money unless he owns US$ 10 worth “certificate”.
It is obvious that the legislative and administrative institutions of each state existing for adoption and implementation of such abnormal and inhuman laws and regulations do not stand for promotion of human rights of working people.
The ignorance and negligence of the interests of people by the state organs in the US and other Western countries is a anti-human rights crime that does not comply with the obligations which they assume under the international human rights instruments that call for every state to be responsible for taking legal and other steps to guarantee economic and cultural life of its people.
1-6 Right to Self-Determination
1-6-1 Open Intervention in the Internal Affairs of Sovereign States
Today, when the humankind is at height of civilization, the political sovereignty
and right to self-determination of sovereign states are being violated due to the
attempts by US and Western countries to interfere into the internal affairs of other countries.
To rob, kill and trample upon; this is the “value” of the US and Western countries. This serves as strategy and overriding objective of the US and Western countries to dominate the world.
The instruments on international law including the UN Charter (Article 2,
Paragraph 7), stipulate that any state has the right to choose its own political,
economic and social system freely without any intervention of the other countries.
All states have no right to interfere directly or indirectly in the matters of the other countries under any pretext and they must ban all acts which object the political, economic and cultural elements of sovereign states and pursue violation of sovereignty.
But, the US and Western countries take no account of the principles of
non-interference in internal affairs and rights to national self-determination and the international law which oblige states not to violate and trample upon the national sovereignty and interest of other countries and nations and resolve all domestic issues independently according to their own judgment and decision.
“Human Rights” and “Democracy” is the main slogan and stereotyped tool often
used by the US in its attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
In 2007, US President George W. Bush claimed that it is the US goal to make Iraq democratized, governed by the rule of law, the Iraqis’ human rights respected and become an ally of anti-terror war. However, due to the US interference in the internal affairs and the military invasion by the multinational armed forces, Iraq turned into a theatre of rowdy human rights violations, not a “model of democratization”.
It is just the independent countries against imperialism which become main targets for the attempts by the US and Western countries to interfere into the internal affairs of those countries, all of which are committed under the mask of “human rights” and “democracy”.
The US, when it failed to overthrow Cuba by force, put up reactionaries as “human rights defenders” and dictated its will to provide “freedom” to their anti-government activities. When such scheme does not work any longer, the US has imposed severe blockade and sanctions against Cuba.
The US ignored the legitimate demand of the Venezuelans when they had aspired
after independence, socialism and peace. It is still going all its way to plunder the rich resources of Venezuela under the pretext of human rights.
The US put up some EU member states, Japan and south Korea, which follow US
hostile policy against DPRK, in its frame-up and distortion about the true picture of the human rights system and the enjoyment of it in DPRK. It is based on this
distorted attempt that it is pointing at the human rights situation in DPRK and is
hell-bent on its criminal act of interfering into its internal affairs and seeking a
regime change in DPRK by bringing up the DPRK human rights issue at
international fora. (See the report of the DPRK Association for Human Rights
Studies which was circulated as an official document of the UNGA and UNSC.)
The US says that no other country can match US in “making effort to defend
human rights” and publishes its annual “human rights report” by State Department which is neither afforded nor recognized by anybody. The report is at random in its analysis and criticism about the human rights issues of many countries in the world.
The US “Report on Human Rights” is not only a document of political provocation but also an instrument for invasion to trample upon the sovereignty of sovereign states and human rights of peoples over the “human rights issue”.
What kind of human rights system to set up, what kind of human rights policy to
adopt and how to change and develop the chosen human rights system and policy are -internal affairs that belong to sovereignty of states and national right to self-determination. Nobody can poke his nose in this.
Division and disorder were created not only in political circle but also in society as a whole by the pro-American and Western organizations and bodies without
exception in those countries which accepted “multi-party system” and “political
pluralism” forced upon them by the US and the West under the signboard of
“democracy”.
Some countries belatedly came to be reasoned with their mistakes and try to save a difficult situation, but the US and Western countries are seizing upon this as an excuse of interference into the internal affairs of those countries while taking an issue with “human rights violation”, “obliteration of freedom” and “absence of democracy” in those countries.
Any attempt by the US and Western countries to put as a model of their
“democracy” and force it upon other countries on an unconditional basis is an act of insult and scoff to people in those countries. It is also a grave crime of infringing upon the sovereignty of sovereign states.
The criminal act of the US and Western countries to use the “human rights” and
“democracy” as the means of interference into the internal affairs of other countries as well as a political pressure and an excuse of sanction and blockade can never be tolerated, and it deserves due legal punishment.
1-6-2 Overthrow of Government
“The United States did not promote democracy, but it got rid of the views, parties and people unfavorable to it. This is how it saw to it that those who are obedient to US came to power. Any government which tried to conduct a progressive reform could not have avoided the intervention by the US.”
“Since the end of the World War II, the US administration overthrew more than 50 legally elected governments worldwide, killed over 50 political leaders and tried to suppress national independence movements on over 30 occasions”.
The above quotation was made at a ceremony held in Moscow, Russia in 2013 to
- 26 -introduce the book “Strangulation of Democracy: Intervention of the CIA and the Pentagon during the Cold War”, which was written by the American journalist William Blum.
According to the book “Overthrow: from Hawaii to Iraq”, written by Kings, a
journalist of US newspaper “New York Times”, US made plots to overthrow the
governments of many countries such as Nicaragua, the Philippines, Puerto Rico,
Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq and so on, during the last 100 years in order to realize its ambition for domination.
According to data, the US conducted over 900 assassination and terror operations against the prominent politicians and high government officials of several countries worldwide in the period from 1961 to 1976.
The US attempts to overthrow government took place in Latin America on a much more serious basis. For instance, after World War II, a Latin American country experienced 4 times of coup d’état in 3 years which also led to assassination of its President while the country experiencing 8 times of coup d’état within 5 years, all of which were conducted by the preconceived plots of the US.
On 19 August 2013, the US magazine “Foreign Policy” made public a document
which recognized the fact that the CIA backstage manipulated the military coup
d’état in Iran in 1953. According to it, the military coup d’état which overthrew Mosadic, the then prime minister took place by the order of CIA as part of the US foreign policy.
The US attempts to overthrow the governments of sovereign states did not only
take place in the past, but it continues even today. According to the Cuban newspaper “Granma” published in May 2013, the US has not ceased, even for a moment, its plotted attempt to overthrow the government of Bolivia since President Evo Morales was elected as President. The US sent the spies under the guise of diplomat to this country to foster the sabotage activities and it is putting pressure on that country when the government took steps to expel them.
Recently, the US is becoming all the more outspoken in its attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela.
The US is fanning up the coup d’état even by mobilizing the mass media.
According to data, CNN is broadcasting through a Spanish channel against
Venezuela for 24 hours a day.
The broadcasts run through an attempt to cause instability and appeal for open coup d’état in this country.
On May 5, 2013, the Venezuelan government newspaper “Coreo del Orinoco”
exposed the US manoeuvres of intervention into its internal affairs and branded the US administration as an expert to invade other countries under the pretext of “freedom”. The US Ambassador to Ecuador made a plot to create a social unrest and overthrow the government while being involved in the anti-government political activities over the “human rights issue” in that country.
According to CIA’s material on October 28, 2011, the US squandered 54.6 billion
US$ that year for destruction and overthrow of the governments in other countries as well as for the intelligence and espionage activities against them.
The US continued attempt to overthrow other governments is an extreme act of
violating the state sovereignty and human rights of a sovereign state.
1-6-3 Infringement upon Sovereignty by Force
To trample upon and obliterate the sovereignty of other countries by force is an act of aggression, and it is all too dangerous criminal act of disrupting the sound and normal relations between states.
Therefore, the “UN Charter” stipulates in paragraph 4 of Article 2 that all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the UN.
This was also confirmed by other instruments on international law including the
“Declaration on the Principle of International Law between States based on the
Charter of the UN” and the “Treaty on Peaceful Solution of International Dispute.”
But, the US and Western countries adhered to the policy of power and constantly
conducted brigandish armed invasion and aggression against sovereign states.
Its typical example is armed invasion against Grenade and Panama in 1980s and
indiscriminate bombing on Yugoslavia in 1990s and armed invasion against
Afghanistan and Iraq in the new century.
Owing to the military intervention and armed invasion by the US and Western
countries, state sovereignties were severely violated and people were reduced to a miserable lot where their basic rights to existence are not ensured and violated (This will be mentioned more in detail in 2-1, 5-5) and global peace and security are in a great threat.
At the end of 2013, a US survey institution for public opinions posed a question
“Which country is the biggest threat to the world peace?” with a target to 68,000
people in 68 different countries. Many respondents pointed out the US as the biggest threat to the world peace.
This is the voice of anger by the humankind against the US, a cancerous existence to world peace and security and the worst human rights violator. It is also a rdicule to the US that shows off as “world policeman”. Mark Twain, famous American writer and journalist of late 19 th century said that it was good to have discovered America but it would have been better if it were not
discovered at all.
What he said is considered even today as an expression of anger and resentment
against the US, a ringleader of invasion, war and plunder, a root cause of all
misfortunes and sufferings and a destabilizer of peace and stability of the world. This is also an expression indicating that the US is is driven into the corner where it can’t co-exist on this planet and is fated to be in a dumping ground of the times and history. All countries aspiring for independence, peace and stability should sharpen their vigilance against the recent US attempt to slander and interfere into the internal affairs of soverieng states, which are all committed under the guise of “protection of human rights”.
It is none other than the US that has its driving goal of military intervention ino
the sovereign states under the pretext of “protection of human rights”. For this, it would neccesiate the creation of social chaos and disorder by egging the
anti-government forces of ech country and put a pressure against any attempt against them under the excuse of “suppression of human rights”.
The US can never escape from its crime of violating in cold blood the sovereign
rights and the rights to self-determination, no matter what kind of “ground or reason” they may come up with.
2 Grave Violation of Civil Rights
The US and Western countries seriously violate the civil rights of the people, which are all provided under the international human rights laws and regulations.
Violation of and infringement upon civil rights finds its severe expression in the
fields of right to life, right not to be tortured, right not to be enslaved, right to
physical freedom and safety, right to freedom of private life and correspondence and right to fair trial.
2-1 Right to Life
2-1-1 Threat to Personal Safety by Crimes with Firearms
Right to life is a right proper to human beings. To ensure it is one of of primary
issues in ensuring human rights.
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and “International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights” stipulate that all people have primary rights to life and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her life.
In the US and Western countries, especially in the US, rights to life of people are
ruthlessly trampled upon owing to the deluge of firearms-related crimes, making
people live in anxiety and terror from constant threat to personal safety.
According to the US magazine “Foreign Policy” and its newspaper “New York
Times”, 30,000 people lose their lives and 200,000 people are injured every year, all because of firearms and firearms-related murder cases that reach up to 12,000 a year.
FBI report said in 2013 that firearms were used in 69.3% of the murders and in
41% of robberies throughout the country. Mayor of New York City said that 1,093 firearms-related criminal cases were committed in the city in 2013.
Danger of firearms-related crimes in the US is that even those who have nothing to do with the criminals often die undeserved death and such crimes may take place at all times regardless of the time or a place.
On January 4, 2014, in Houston City, Texas State, US, an unidentified criminal
broke into a house and went rampage on a shooting, killing one person and injuring 2 people.
Firearms-related crimes in the US started from the very beginning of the New Year of 2014 and went on almost every day and everywhere since January 13, 2014. Back-to-back accident of causing a life loss happens, when a firefarm is placed into the hand of just a child.
In April, 2014, a two-year old boy shot his eleven-year old sister to death in
Philadelphia, and a boy shot his ten-year-old elder sister to death in Savannah,
Georgia state, US.
According to the Reuter News Agency on November 10, 2010, the US comes top in the world in terms of the number of weapons under individual possession. In 2010, around 90,000,000 people possessed 200,000,000 various kinds of weapons. In 2014, the number of weapons under individual possession increased up to approximately 300,000,000.
The US is the world’s biggest store for weapons by individuals, the biggest civil
weapon import market, weaponry power testing ground, weaponry black market, munitions factory and the biggest weaponry market.
The US is the one and only ignorant and uncouth country in the world where it is
deemed as a kind of fashion and everyday occurrence for a civilian with arms to kill -people at random out of his own emotion and impulse.
Firearms-related crimes in the US are attributable to the American soil that
“nurtures” the culture of firearms, which includes anti-popular US Constitution,
reactionary culture of violence and pursuit of the profit of the big business.
Possession of weapons by individuals is all allowed by the US Constitution and
“the right to protect oneself with a gun” is a symbol of the American spirit that
permeates with an extreme man-hate idea that you should survive at the cost of
sacrificing others.
Article 2 of the amendment to the Constitution adopted in 1791 stipulated as
follows: “in order to esure safety in the free state, well-managed militia is needed.
Therefore, the right to carry firearms of the citizens cannot be violated”.
One US politician mentioned that the children of the US, by the time they graduate from junior middle school, would have seen 8,000 murder scenes and 100,000 violence scenes through the media and, by the time they graduate senior middle school, they would have seen violence scenes twice as much.
Violence with firearms is in fashion in the American culture and the mentality
reflecting such a fashion is being embodied in US politics and diplomacy. It is the
US that does not hesitate to use military forces when diplomacy fails to get what
they want.
Citizens demand much more to restrict the use of firearms among the increased
crimes by firearms in the US. Despite this, this demad has not been met. The reason for this is also related with the influences of the firearms manufacturers and sales businesses.
They even control Presidential elections as they please, by relying on the huge
amount of money they get through firearms. They even do not allow the Congress to adopt the laws on firearms restriction if any bid by the Congress does come in conflict with their interests.
Many big and small pro-firearms bodies exist in the US like the National Rifle
Association, all of which are hell-bent on curbing rifle control.
This is a US reality where the failure of the US administration to take any step to
stop firearms-related crime is fanning the citizens to buy firearms on a large scale, giving firearm producers and sales businesses a boom while claiming the lives of many people instead.
The US is a living hell where not a single day passes by without gunshot and it is a “paradise” for criminals.
A Peruvian body, exposing crimes with firearms in the US, warned that “It is none other than the US who is the chief criminal who should sit as defendant in the dock of international court of human rights in 21 century. The US should stop posing as ‘the world judge of human rights’ at once and should solve its own human rights problems before criticizing “human rights status of other countries”.
2-1-2 Murder owing to All Kinds of Crimes
In the US and Western countries, right to life of people is mercilessly trampled
upon not only because of firearms-related crimes but also all kinds of violent crimes.
No country on the earth is pervaded with all kinds of crimes as in US, which makes the right to life of the human be exposed to constant threat.
According to the 2008 report on crimes released by the US Justice Department,
there were 4,900,000 cases of violence, 16,300,000 cases of property violence and 137,000 cases of theft in one year.
According to the report released by FBI, there were more than 1,000,000 cases of violence in 2010 and there were 1,214,464 cases of violence nationwide in 2012.
Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China released a report in 2013 on the “2012 human rights record of the US”. According to it, there were 1,203,564 cases of violence in the US in 2011, which means 386.3 cases per 100,000 people.
Violence that people of over 12-year old suffer every year amounts up to 5,200,000 cases in the US.
There is a sudden rise in the crime rate in the US. Among them, in St. Louise,
Missouri, rate of victims of violence reaches up to 2,070 persons per 100,000.
According to statistics, in New York City, there were approximately 750 criminal
cases in 2011 and 366 criminal cases in 2012, which shows the occurrence of more than one criminal case every day.
Some years ago, when New York City was free from a crime for the first time, the mass media hit the headlines on it. This shows how rampant the crime is in the US.
Once a criminal, always a criminal, as saying goes; members of the US Marine
Corps in Okinawa, Japan committed a crime of gang-raping a woman in her
twenties.
Various violent crimes which involve firearms-related crimes in the US rooted deep down in the soil of US society as a malignant tumor that cannot be cured. Ideological basis that prevails over the US society is individualism based on the idea of “money talks” and therefore confrontation and contradiction between individuals, races and political forces reach extremes to exert direct and negative influence to the overall society. It is a commonplace occurrence in the US society that does not mind murder and violence for the sake of one’s interest.
It is no more than a daydream to “protect human rights” under such corrupt and
decayed social system of the US that is not even capable of protecting lives of its
own citizens from various crimes.
The Western countries also have criminal records of violence that is no less than the US. On January 28, 2015, one Mafia organization that used to live on various
crimes was detected and exposed in northern Italy and 160 criminals were arrested.
In Western countries, many kinds of violence and terrorist organizations such as
Mafia are active and people live in constant threats to life and anxiety.
On January 7, 2015, there was a violence case in the home office of the daily
newspaper "Charlie Hebdo". Around 11:30, armed gunmen with black masks burst into the office and went through shooting rampage, killing 10 people.
In Japan boasting of "material prosperity", one girl struck an old man in his
seventies with an axe to mercilessly kill him in Nagoya on January 26, 2015,
throwing the public into consternation.
Western countries and Japan should solve first their own crime issues that prevail over their own societies before taking an issue with the “human rights issues” of somebody following in the footsteps of the US.
2-1-3 Violence against the Life by Police Officers
Police has a duty to keep social order and protect the rights of citizens from crimes and violation of laws in any country.
But, the police of US and Western countries are ill-reputed as tyrannical police,
torturing police, homicidal police and scandalous police and even as cannibal police.
According to the data from Amnesty International, a non-governmental
organization, at least 500 people died in the US from 2001 till February 2012
because of electric shock weapon by the police. According to the report from this organization, 90% of the victims were unarmed and bare-handed.
In New Orleans, US, several policemen in active service committed the crime of
shooting several passers-by at a bridge without reason to have killed several of them and injuring many of them under the pretext of keeping public security when hurricane Katrina was sweeping through several regions of the US in August, 2005. These murderers appeared in court in handcuffs in 2010.
At first, in conspiracy with the investigators in charge, they cooked up as if the
victims were armed criminals and with the help of false witness, they misled the
truth and were acquitted. However, owing to the protest from the bereaved families and social pressure to solve this case and punish the real murderers, the case was re-examined to reveal clear evidences. As a result, the murderers were prosecuted.
In July 2010, there was a case that a policeman fired at an innocent person and
killed him at the railway station of Oakland, California, US. According to official data, the number of innocent people, who died by the police gunfire from 2001 to October 2009, covers hundreds.
In the US, video record was broadcast, showing a policeman bursting into a
hospital and swinging his police club at a patient who was groaning with pain in
broad daylight, which evoked much public criticism.
In 2012, a 28-year old policeman in New York City attempted murder of 100
women and he even put their names, addresses, pictures as well as their physical
characteristics in his computer to this end. And, during a wedding ceremony, the
bridegroom died a tragic death by rain of bullets by three policemen.
In November 2014, a boy in his teens was shot to death by two bullets from the
police in the children’s park in Cleveland, Ohio simply because he didn’t obey police orders to put his hands up. The policemen who committed murder justified it as “execution of his official duties”.
It is none other than the US society where a policeman who is supposed to prevent crime commits a crime himself and justifies it to go unpunished.
According to the TASS of Russia, almost 400 innocent people die in the US every
year owing to the tyranny of policemen and, among them, only a few are prosecuted for murder and very few are declared guilty.
For the past 15 years, there was only one policeman in 2005 who was convicted
guilty after he was prosecuted. However, the court decision to the murderer was that he should do “something useful” within 500 hours.
In Western countries as well, criminal acts of the policemen that violate the lives of people are openly committed not only when they suppress various demonstrations and gatherings but also in every day life.
Who would protect rights of their citizens in the US and Western countries where
the police commit crimes in the open air under the patronage of the authorities and how could the rights to existence stipulated by the international human rights laws be protected by law.
2-1-4 Terrorism under the Pretext of “Counter-Terrorism”
“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” adopted on December 9, 1948 stipulates the massacre of the group of people committed with the purpose of annihilating a nation, tribe, human race or religious group as a crime to be strictly punished.
Today, the US and Western countries are violating without shame such legal
provisions that were adopted in order to prevent and punish holocaust that was
committed by fascist Germany and Japan in World War II.
The US “War on Terror” that is expanded into Pakistan after Afghanistan and Iraq -for the past 10 years is the unheard-of terrorist crime against the countries and the crime of holocaust.
According to data, every year from 2001 to 2011, approximately 14,000 up to
110,000 innocent people died owing to the US-led “anti-terrorist war”.
5 years after the US invasion against Iraq in March 2003 under the pretext of “the elimination of the weapons of mass destruction”, “provision of democracy” and “protection of human rights”, 1,205,000 Iraqis were dead and 1,000,000 are missing, half of whom are children.
According to UN report on February 4, 2012, civilian casualties during the “War on Terrorism” by the US amount up to 3,021 in 2011 alone. This figure shows 8% increase compared to the previous year.
UN Aid mission in Afghanistan estimated that at least 10,000 Afghan people were killed from 2007 to July 2011.
According to an article in the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry,
approximately 14,400 to 17,200 peaceful citizens (37,200 citizens when indirect
deaths are taken into account) were killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of the Operation Enduring Freedom. In February, 2011, 65 civilians including 22 women and 30 children were killed by the US army in Kumar Province, Afghanistan. In March this year, Afghan minors from 7 to 15 years died because of the helicopter strike from NATO. By the NATO air raid, 7 adults and 1 child were dead in Ziaba village of the Kapisa Province on February 8, 2012 and, on May 27, 6 children and one woman lost their lives.
In Afghanistan, the US army cut off fingers from the dead as war trophies and
committed barbarities such as taking a picture grasping the hair of the civilian
corpse.
The US used weapons of mass destruction at random that were banned by the
international conventions such as “BLU-82” fuel gasification bombs and cluster
bombs in Afghanistan.
From 2004 to June 2012, 484 civilians including 168 children were killed by the
attack of the US army. Many civilians are being killed by the US army in Yemen and Somalia as well. While leading the “War on Terror”, the US not only cruelly massacred the members of different nations to give them serious physical and mental damage but also intentionally imposed such living conditions that can bring about physical annihilation of the nations either entirely or partly by recklessly destroying and looting everything.
This shows that the US has committed all kinds of crimes that belong to the
holocaust in the “War on Terror”.
Several years have passed since the US declared the end of war in Iraq. But,
conflicts between ethnical groups and religious groups go on in Iraq, seriously
hampering the smooth development of the society amidst the vicious cycle of terror and retaliation.
UN reported that there were 7,818 casualties in Iraq in 2013 due to the various
kinds of violence and commented that the current situation of Iraq can be compared to a living hell.
The US depicts as if the crime of mass killing was committed by the individual
soldiers. But, that is an organized killing operation conducted systematically by the government issuance from the beginning to the end.
The US and the UK had showed off in the past as judges in the court to punish war criminals from the World War II under the veil of “the apostle of peace”. But the tide turns today. The US and the countries that committed mass killing following the US should sit as defendants in the international criminal court that punishes war crimes.
2-1-5 Killing of Civilians by Drone Strike
Acts of violation by the US and Western countries against other countries and
nations in their rights to life find the expression in killing the civilians by drone
strike.
The US newspaper New York Times exposed in its articles on May 29 and May 31, 2012 that the authorities have consented drone strike on Yemen, Somalia and especially on Pakistan every single time and the drones attacked without even identifying real terrorists, only to kill innocent and peaceful civilians.
According to the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur, by the drone strike that
started from June 17, 2004, 2,200 people were killed and 600 people were injured in Pakistan.
According to the data from “the Bureau of Investigation Journalists” of the U.K.,
385 US drone strikes killed 2,300~3,700 innocent people and, as long as the drone strikes continue, the number of casualties will continue to increase.
In 2010 alone, the US committed 110 drone strikes in North Waziristan and its
surrounding areas, having killed 2,100 innocent Pakistanis.
On October 6, 2014 in North Waziristan area, 8 innocent people were killed and 6 were injured from the drone-guided missile attack on a single day.
According to the data from Russian Foreign Ministry website, 40 civilians were
killed in Data Kell village in Pakistan from the US drone strike in March 2011.
US drone strike killed 58~149 people (with 24~31 children among them) in Yemen in 2011 and 13 peaceful civilians with 3 women among them in 2012. In Somalia,
11~57 civilians (with 1~3 children among them) were killed.
The US administration, advancing a shameless sophistry that the civilian casualty from drone strike is “secondary loss” that can be fully tolerated, is now further expanding drone strike to other countries.
The US is now in a craze for developing and producing ultra-supersonic drones
with a larger sphere of activity that can take off and land in any place.
The US drone strike commited under the pretext of “annihilating terrorists and
terrorist base” is a crime of anti-human rights and anti-ethics that violates the main principles of international human rights laws and international humanitarian laws that stipulate not to interfere into the sovereign right of a state and territorial integrity.
Human Rights Watch, a US non-governmental organization, stated in its report that the US drone strikes caused civilian casualties, which is the violation of the
international humanitarian law.
The US former President Carter said in New York Times that the US does not have a right to pose as the “world judge of human rights” and exposed that the civilian killing by US drone strike in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The US drone strike is a crime, no different from the extrajudicial executions that are prohibited by the international law. In May, 2010, Elston, the UN special
rapporteur on extra-judicial executions stated in his report that the US drone programs do not accord with the international humanitarian laws and standards in the field of human rights protection.
2-1-6 Crimes that Foster Atrocious Massacre
Historically, the US and Western countries have constantly committed the atrocities of fostering and instigating human massacre by financing and arming the reactionary governments or anti-government forces in other countries.
In recent years, the US has been driving the Palestinians to the quagmire of death by fully supporting Israel, a country that fancies slaughter and destruction in the Gaza Strip. The Swiss newspaper “Tribune de Genève” revealed that the US had provided Israel with grenades and mortar shells for them to continue their military attacks in the Gaza Strip. The US Defense Department has authorized Israel to have unlimited access to the
contingency weapons and ammunitions possessed by US forces stationed in Israel. The US House had planned to finance Israel with another millions of dollars in 2014 under the cloak of establishing the missile defense system.
According to the Malaysian newspaper “Utusan Malaysia”, the US had promised to give military aid worth of 3 billion US dollars to Israel every year starting from 2003. Since 1948, the total US contribution to Israel amounts to 210 billion US dollars. With such US “aid” to Israel the Middle East and the Gaza Strip, in particular, has turned an abattoir for the innocent Palestinians.
In July to August 2014 alone, more than 1,900 Palestinians were killed and more
than ten thousand were injured in the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate aerial
attacks and gunshots of Israel.
The US acts that foster and instigate the illegal and immoral killings by Israel are extremely serious crimes, violating the “UN Charter” and other international
protocols that prohibit threats by force or use of force against other
countries’territorial integrity and political independence in whatever means that are incompatible with the objective of the United Nations.
The US is the root cause of destruction of peace in the Middle East and is the
champion of human massacre.
2-2 Freedom from Torture or Inhumane and Disgraceful Treatment
2-2-1 Appalling Torture
Torture is used to force people to make confessions or statements by giving them
both physical and mental pain, and therefore, is the most barbarous violation of the moral rights of a person.
Several international human rights protocols including the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Article 5), “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”
(Article 7) and “Convention on Prohibiting Torture, Other Cruel and Inhumane
Treatment and Executions” stipulate that tortures that inflict severe pain to a person, let it be physical or mental, should be strictly prohibited.
But tortures are considered common practices in the US and Western countries,
blatantly violating the human rights of the numerous people.
The US is the country of torture that practices all sorts of interrogation techniques using both medieval and current science and technological methods.
According to the US newspaper Chicago Tribune dated July 18, 2010, 20 former
prisoners in Chicago had jointly complained to the court that they had suffered
mental and physical pain as they had been driven to work, always shackled when they were jailed.
In Houston, US, there was an incident that 8 policemen in group assaulted an
innocent boy. The US newspaper New York Times of June 10, 2013 disclosed the situation of mistreatment of detainees as follows; “There seems to be no stop in acts of violence such as rape, insult and assault in the east Mississippi prison. It has become normal for prisoner to attempt suicide or become a mentally deranged person.” More than 80,000 prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for a long time in the US. Amnesty International reports that in Arizona only, 2,900 prisoners, i.e., 1 out of 20 including juveniles is locked up in a completely solitary confinement.
According to the Website of the Information Office of the State Council of China,
12,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement in California only. In the
California’s Pelican Bay prison, more than 400 prisoners are kept in solitary cells for 10 years and in the prison of New York State, 3,800 prisoners are held in solitary confinement every day.
Such rampant barbarous tortures and punishments are openly carried out with the government’s connivance and encouragement. This is causing miserable deaths of numerous people, not to mention physical and mental sufferings of the prisoners in the US that comprise 25% of the world’s total inmate population.
Despite this hopeless situation, the White House spokesman said “Tortures are
despicable acts. We do not torture. We would not tolerate acts of torture” in the
statement issued on the occasion of the Day of the International Support to the
Victims of Torture.
This is none other than a trick to hide the truth about the poor situation in the US where severe tortures and punishments on prisoners are prevalent.
2-2-2 Sexual Abuses on Prisoners
It is an important right of women to be respected as a human being who enjoys
equal rights with men. They also have the right to be granted proper treatment and condition that fit the physical characteristics of a woman.
This is written in many international human rights documents and is guaranteed in most countries of the world according to their internal laws and other measures.
But, right under the Statue of Liberty that poses itself as the symbol of the US,
numerous women suffer from violence and rape. (This is detailed in Article 5-2).
Women become victims of sexual assaults in detention centers, too.
According to the data from the Legal Bureau of Statistics under the Justice
Department, around 216,000 prisoners in prions and juvenile detention centers
suffered from sexual assaults in 2011.
The total number of victims who have suffered sexual abuses in the detention
facilities amounts to around 1.9 million since September 2003.
In a Texas State prison, a prison officer, pretending to be a doctor, sexually
assaulted 5 women in a dispensary.
The South Carolina Branch Office of the “US National Freedom Union” released a report on regular assaults and other acts of violence to prisoners by police in Los Angeles in September 2011.
It is reported that prisoners suffer from frequent physical and sexual abuses by the inmates in the same cell that take place with the connivance of the chief warder.
In view of the sexual abuses to prisoners by prison authorities, “US National
Freedom Union”, the non-governmental organization filed a suit to the federal court against L. Bark, the chief warder, on behalf of former and current prisoners who have suffered assaults in the prison.
Such reality in the US clearly proves the hypocrisy of the US high-level official
who dared to say the US rejects torture as it goes against their value and
torture.It is not the “sense of values” of some policemen or chief warders that is causing
sexual abuses. It is totally and inevitably caused by the US authorities and the
corrupt judicial system that connives and even encourages such abuses.
Sexual abuses to people who had been imprisoned or detained are criminal acts that severely infringe upon the judicial rights of those people while humiliating and disregarding their personality.
2-2-3 Poor Conditions of the Prisons
The US and Western acts of violating the rights of the human being who is entitled to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and disreputed treatment and punishment is also found in the provision of poor prison facilities for the prisoners.
According to the “Global Post”, the US Internet News, the total number of
prisoners in the US is 25% among the world’s total inmate population, though the US population is only 5% of the world’s population.
The detention rate of the US is the highest in the world; 743 out of every 100,000
people in Oklahoma, 740 in Delaware, 780 in Louisiana. These figures are
incomparable with any other country in the world.
The “Economist” reported that, among the US adults, 1 out of every 100 is
imprisoned. Many problems arise from the poor conditions of the facilities that confine such huge number of prisoners.
In California alone, 141,000 prisoners are imprisoned as of February 2012. This is far exceeding the capacity of 80,000, resulting in prisoners forced to live in a tiny space shared with dozens of others in uncivilized and unhygienic conditions.
The solitary confinements in the US prisons are cramped cells with no ventilation and natural lights. The cells measure 3.5 by 2.5 meters and many of them are even smaller. In this confinement, the inmates are isolated for up to a whole day or 10 years, even over 40 years.
This situation in solitary confinement takes a toll on inmates’ physical and mental health.
In California state prisons, inmates began another hunger strike in July 2011 in
protest agsint inhumane living conditions in solitary confinements. According to the data by the center for protection of human rights and constitutional rights, 11,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement in California. Among those, 400 prisoners have reported their living conditions to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and also to the UN technical group on brutal prison conditions in March 2012.
Recently, the US is taking so-called measures to stop the criticism of the society
and the protests of the prisoners. This is giving rise to other serious acts of violation on human rights, far from improving the prison facilities.
The US is building prisons on an extensive scale by reducing the expenditure on
education. In 2013, one of the city authorities published the plan to close 54 schools under the pretext of reducing budget deficit and building prisons.
Consequently, the already-expensive school and university expenses in the US have risen yet ridiculously higher, making the students to be in deep debt and pushing them to commit crimes.
Another challenge in improving the prison facilities in the US is the thriving of the “business” that exploits the labor of the prisoners.
1 out of every 10 US prisoners are held in profit-making prisons and, in 2010, 2
private prison companies earned around 3 billion US dollars.
According to the information from the human rights protection activists and those who have served terms in the US prisons, most of the private reform institutions do not provide even the minimum conditions in prisons.
2-2-4 Establishment of Overseas Secret Detention Centers and Mistreatment of
Detainees
The brutal torture of the US and Western countries that seriously violate the
international law is more prevalent in overseas secret detention centers.
According to the US newspaper “Washington Post”, the US administration had
authorized the CIA to operate a secret detention program which involved the
establishment of clandestine detention facilities known as “dark sites” in many parts of the world such as Poland, Afghanistan, Iraq and Thailand 6 days after the September 11. This has been kept utterly secret.
On December 11, 2014, the south Korean “KBS” reported that the CIA has
established and been operating secret detention camps in 9 countries including
Afghanistan and Iraq. It also informed that the CIA has established 47 facilities
worldwide furnished with torture tools. Among them, 21 are in Europe, 12 in Africa, 13 in Asia and 1 in Canada. In 2008, one CIA official acknowledged that the US had operated a secret detention camp called as “dark zone” nearby Warsaw, Poland from 2002 to 2005. According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the application of torture practices including “waterboarding” in the secret detention camps during the period of May – July 2005 were approved by Vice-President Cheney, National Security Adviser Rice, Attorney General Ashcroft, Bellinger, Legal Adviser to the State Security Council, Gonzales, Whitehouse Legal Adviser and Tennete, Director of CIA.
Upon the authorization of the US President, various brutal and inhumane torture
methods including waterboarding are introduced professionally and systematically in the overseas secret detention camps. These methods were then sent to the US Defence Department and CIA for reference.
The US “New Yorker Magazine” revealed that tortures on detainees were carried out systematically at the instigation of the US military and intelligence agency. The US newspaper “New York Times” also revealed that a US soldier, who had been involved in atrocious mistreatment to the Iraqi prisoners, admitted to have received the order to interrogate the captives only after the tortures. The CIA has squandered no less than 81 million US dollars in developing brutal torture techniques. The tortures practiced in overseas secret detention camps, that are established under
the authorization and approval of the US authorities, were clearly severe barbarous ones that were strictly prohibited by the international conventions including the “Convention on Prohibiting Torture” and the “Geneva Convention”.
On December 9, 2014, the report of the US Congress made public the CIA’s
extremely brutal tortures to hundreds of detainees for several years. The torture
program included waterboarding, not letting the detainees sleep for 180 hours in an uncomfortable posture of hands tied above the head, rectal rehydration, locking up in a coffin-like box for 200 hours, hitting the heads against the walls, hanging upside down in diapers and sexual abuses. One of a detainee was nearly drowned by waterboarding on 183 occasions and some even died from low body temperature, still shackled. The torture program revealed in the US Congress report is just one tip of the iceberg. In the Abu Ghraib prison, the US army made the naked detainees crawl on all fours and rode on them as on donkey. They also did electrode shock to genitals and deliberately gave them pain by “stitching the wounds” after stabbing all over the - 46 -body. The US women soldiers stripped the male detainees and sexually abused them. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is a medieval torture chamber that seriously violates human rights. It is also a torture exhibition place and a concentration camp that fully shows the US crimes of torture. Hundreds of “terrorist” suspects detained in the Guantanamo prison have become subjects of living-body tests. The US does not hesitate to carry out forced feedings to inmates who were chained to chairs by armed US soldiers and tubes were inserted through the noses of the detainees, just because they have joined the hunger strike to protest against torture. Though the US President promised to close down Guantanamo prison, it is nothing
but a trick to evade his responsibility for tortures. The US should acknowledge their own crimes of having committed brutal tortures. The US should be brought to due trial by the international community.
On December 10, 2014, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism called for the prosecution of the high-level officials of the US government who have approved and enforced torture in compliance with the so-called state security policy.
According to the information, 21 Western countries including UK had actively
cooperated with the US torture crimes by providing secret detention camps and
interrogation centers to CIA and granting move and stay of the detainees across and inside their territories. After these facts were disclosed to public, the Western countries are struggling to deny their crimes of having cooperated with US in the torture program by arguing that only the operation of CIA secret detention camps were allowed without any authority to torture.
The Western countries who have been involved in the US torture program in
collaboration with the US can never escape from the responsibility of having
committed crimes. They should also be duly punished as violators of human rights.
- 47 -2-3 Freedom from Slavery
2-3-1 Slave Trade, Prostitution and Human Traffic
Maintaining slavery system and slave trade is a barbarous human rights violation that totally ignores the dignity and position of a human being by trading them like animals or products.
Every human being has a right to be free from slavery, a sacred personal right that should be ensured at all circumstances.
Slave trade is prohibited without exception in the “Universal Declaration of
Human Rights”, “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”,
“Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade,
Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery” and in other international human rights protocols that ban all other sorts of discrimination.
It was in 1983 that the abolishment of slavery was officially declared. However, the slave trade and prostitution, human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution is predominant on a global scale. It is none other than the US and
Western countries who should be held responsible for this.
The number of victims of human trafficking and people in the state of slavery in the US is far exceeding the number of people who died from murder in one year.
While carrying an article about the US Kennedy Human Rights Center awarding
the prize of honour to a female lawyer who scored achievements in the fight against human trafficking in New York in 2012, the Polish newspaper reported that this fact alone is a typical example that shows the seriousness of human trafficking issue in the US.
The newspaper said the US that publishes annual report on global human
trafficking is itself a country with serious issue of human trafficking. The newspaper said the problem lies in the US authorities who refuse to officially recognize the existence of the issue in its country.
According to the statistics of the United Nations Bureau of Drugs and Crimes, the money involved in the global slave trade market amounts to 30-40 billion US dollars with around 2.5 million victims of which 1.2 million are children.
The US and Western countries control the most part of the human trafficking
market for prostitution and slavery, making tremendous money out of the slave trade groups. These countries talk a lot about so-called “cooperation” and “collaboration” in the judicial sector to put an end to the slave trade. However, such collaboration is aimed at hiding their crimes and trading even more “slaves”. The new generation of US slave traders - the descendents of the American cannibals who fancied selling the skin of American Indians’ head - should be given a stern trial. Also, the authorities of the US and Western countries who are encouraging such slave trade in order to make huge profit should be brought to justice by the international court.
2-3-2 Forced Labor
When talking about slave, people often think of those black people with feet in
shackle and backs chapped from whipping, who often appear in the old tales.
But, even today in a civilized world, numerous people are forced slave work in
same conditions in the US and Western countries.
On January 29, 2014, the British Daily Mail’s web page published New York
photographer Scott Houston’s photos featuring working and living conditions of the inmates in Arizona State prisons. The images show inmates shacked together while working and eating, five on one chain with just nine inches between them.
Houston said he was left with the impression that the chained inmates working
together in a line were similar to the days of slavery of 200 years before.
So many people from all over the world including Central and South America are suffering forced labor in the farms and factories of the US.
In US farms, many people are exploited by the employer and suffer forced labor.
Such forced labor continues until the debt has been paid. In June 2012, it was found that the US “Walmart” has been forcing 8 Mexican labourers to work 16 to 24 hours a day by using violence, after having locked them up like animals in the Louisiana Seafood Processing Factory. The US Department of Labor investigated on the incident and issued a total of 622 warnings on violations of labour law to 12 out of 18 supply companies of the “Walmart” network.
Currently, in the US and Western countries, the requirement for forced labor is
increasing and its scope is growing in the industrial sites.
The International Labor Organization estimates that around 12.3 million people
worldwide have fell into victims of slavery in many countries including the US and Western countries. Some experts argue that the number is 27 million.
Forced labor is an extremely serious crime that completely infringes upon the
personality and dignity of a human being. It also damages the physical body and its growth. According to the Treaty on Forced Labour in 1930 and the Treaty on Abolishing Forced Labour in 1959, forced labour means all sorts of labor and services that are forced on a person against the will with the threats of certain punishment.
The forced labor in the US and Western countries has no relevance whatsoever to the exceptional forced labor stipulated in the Treaty on Forced Labor. This clearly proves that these countries are not the “human rights defenders” and rather “slave-owners” of today.
2-4
Rights to Physical Freedom and Security
2-4-1 Illegal Arrest and Detention
Rights to physical freedom and security, one of the important rights of a human
being are violated in the US and Western countries, the so-called “states of rule of law”, by illegal arrests and detention.
According to many international rules, regulations and protocols of human rights including the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, no one should be deprived of freedom unless it is based on conditions and procedures of the law.
Each and every state should make sure that all people are informed immediately
upon arrest, the reason for arrest or suspected charges. But the US is indulging in unreasonable arrests of people not only in the US but also in other countries.
According to the report of the US non-governmental organization, the US has
arrested numerous people as “terrorist suspects” and detained them without any trial in many parts of the world. The US has put pressure on other countries to allow passage and landing of the CIA aircrafts that carry such suspects.
People who are suspected as Al-Qaeda and Taliban are detained without any legal procedures and severely interrogated in the secret detention center of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. In this regard, the Afghan President said the atrocities of US violate not only the country’s constitution but also other international human rights protocols. He further requested the US to hand over to his government the secret prisons and the detainees held in the US air base.
So many detainees in the US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay are subjected to
almost an indefinite incarceration without going through any legal proceedings or trials.
In its report, the US civil organization “Special Team for the Treatment of
Prisoners” insisted that such indefinite incarceration of “terror suspects” could not be tolerated, and it urged the US to close down the prison at the Guantanamo Bay. Nowhere in the world could be found such arbitrariness of the US and Western countries that work in conspiracy to openly commit crimes of incarcerating numerous people for years or even for more than 10 years, based on an abstract reason that they are “suspected to be involved in terrorism”.
2-4-2 Abduction by Means of Force
Criminal acts of the US and Western countries that infringe upon human rights to freedom and personal security also find their expression in illegal abductions by means of force. For the past 20 years, many people have been abducted by the US and Western countries, imprisoned and lost contact with the outside world to "disappear” in the long run. Illegal abduction by means of force is criminal act that violates “Declaration on the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance” adopted on December 18, 1992 and other different norms of international law on human rights.
The US and other Western countries systematically commit abduction under the
patronage of the government and in conspiracy with one another.
It is an open secret that the US abducted many “terrorist suspects” from all over the world using all possible means including airplanes and warships to drag them to secret prisons. In 2011, Masri, a Lebanese German claimed for compensation as he was abducted by CIA when he was staying in capital city of Macedonia in 2003 and was taken to a secret prison in Afghanistan to be tortured and abused. In December 2003, he was abducted by CIA agents in a small hotel in capital city of Macedonia, gagged and all bound up, simply because he happened to have the same name as a “terrorist suspect". He had to go through inhumane interrogation and severe torture for five months and at last, was acquitted of the “charges” that he didn't deserve. However, when he returned home, he was greeted by the empty house.
When he was lost, his family scattered far and wide to seek ways to make living.
The US does not hesitate to arrest innocent people even in foreign lands without
any scientific proof nor slightest consideration of international laws if they have the same names or similar facial features with a “terrorist”, and even disrupt the life of a happy family. The US is, indeed, master of abduction and ringleader of human rights violation.
Tens of thousands of names are put on the list of so called “terrorists” cooked up by the US and no one knows how many more innocent people will become victims of abduction in the future. It is due right for the victim to claim for compensation of damages from forced abduction, illegal arresting and imprisonment.
The US and other Western countries that partnered with the US should fully
compensate to the victims and their families for the illegal, forced abduction, arrest and imprisonment, apologize to the international community and should appear at the court of justice that will try their atrocity.
2-5 Right to Private Life and Freedom of Correspondence
2-5-1 Illegal Collection and Use of Private, Confidential Information
Article 12 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted at 3 rd General
Assembly of the United Nations clearly stipulates as follows;
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary and unlawful interference with his privacy,
family, home or correspondence or infringement of his honor or personality.
Everyone has a right to legal protection from such interference or infringement.
Such rights are also clearly stipulated in Article 17 of International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. However, right to individual privacy and freedom of correspondence that cannot be freely encroached by anyone is ruthlessly infringed upon in US and other Western countries that love to chant "freedom of individuals" and "freedom of personality". For the past 2 or 3 years, 50 judicial police organs including FBI have monitored everything down to small details within the households of the US citizens using radar equipment.
According to documents of the US Court on August 21, 2013, the US National
Security Agency (NSA) has illegally monitored and snatched the total of 56,000
e-mails and internet communication information for 4 years up to 2011.
In mid-August, 2012, US daily, Washington Post reported that violation of human
rights by US NSA got yet more unscrupulous than ever, since they are entitled with legal rights to expand their monitoring activities by the Congress in 2008.
According to the AP news of the United States on November 16, 2010, whole-body inspection fluoroscope machines are introduced to airports in the States for inspection of travelers under the pretext of security. In 2012, at the airport of Portland, Oregon, an American named Brenan appeared naked for inspection before take-off in protest against humiliating whole-body fluoroscope inspection of the government that encroaches upon the right to personality.
In United States, according to the amendment to the Act on Support of
Communication Companies to Legal Bodies, e-mails of individuals are
systematically monitored. From 2004 to 2007, the number of e-mails that the US
intelligent agencies have monitored according to this act was increased by 3000%.
The act “On Exchange of Information on Cyber Threat and its Protection” now
under review by the US Congress is the act aiming at expanding monitoring capacity of US government for homepages of individuals.
The US FBI is further expanding DNA database for individuals. Up to April 2009,
the database only contained genetic code of people who were found guilty at federal court. However, it now contains genetic code of all arrested people as well as immigrants in detention. With this, non-governmental human rights organizations criticize that the US is now turned into to a police state that gathers data for “potential criminals.”
Interference and infringement of privacy and correspondence of individuals by the authority are contrary to laws of the US Constitution that stipulates at least in name that it protects privacy and property rights of individuals, which arouses protest and denunciation home and abroad.
2-5-2 Violation of Human Rights through Wiretapping
In the US and Western countries that boast of ensuring “Human Rights” at “highest level”, wiretapping of in-country telephone calls as well as heads of government of other countries, an act of human rights violation is conducted shamelessly from a long time ago. A country is supposed to ensure privacy for communication and correspondence. But, some countries conduct a systematic wiretap on calls of their own civilians. The US is typical in this.
The US NSA has long wiretapped phone calls even on personal family matters by “strict and systematic” means. It snatches and stores 1.7 billions of e-mails, phone calls and other information on a daily basis.
Operation “PRISM” of the US NSA collects massive private information of the
individuals based on software that secretly monitors and taps internet and telephones. Former CIA agent Snowden disclosed the fact that the US is conducting unlawful, illegal acts of espionage through 80 wiretapping facilities all over the world. In October 2013, UK daily “Guardian” reported that the US NSA bugged phone calls on 35 heads of states of different countries in conspiracy with the While House, State Department and Defence Department. On December 5, 2013, the US newspaper “Washington Post” exposed that the US wiretapped 5 billion phone calls to collect information of ordinary citizens all over the world based on mobile phone positioning system.
US Intelligent agencies monitor voices, photographs and e-mails of foreigners
using monitoring software code of PRISM that can identify connection record with internet globally. They even installed special antennas at the roofs of the US
embassies and consular missions resident in various countries to stealthily collect important information of the resident countries related to their politics, diplomacy and the economy.
The US NSA employs more than 200,000 secret agents. Based on their secret
agents as well as numerous spy satellites and enormous database, they tap more than 95% of global communication and take a satellite imagery of almost all objects on the planet. In mid-2012, the US hacked 50,000 computer networks all over the world to have siphoned off information. Just for 1 month alone from mid-December of that year, it had wiretapped 124.8 billion phone calls globally.
Western countries were not ruled out. According to data, Germany was robbed of 360 million telephone records, 70 million in France and 46 million in Italy by the US wiretapping. US intensified wiretapping against other countries after World War II with its much more sophisticated cyber espionage using internet from 1998. Such a high pitched tapping by the US against the world goes on century after century. It is a crime against human rights that cannot be tolerated as it not only infringes upon human rights of its own citizens but also human rights of other peoples.
A person in the Association of Citizen Freedom, a US human rights advocacy
group expressed his concern with the indiscriminate wiretapping of the US. He
deplored that the current situation “shows that we have no other choice but to live in a cave being incommunicado.” Then who is to be fated to live in a cave? It is none other than the US, a despicable and cruel human rights violator as it can’t co-exist with the humankind in the human world in dignity for its all committed human rights violation. At 24 th Session of UN Human Rights Council, many countries including Iran, Cuba and Belarus denounced crimes of active monitoring and wiretapping of the US at home and abroad and put a strong demand on the US to stop immediately all kinds of human rights violation.
2-6
Right to Fair Trial
2-6-1 Illegal Verdict and Execution
Everyone is equal before the law and everyone is entitled to equal legal protection without discrimination of any kind.
Fairness in trial plays an important role to ensure such rights.
Several international laws on human rights including Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulate that everybody has equal right to fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal when he is announced of the findings on his rights, obligations and his penal responsibilities. All countries have obligation to ensure such human rights with domestic laws in accordance with the requirements of international human rights law. However, the US and Western countries deny human rights to fair trial and violate it.
It is common that judicial organs of the US and Western countries are composed of those who speak for the interests of the privileged class. Judge of the US Supreme Court is designated by US President and appointed upon
the agreement of US Senate on the conditions that he or she should belong to the
same political party of the President, he or she should first consult with the Senators to get their strong support, etc. In many states of the US, judge for the state court is not elected but appointed by the state governor. This shows that the US judicial bodies are non-democratic organs that are comprised of people “loyal” in justifying reactionary policies of the US government and interests of the privileged.
The US Constitution allows, at least in name, the right to appeal to all parties
related to a law suit. But, most laws and regulations for trial have restrictive clauses such as; the appeals should be “constitutional” and should accord with laws and practices. Using such restrictive clauses, they dismiss appeals from working people.
And the cost of a lawsuit is so high that common people cannot afford it.
Under such judicial system of the US, there cannot be legal proceedings for fair
trial, which gives rise to series of unlawful decisions and executions.
Wrong Penalty Center organized in 1998 proved innocent of 36 people convicted in Illinois and one of them was River who was released from prison in January 2012. He testified that he was in prison for 20 years for charge of rape and murder he didn’t commit. Wrong Penalty Center reported together with the Law School of Michigan University that since 1989, 940 cases in total were withdrawn for wrong penalty. According to data from Death Penalty Information Center, 140 innocent people were sentenced to death and lost their lives since 1973.
In some states of the United States, judges sentence life imprisonment without
considering commutation when the minorities commit a crime.
In the US, about 7,000 minorities were sentenced to life imprisonment and 2,500 of them were not granted the right to pardon.
In May 2010, the US Supreme Court decided that it is unconstitutional to give
penalty of life imprisonment without any right to pardon for crimes that are not
related to murder. However, this decision is applied only to 6 % of minorities.
In 2012, the US newspaper Washington Post revealed the fact that the present ruler is given the power to freely give orders to shoot his own fellow countrymen to death and to imprison anyone for indefinite period of time without fundamental legal procedures and condemned that it is the United States where citizens were not even given freedom of legal lawsuit.
2-6-2 Lack of Independence in Justice Organs
Article 14.1 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that
everybody has a right to fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal. Owing to the lack of independence in justice organs of the US and Western countries, human rights to fair trial that each country is obliged to guarantee as stipulated by international human rights law are violated and infringed upon. US justice network seems to be independent in judicial activities free from interference and control from any other organs just relying on the principle of judicial independence, but, in reality, they work according to strict control and manipulation of the government. It is a judicial administrative office and prosecution body of the US administration
that take into a shape the governmental control and wirepulling over the court
authorities in the US. The US put the prosecution under the direct command of the judicial administration department. It authorized the judicial department to organize and control activities of the judicial organs.
The US administration has let, on a periodical basis, the court-house suspend
law-suit trial by victims of torture as they have done in the past, claiming that they have a privilege to keep sensitive information confidential for national security. Its typical example is barring the trial by American Citizen Freedom Association that sued Jefferson Data Plan Company, sister company of Boeing, which carried on board 5 prisoners under the names of ex-CIA prisoners to secret prisons. This is so-called “independence” and acts of human rights violation of judicial organs of the US boasting of Checks and Balances, covered by the veil of “democracy”.
3 Indifference to and Infringement upon Economic and Social Rights
Fundamental human rights to existence and socio-economic rights are not properly provided with In US and Western countries.
Indifference to socio-economic rights and infringement upon the rights find their
intensive expression in the fields of right to work, right to social security and right to adequate livelihood.
3-1 Right to Work
3-1-1 Increase in Unemployment Rate
Article 23.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that everyone has a right to protection from unemployment and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights emphasizes that all countries should take measures to ensure such rights.
However, the US and Western countries turn a blind eye to the rights to protection from unemployment, giving rise to severe acts of human rights violation i.e. increased unemployment rate.
According to a report by the CNBC website on September 16, 2013, in 2012, the
average length of unemployment for US workers reached 39.5 weeks, the highest level ever since World War II.
Unemployment rate for the lowest-income families topped 21%, nearly matching
that of all the workers during the Great Depression of 1930s.
According to data, unemployed people reach up to 12.8 million. Among them, 5.2 million people do not get another job for more than 6 months.
In April 2013, the number of the unemployed people in the US was in 304,000 in
one week showing an increase by 2,000 people the week before.
US has is faced with serious issue of the unemployment of the young people.
According to research data reported on October 21, 2013, about 6 million people under the age of 24 lost their jobs and wander about the streets.
The wages are cut and taxes are on increase vis-à-vis the workers under the
signboard of easing economic crisis while the rank of the unemployment being on rise through massive fire of the workers.
According to survey data by EU Statistics Bureau, the number of the unemployed people among the member states amounted up to 18.4 milion and 12,000.
The Number of the unemployed in France and Spain was 3,347,000 and 4,812,480 respectively (as of February 2013) and in UK, unemployment rate rose up to 6.9 % during 3 months until February 2014 with the number of unemployed people amounting up to 2,240,000.
In Germany, number of the unemployed people reached up to 2,920,000 in June
2014, which shows an increase by almost 10,000 compared to the previous month. And, in Ireland, number of the unemployed people in the first quarter of 2014 amounted up to 2,146,300.
In Western countries, youth unemployment rate rose up to 22.9% as of February
2014.
In Japan as well, 2.33 million people became unemployed in 2013 despite rapid
growth and material prosperity of their loud-mouth.
Increased unemployment rate in the US and other Western countries is an
expression of extreme act of irresponsibility. This is also a crime of anti-popular
nature. That is because those countreis are not faithful to their obligations to provide their people with rights to opportunities to maintain their lives by means of their labours of their choice and acceptance.
It is inevitable to see only an increase in the army of the unemployed people in the US and Western countries that defend the interests of a few privileged class only. This cannot be solved unless such anti-popular and reactionary social system is reformed.
3-1-2 Infringement upon Three Rights of Labour
Three rights of labour that consist of right of organization, right of collective
“concession” to soothe down resistance of the working people under thesmokescreen of “democracy” and “human rights” and it has nothing to do with
providing the working people with their rights to work.
According to an article from the website of Russian Foreign Ministry, US is the
most vulnerable country among developed countries of the world in terms of
protection system for the rights of the working people to join the trade union and make a collective contract. One of the labor acts of the US, the Labor Management Relations Acts, adopted in 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act) is the major law to obliterate the three rights of labor of the working people, which is still valid today. Labour Management Relations Acts, with its focus on regulating “insufficient working practices” of the trade unions and working people, consist of “regulations” to suppress resistance of the working people against the monopolistic capital and to openly protect the interests of the enterprise owners.
The acts openly stipulated that the government can freely interfere into the
organization and activities of trade unions with the purpose of restricting and
restraining the activities of trade unions to protect interests of the working people. All trade unions should register at Labour Management Relations Department set up according to the Labour Management Relations Acts on a mandatory basis. But its conditions, criteria, procedure and methods are very difficult and complicated. Moreover, they turn down registration of any trade union that conflict with the interests of the government or monopolistic plutocrats. The acts demand that trade unions should notify the enterprise owners and FBI of their strikes 60 days in advance. But that, in fact, is a “cooling down” period meant to suppress the strike of working people. If the strike notified according to the Labor Management Relations Acts is considered as a threat to “National Well-being”, there is a system for the President to
stop it and enterprise owners are granted the “rights” to claim compensation for the losses during the strike by trade unions.
This shows that suppression and sanctions are applied openly against the righteous rights of the working people to increase wages and improve working conditions just branding them as “violation” and “harmful act”.
“Labour Management Relations Acts” and other relavant laws go length of putting a strict ban on the union strike in support of strike workers and participation of state employees in the strike.
According to the report from International Association of Free Trade Union,
2,000,000 employees in the federal government are denied the fundamental rights to strike to defend their rights. Tony, former chairman of Labour Party in the New York State said to the following effect in relation to the Labor Management Relations Acts; “You will be surprised if you collect in a library the fascist laws on trade union passed by Mussolini after he took power and compare them with this LMRA. The level of similarity between these two astonishes those who believe there is a democracy in United States.”
According to data released by the PEW Research Institute in April, 2013, 400,000 union members left the union in 2012, and states like Indiana and Wisconsin took legal steps to further restrict the organization and operation of the unions in government agencies. According to the data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 6.6 % of private-sector workers belong to trade unions.
3-1-3 Unlimited Working Hours and Bad Payment for Labour
As there’s a limit to a person’s physical capacity, appropriate combination of work and rest is indispensable in maintenaning good health and having pleasant
atmosphere for work and life. Therefore, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stipulate that each country should limit working hours rationally for all people and guarantee fair salary and payment for work of same value without discrimination of any kind.
However, in the US and Western countries, human rights to appropriate working
hours and sufficient payment for work are not fully guaranteed.
In US, agricultural labourers are working more than the working hours set by the government. In some places, they are even forced to work for more than 12 to 16 hours a day.
Many workers, because of this, suffer from various occupational diseases and
chronic diseases to become invalid and lose their jobs in the end.
Workers in the US and Western countries are not paid as they deserve due to the
greedy enterprise owners seeking for much more profits and to the anti-popular
policy of the government that connives and secretly backs up such an act.
According to data, gap in the wage scale between officials and ordinary working
people in a company of the U.S is as big as 400 times.
The Huffington Post reported on February 1, 2013 in an article “Working
Conditions of the American Agricultural Labourers are similar to those of Modern Slaves” where it said there is no change in the piece wage of the US agricultural labourers for the past 30 years.
On December 5, 2013, workers from 100 fast food restaurants launched a
large-scale strike as there was no way of making a living for them with their per hour minimum wage and pension. In Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, US, there was a strike of laborers working in the ports in 2012, in strong protest against the company authorities who were driving the workers to work hard on meager wages.
In Western countries like Germany too, demonstrations of the working people
demanding reduction of working hours and wage hike are going on almost every dayin protest against long working hours and poor wage. In Germany, workers of Lufthansa Airlines went on a strike for secure jobs and wage increase on March 21, 2013 and, on April 13, 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal, 1,000 people from all walks of life staged a demonstration for wage raise. In his 2014 State of the Union Address, the US President stated as if there was no particular change in the average wage of the American citizens despite of the fact that the workers’right to work is severely violated due to unlimited working hours
and miserably low pay.
There is no change in the average payment of the working people due to the abence of efforts for wage increase while in splurge of huge amount of funds for military expansion and “anti-terrorism warfare”. This fact alone speaks for itself about the human rights violations of the United States.
3-1-4 Vulnerable Working Condition
The international human rights law requires to provide workers with safe and
hygienic working conditions, but these requirements are not implemented on an
adequate basis in the US and Western countries.
The governments and business owners in the US and Western couintries clamouring for the “pollution-free industry” and “green area” are only pusring for intrests and spend little or no fund at all to the items that provide workers with good working conditions. As a result, many workers are engaged in hard labor under the dangerous and harmful conditions without due safe labor facilities, thus becoming victims of industrial accidents. On April 18, 2013, a deadly blast at a fertilizer plant in Texas killed 14 people, left 200 injured causing leakage of toxic gas.The liability for this lies in the factory authorities as well as in the US government which have yet to take any maintenance measures under the pretext of the lack of funds from 1985.
According to a report by the Huffington Post on February 1, 2013, working
conditions of US farm workers are comparable to modern slavery.
In the US farms, a worker dies on the job and hundreds are injured everyday.
In the US, nearly one out of three wage worker families are living below the
poverty line and the loss of life is on the increase due to the frequent labor accidents. The acts of the US and the Western countries that do not provide adequate working conditions to working people are tantamount to the serious offense that violates and infringes upon human right to work.
3-2 Rights to Social Security
Those who have lost working ability due to the age, illness or disability and the old and children without primary caretakers are violated in their rights to material support in the US and Western countries.
International covenants on human rights including “Universal Declaration of
Human Rights”, “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, “International Treaty on Social Security” stipulate that every state should provide the rights to social security including social insurance for the persons with unemployment, diseases, disabilities, loss of spouse, retirement and the loss of means of livelihood due to the factors beyond their controls.
But, the human rights in the US and the Western countries making a big noise about “welfare state”, “ideal state” are being grossly violated by the state’s anti-popular policy of social security and its implementation.
The social security system introduced by US and the Western countries through a number of social security laws expropriates funds to manage the system by
exploiting people through taxes, etc. Payment to the working people is so paltry even not enough to maintain the lowest standards of living and what’s worse is that payment is not available for the most of the population.
According to the report of the US Census Bureau released on September 17, 2013, 48 million people, 15.4 % of the US population are not covered with health
insurance in 2012. To cope with the financial crisis, the US set up emergency federal relief program for the jobless people just for the sake of it and dispensed small amount of money. Even that program stopped by December 28, 2013, which helped 1.3 million jobless people to be reduced to extreme poverty.
A foreign news agency reported that Obama is enjoying luxurious life every day
without taking any account to the fact that homeless population in the US has -increased by 16% from 2011 to 2013 and 300,000 people on average have become jobless every week.
Many people, who became jobless in the US and the Western countries, cannot get health insurance for the lack of money and cannot even think of taking medical treatment in case of illness.
According to the data, there are 12.8 million jobless people in US, 40 million have
no health insurance and 14.5 % of families suffer from food shortages.
50 million Americans, equal to 16.3 % of the total population do not have health
insurance.
Though the US Administration has adopted a law on health service and insurance
in 2010, the law requires every citizen to make compulsory purchase of service
contract, thus infringing upon human right grossly.
Although there are many American Indians suffering from the alcoholism, heart
disease, tuberculosis and diabetes, almost 30 % of them are not insured due to the
lack of money.
Many people in the US and the Western countries suffer from the unrestricted
exploitation, poor working conditions and industrial accidents. But, due to the
indifferent attitude and evasion of the protection duty by the business owners and
government authorities, many people’s lives are in a great jeopardy.
In Madrid, Spain, persons with disability took part in a mass protest against the
austerity measure taken by the authorities on December 2, 2012.
More than 10,000 persons with disability took part in a mass protest to strongly
denounce the authoritiesfor neglecting their duties to protect the persons with
disability.
It is the reality of the US and the Western countries that the old people who need
care and support of the society are neglected by the society and are leading a lonely
life at “home for the aged” and “care centers for the aged” that lack convenient
living conditions.
The US and the Western countries should stop making loud noises about “public
welfare” anymore but have to apologize to their people and must be subjected to
domestic and international legal penalty for the evasion of their duties to provide
- 66 -social security.
3-3 Right to the Sufficient Living Standard
3-3-1 Famine and Poverty
To enjoy a sufficient material life free from famine and poverty is one of the desires
the humankind has been longing for centuries and it is also one of his important
social and economic rights.
The preface of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ stresses that it is the
obligation of the states in conformity with the UN charter to give the people freedom and right to be free from famine and poverty.
But, in the US and the Western countries, a self-proclaimed “economic giant”,
“developed society”, it’s nothing but a mere dream to emerge from famine and
poverty and realize human freedom and rights.
Joe Antmatheu, vice-President responsible for the family and economic security at United States National Centre of the Women’s Laws stated that millions of
Americans are trying to keep their heads above the poverty-whirling water, just to take a breath, while a handful of the rich are idling away.
Burg, President, the New York Association for the Eradication of Famine in
deplored in an interview with the New York Times that one sixth of the population is starving while the rich of New York City are eating expensive food.
According to the statistical data released by the the US Census Bureau on
September17, 2013, the number of the poor at the national level has reached up to 46.5 million, which is 300,000 more than the previous year. The average income of the families has come down to 3.6 % in January, compared
to that of December of the previous year, 2013, which brought the poverty-stricken people more sufferings.
According to an article in the Global Post website on September 10, 2013, the
income of the US top income familes representing 1% of the population increased by 31.4 % from 2009 to 2012, accounting for 95 % of the total US import growth, whereas the income of the low income families grew only by 0.4 %. The US President in his 2014 State of the Union Address said that the challenge the United States faces is an extreme income disparity.
“Internationale”, Itallian weekly magazine stated in its article under the title “US
languishing in poverty” that the most serious problem for the US to cope with is the poverty and inadequate intake of nutrious food.
It further stated that 4 out of every 10 Americans age 20-65 are living without any food security.
According to the report of the European Bureau of Statistics, 124 million people in Western countries are also living in poverty.
One out of six persons in the European Union member states is suffering from
poverty and, there are about 3 million poor people in Canada nationwide.
Number of the Israeli people living in poverty has increased by 31 % in 2011 from 27 % in 2000 due to the anti-popular policy of the authorities.
The mass protest of the working people of all strata broke out against poverty and economic inequality in the US in 2011, and it expanded to over 1,500 cities of 80 countries. This is a due result derived from the gross violations of human rights by the the US and the Western countries.
3-3-2 Increase in the Homeless and Inadequate Housing Conditions
Article 25 of “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” defines that every one has the right to enjoy adequate standards of life, enough to maintain health and wealth of himself and his family including clothing, food and housing.
Article 11 of the “International Covenant of Economical, Social and Cultural
Rights” defines that every state should acknowledge everyone’s right to houses and should take an appropriate measure for its provision.
But, human right to houses in the US and the Western countries are not fully
guaranteed by government’s indifference and incredibly high price of the houses.
In the US, the number of homeless population has reached up to 630,000 because of the extermly high price of houses and in Los Angles of California, known as a -“City of the Homeless”, more than 51,000 people are greeting a new day just outdoors on a daily basis.
According to data released by the“US Coalition for the Homeless” in November
2013, the number of the homeless New Yorkers had risen by more than 71 % as
compared with 10 years ago.
In New York, 60,000 people, including more than 22,000 children are homless.
National Association of the Estate Brokers of the United States published the data on January 23, 2014, which says that the expense of middle standard houses became 11.5 % more expensive than that of the previous year.
On January 2014, In Chicago, Illinois, people could not avoid become
homelessness or living in a rented room since the price of the house has become 17.8 % more expensive, compared to that of the same month of the previous year.
The housing conditions of the lowest class people in the US are also very
miserable. A few years ago, in Sacramento of California, “city of mobile tents” was created where hundreds of homeless population lived and the police had a hard time to drive them out to the suburb.
Russian newspaper “Pravda” stated that “most of the US populations are living in filthy and cockroache roaming chipboard houses or tin houses. Walls of such houses can be marked with a finger and can be nailed with palm. That nail can hold only one cloth and if one put two clothes the nail will be out. And one can hear everything neighbours talk. 99 % of the Americans are living in such houses.”
In France, the homeless population has increased by 44 % in the last 11 years.
There were 111,700 homeless people (31,000 are children) living in the street in
2012 and 454 homeless people died outside in France in 2013.
According to the report of the Statistics Bureau of Spain, house purchasing power of the people has declined dramatically and the average housing price in Australia has increased by over 9.8 % in 2013 compared to 2012, resulting in so many homeless people in major cities. Not to provide basic housing conditions for the existence of the working people, it is nothing but a severe criminal act that infringes upon the human right to housing stipulated by the articles of the international law.
4 Negligence and Violation of the Social and Cultural Rights
In the US and the Western countries, social and cultural rights, rights required to develop creative ability and meet the need of cultural and emotional life are grossly violated.
The act of neglecting and violating social and cultural rights is evidenced in such
field as education, health and cultural life.
4-1 Right to Education
4-1-1 Money-centered Education
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and “International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” define that every state should provide the
people with the right to have elementary education and enforce middle and higher educations by all appropriate means, especially by a gradual enforcement of free education.
But, in the US and the Western countries, the realization of human right to free
education remains nothing but a dream. And human right to education is wantonly trampled on by the money centred education.
According to the data, the university tuition fees in US and Canada have recently
reached up to 8,000 US$-25,000US$, 15,000US$-25,000US$ in France, 16,000US$ in Germany and 10,000US$-15,000US$ in UK. In Japan, admission and tuition fees for the national university alone amounted to 1,170,000¥ a year.
In the US and the Western countries where the education is being commercialized, the tuition fees increase on a daily basis.
According to the data, university tuition fees for 2011- 2012 school year at 4-year - 70 -national universities in US have increased by 8.3 % compared to the previous one and average admission fees for the private university is more than that of the public university.
Because of the annually increasing tuition fee, 7 out of 10 graduates in US are
reduced to debtors, thus starting their social life with a heavy burden of money
fetters.
According to the opinion poll based on the conversations with the senior middle
school students by a Japanes social organization, one out of four respondents
lamented over their situation that they cannot engross on their study as their parents shoulder a heavy burden to support them.
While the poor children can neither go to school nor finish the school for lack of
money, the rich buys the diploma and master’s degree at universities one after
another.
There are numerous fake universities in the US with “university”, “college” signs
with even no classrooms or teaching facilities.
Such “universities” collect money from “students”, on the pretext of running the
university and are engaged in the business of honoring their students with “doctor’s degree” or even “master’s degree”.
Common practice in the Western countries is that, if one has money, persons of low IQs who have not graduated senior middle schools and universities would have favourable employment opportunities by using openly “Master’s Degree” certificates.
The US and the Western countries, which deprived people of due rights to
education far from gradual enforcement of free education, should not trumpet about “civilization” and “prosperity”, but address their own pitiful education situation. In British Columbia of Canada, 40,000 teachers went on strike on March 26, 2014 against state authorities for not increasing funds for education.
4-1-2 Serious Problem of Illiteracy
The problem of illiteracy, a serious social problem in the US and the Western
countries derives from not taking state measures to provide human rights to
education in those countries.In the United States, because of incredibly high tuition fee, many children of school age could not study and they can neither read nor write properly and even don’t know how to do basic calculations.
Moreover, for those studying at high schools, many are no better than the illiterates since the level of educational quality is too low.
According to the data, most of the students at the US high schools can not locate
Afghanistan or Iraq on the map and 40% of studnets graduate from high school
without getting necessary basic knowledge for university entry or employment.
In US, there are countless adult illiterates who can not even read properly a
prescription, newspapers, books and the guideline for the bus.
US secretary of Education Department admitted that 11 million adults are not able to read or write and 30 million can hardly manage to sign on a certain document or a bank check in the US. According to the data, more than 9 million adults in the Western countries are not able to read or write.
The act of the US and Western countries not providing even the basic right to
education is a criminal act that violates beyond doubt the paragraph 2 of Article 13 of the “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, which requires to strengthen the basic education as much as possible for those who neither received nor finished elementary education.
4-1-3 Discrimination and Violence in Education
Convention against Discrimination in Education adopted in 1960 stipulates to stop all kinds of discrimination in realizing the educational right and to provide everyone with equal conditions and treatment. “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” stresses that every state should support through education United Nations activities to foster the understanding, generosity, friendship and maintain peace between the nations, ethnic,
tribal and religious groups. Discrimination and violence in the field of education has become more severe in the Western countries, especially in the US.
According to the US newspaper “World Journal”, persentage of students from
African or Latin American descendents is 19 % and 17 % lower than the whites
respectively.
US Secretary of Education admitted in his 2010 address that mistreatment to the
students with different family backgrounds is still prevalent as before.
Only 77 % of the Indians graduate from senior middle school, due to the
discrimination in education in the US. Physical punishment at school is allowed by law in 19 states including the southern States and 223,000 students experienced violent attacks in 2005 and 2006, according to the report of the US Education Department. 7.5 % of all students in Mississippi, US experienced battery aimed at “education “. 36 % of violent attacks is against the African-American students who make up 17 % at senior middle schools of the US.
In Rotenber Education Centre, Kenton, the US, electric shock is applied to their
own students, food is deprived from students and they are punched and forced to
drink liquid ammonia. The school is in existence for 40 years, but it never stopped violence and furthermore collects 56 million US$ every year, despite the protest by the students, parents and society to close it down. The US, that makes discrimination as its policy and tolerates and promotes all kinds of violence in education, is the “kingdom of discrimination”and the “breeding
ground” of the violence.
4-1-4 Campus - a Den of Offense
Any campus in the world is regarded as a holy, sound and intellectual place where civilized people are brought up.
But, the campuses in the US and the Western countries, especially in the US remind -the people of a scene of a battle field and a “paradise” for the offenders.
On December 14, 2012, there has been gun violence in a primary school in
Connecticit of the US, where 27 students were killed, most of them under the age of 10. Obama said that he would take a “significant measure” but the gun violence at the US campus happened one after another. In California, US, an unidentified offender rushed into a senior middle school on January 10 th , 2013, went on a shootings spree, injuring two students. Two students got injured in gun violence at a university in Missouri on January 15 in the same year.
On January 14, 2014, at the dawn of the New Year, there was gun violence in a
high school of New Mexico, which has injured two students, turning the whole
school into a chaos.
In early June the same year, a young man rushed into a university campus in Seattle, Washington State in a shooting spree towards students.
In order to prevent gun-related crimes at school campus, the US is promoting the work to “arm the school” through means such as training teachers on how to shoot. As the US newspaper “Washington Post” reported, the Education Committee of Butler, Pennsylvania stationed armed personnel to 14 of its schools including elementary schools.
The program to place armed guards at schools is in progress in about 10 states of the US. The US school campus was reduced to a theatre of crime full of alcoholics and drug addicts where people are swinging daggers to kill each other, where nothing sacred can be found.
A survey by a social organization of the US revealed that 7.5 million juveniles at
school age are abusing alcohol, only to cause a serious social problem.
The sacred right of the human being to education can never be realized under the US education system where the crime is rampant, which only breeds the criminals. The US even has the ‘University of Robbery ’, ‘School of Pocket-Picking’ that specializes in training the criminals.
4-2 Right to Participation in Social and Cultural Life
4-2-1 Culture of Decadent and Perverted Cultural Life
The US and the Western countries foster and encourage the culture of decadent and perverted cultural life so as to extremely infringe upon the human right to participate freely in the civilized social and cultural life.
Such a culture itself is the severe violation of the norms of the international human rights law.
80 % of the US TV entertainment program, which is run under the instigation and encouragement of the government authorities, has the bloody assassination and violent scenes and such scenes are aired 8-12 times hourly at the prime time .Americans, regardless of the men and women, the old or the young who are
exposed to such “cultural information”, consider violence as kind of fun or game. The social trait of the corrupt and perverted life of the US is intensely expressed in the increasing number of drug addicts and alcoholics. In the US, the drug is 100 billion US$ selling business annually and drug addicts go up to 30 million. According to the data released by the“US National Drug Abuse Research Centre”, there are 20 million cocaine users and 5.8 million of them used them even one month before. The number of the young people aged between 18 and 25, who are using drugs on a weekly basis, has reached to 250,000.
According to the data released on June 12, 2014 by a social organization of Italy,
more than 600,000 youngsters have taken cocaine and cannabis in 2013.
In the Western countries, too, the markets of the international group of drug runners have expanded, thus adding the number of its users and addicts. According to the US Department of Health, the alcoholics in the US are 18 million and 80,000-100,000 die annualy due to alcoholism.The alcohol consumption in US is equivalent to one hundred billion US dollars.
The death rate of alcoholism is 10 % higher than that of the work accident, 40 %
higher than that of suicides and 40 % higher than that of traffic accidents.
The only way the drug and alcohol addicts go for is a corrupt and perverted life,
and its terminal point is a crime and a miserable death.
The gambling houses reticulated around US and the Western countries are “the styof vice” that has nothing to do with the cultural life of the working people.
The gambling houses in Las Vegas of the US open all year round have become a
den of the crime and a waste land of the ethics and morality to cultivate plunder,
murder, suicide and sex-related crimes.
The cultural trait of the corrupt and perverted life that prevails in the US and the
Western countries turn people to the slaves of the money and goods. This only
fosters the human and life relations which are based on the bestial spirit.
A society where people turn into a slave of money who does not know flesh and
blood but money and goods and where husband kills wife, wife kills husband and
even his or her own child; this is none other than the societies of the US and the
West.
The crime by the US and Western countries can never be overlooked under any
circumstances, which turn the people’s cultural society into a jungle of beasts by
fostering and encouraging corrupt and perverted lifestyle.
4-2-2 Perverted and Deformed Cultural Life of the Privileged Circle
Perverted and deformed cultural life has nothing to do with the sound cultural life,and it is a challenge to it.“Universal Declaration of Human Rights” clarifies in its Article 27 that everyone has the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy thearts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. -Such human rights clarified in “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” are extremely abused and encroached upon in the US and Western countries by the abnormal and deformed cultural life of the privileged group.
A classic example is the fact that hundreds of millions of penniless working people are falling into the poverty line, being homeless, whereas the “dog culture” and “animal culture” are gaining in popularity, which gives lavish hospitality to animals such as dogs.
In the US, pet market businesses are in thrive, which specialize in “accessories”,
“foodstuff”, “clothing” and the like for the pets. And the “dog shops”, “dog
restaurants”, “dog hospitals” are set up everywhere and the professional pet-sitters like “dog physician” and “dog chef” are on the increase.
When the dogs and cats of the privileged group in America are glutted with “all
kinds delicacies” to death, the dead pets would wear dazzling, drop-dead gorgeous “shrouds” even to the envies of the kings and queens and would be “laid in state” in the “cemetery” festooned with precious flowers, being put into marble coffinscarpeted with the hides of leopard.
One billionaire in America was even reported to have left his pet-dog US$ 2m in
his will and his younger brother US$ 5m on condition that he would look after it.
America is no place for a human being but a dog, in which dog is a master and
human being its servant.One journalist in America deplored that “Monopoly capitalists are coming up with ever-crazier ideas, for they are fed up with such criminal amusements as satiation, lewdness and 15,000 US$ worth of diamond dog-necklace, banquet for their‘beloved’ dogs, the outgoing of the monkey with human being accompanied asservants, and a feast amounting to tens of hundreds of dollars.”Widespread in the US is the abnormal trend of rearing fearsome snakes as pet for pleasure. The spine-chilling term of “snake industry” is now in fashion, which provides over 2.5m snakes of various kinds including viper and serpent with affluent lives in palace-like houses of the billionaires in America.
The decadent mania of the privileged group in America for turning human being
into a servant of animal with pleasure brings disgrace and challenge on the life of human being and constitutes a very serious crime that harms the sound mind and thinking power as well as the way of life of human being.
4-3 Right to Health
4-3-1 Health judged by Money
Good health is a condition for intellectual and physical activities of the human
being, thus, the right of human being to good health, a foundation of the social
development can be properly exercised only when state-level care and safeguards are provided, given that the individual’s efforts are inadequate.
Therefore, international human rights laws and norms regulate that the human
being has the right to protection of his physical and intellectual health and that every state should take due safeguards to ensure it.
The right of human being to good health in America and the Western countries,
however, are being seriously infringed upon due to the pursuit of profit and
irresponsibility of the governments and public health institutions. The production, sale and use of foodstuff of bad quality to make money are raising
a great public concern in the US. Almost all foodstuffs including alcohol contain
preservatives and even carcinogenic substances such as OPP and phenylephrine are used under the guise of “preventing” the mould in orange.
Such toxic substances in foodstuffs result in health damage, lifespan contraction,
outbreak of various diseases and birth of deformed babies among the consumers, while causing public unrest and panic.
In the US, noble medical practices to be contributed to the life and health of the
human being has degraded into money-grabbing profiteering, thereby sky-rocketing the costs of treatment and medicines, posing a grave threat to the health of many people. In 2014, an alarming incident took place in Pheonix Hospital in Arizona, US, where over 40 innocent ex-servicemen died without taking a dose of medicine while waiting for a long time with expectations to have their illness cured. The hospital also conducted a shameless act of making a false report in 2013 and was awarded the title of excellence by the Department of Veterans Affairs. For this, doctors and staff in the hospital received a pay-rise and bonus, despite the fact that 226 inpatients had not received treatment for over three months exceeding its waiting period of treatment (within 30 days).
In the wake of the incident, Obama tried to placate the public opinion, saying “the incident to be ashamed of”and “harsh punishment will be given to those concerned through thoroughgoing investigation.”
In US, quack doctors with no skills or qualifications are running their own
“hospitals” in a broad daylight and spurious medicines are manufactured and sold in bulk, damaging the health of the people.
The same is true of the Western countries. In the midst of the decreased expenditure for the public health and the soaring medical bills, the widespread production andsale of bad-quality foodstuffs and spurious medicines add to the grave damage on thelife and health of the human being.
4-3-2 Proliferator of Various Epidemics
The criminal act of the US and the Western countries of violating the rights of the human being to the health finds its expression in the spread of the Ebola virus by the US. Shortly after its April, 1972 signature to the Agreement on Banning the Development, Production and Stockpile of Germ and Toxic Weapons, the US imposed a terrifying catastrophe of Ebola virus over the humankind, with Africa as a test-ground.
Roberts, former aide to President Reagan disclosed in his writing titled “Ebola
History Stinks” that it was the White House who had invented the Ebola virus.
According to his writing, the US produced a parent germ of this virus in its
bio-weapon research institutions in the West African countries for the purpose of
bio-warfare. Scientists in other countries claim that Ebola virus infection broke out not long after the set-up of research institutions under the DOD of the US in Sierra Leon in 1976. Sirrel Broderick, a university professor in Liberia pointed out that some weeks before the current spread of Ebola virus in Guinea and Sierra Leon, the US DOD had squandered 0.14 billion US$ in the virus-related experiments on living bodies. He kept exposing that it is none other than the US which is responsible for the launch of bio-terrorism on Kenema, Sierra Leon and is now turning African countries, which are backward in science and industry, into its bio-weapon test grounds.
It is a tell-tale evidence that Ebola virus was not natural-born in the West Africa but produced and spread in the research process of the US bio-weapons.
The Ebola virus produced and spread by the US claimed more than 5,500 lives,
leaving 15,350 people infected as of November, 2014.
At present, bio-weapon-producing corporations in America amount to over 400,
which do great harm to both the survival and health of the human being.
The world already knows that the AIDS, “Black Death” in the 20 th century was also caused and spread by the US, having plunged the survival and development of the human being into a catastrophic situation.
The US is a malignant virus to be sterilized and cleaned up on the globe. US can’t go scot-free as it is a culprit for spread of Ebola virus hell-bent to annilate the whole mankind and a ringleader of the manslaughter.
5 Encroachment upon Rights of a Certain Group
It is a must that each state show special attention to and ensure the rights of various social groups, but these are severely violated in the US and the Western countries.
Encroachment upon the rights of a specific group is evident as regards children,
women, natives, ethnic minorities, immigrant workers and foreigners.
5-1 Rights of the Child
5-1-1 Child Poverty
Children require sufficient nutrition and living conditions due to their physical
characteristics.The Convention on the Rights of the Child regulates that each state, keeping inmind that children require special care and attention, including the appropriate legal protection, before and after birth due to physical and mental immaturity, should fulfill its commitment to ensure the rights of the children.
But, in the US and Western countries, the penury and poverty are plaguing lots of children who are excluded from the attention and protection by the state and society.
According to the survey done by the US Census Bureau on September 17, 2013,
the number of children in poverty nationwide amounted to over 16.1 m by the end of2012.In the US, 17 m children, which account for 22% of the total child population,faces food scarcity.The League against Hunger in New York reported that over 20% of the New York children are suffering from constant hunger.
US newspaper “USA Today” pointed out on September 23, 2012 that the states,
which had the increased rate of the children in poverty from 2010-2011, totalled 14including Nevada with the increased rate of by 38% in the past decade.
In the US, the mortality rate among the children of African origin is 2-3 times
greater than that of the white children.19,000 homeless children lived in refuges in New York City alone in September,2012.“New York Daily News”, the US newspaper quoted 14-year old Ruciano as sayingthat his life in the refuge was as good as “a living hell.”In the Western countries, the problem of child poverty is giving rise to a profound public concern.
The US and Western countries push a great number of children, future builders of the country and nation, into the chasm of hunger and poverty. Such a crime clearly shows who the hell in the world abuses the human rights.
5-1-2 Child Abuse
The US and Western countries are in the flagrant violation of their obligations to
protect the children from all forms of abuse, which are typically specified in the
Convention on the Rights of the Children.
In the US, toddlers who rarely recognize their mothers are now abandoned by thesociety and their parents, being subjected to maltreatment.
“Chicago Tribune” of November 16, 2013 stated that 111 children lost their lives
due to maltreatment and lack of care in their families. Most of them are only
1-year-olds.
The number of children, who have been suffering from the violence in the US, is
recorded well over 3 million. This was confirmed through a survey done by a group in the US for the promotion of the rights of the children. In fact, the actual figure outnumbers it.
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 695,000 childrenwere maltreated in the US in 2010 alone. Among them, about 1,600 lost their lives,and over 79% of them were caused by their parents.
Juvenile maltreatment in the US is not confined to one or two states but is rampant all across the country. Washington D.C., New York and Massachusetts rank top among the states according to the records of maltreatment - cases per 1,000 children- 23.4, 17.4 and 17 respectively.
Juvenile maltreatment is expressed in several forms, of which 26.8% is related to
sexual violence. One of the causes of juvenile maltreatment in the US is the vulnerability in its judicial system. The US tolerates a system that allows the adoption of children through brokers who are not able to protect the minimum rights of adopted children. In addition, they even ensure the brazen activities of the agencies, which help foster parents abandon the children without legal procedures. If someone stands on trial under the judicial system of the US for the maltreatment of his adopted child, he will just end up being released on bail or getting light punishment. More surprisingly, the law of the US permits the abandoning of children. The US is even holding a lot of the juveniles in custody abroad and maltreating them with harsh violence and interrogation, whose number totals more than 2,500.
In Japan, it is natural to see the women committing the crimes of maltreatment or murdering their own children, which can be hardly imagined in other countries. The world does not see any difference in the Western countries, boasting of their “civilization” and “prosperity”. It is not unusual to see parents not feel a slightest guilty about their crimes such as turning on the baker after dumping their childreninto it or spinning them in a washing machine or abandoning their babies in rubbish bin or murdering them.
These convicts are making an unscrupulous excuse that they had no choice but to do so as they were too poor to bring up their children.
The act of maltreatment and abuse of the children is the inevitable product of the social systems in the US and Western countries, where the Law of Jungle applied tothe animal world is spilling over into the family ethics.
5-1-3 Forced Child Labor and Abduction or Kidnapping of Children
“The Convention on the Rights of the Children” regulates that every state should
protect children from labor, inter alia, to prohibit outright abduction and kidnapping of the children for the purpose of forced labor and prostitution.
With their rights being in grave violation, forced child labor is ubiquitous in the
US and Western countries.
The US has not yet acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Children,
whose members include almost every country in the world and still aids and abets forced child labour. In 2012, the number of the employees under the age of 16 in the US plantations totaled 41,310, with approximately 0.4-0.5 million child laborers in the agrarian lands.
In the US, most children are forced to do such harmful or hazardous jobs that pose direct challenge to their health and safety. These include the running of the farm machines or spreading the pesticide, which result in 38 children being injured every day from the accidents.NPR ran a special program in March, 2013 where it had reported that a disastrous accident of a 14-year-old child being buried to death in the grain barn in Illinois,adding that 20% of the casualties, who are choked to death in grain barns, are all child labourers.Around 1.8 million children are kidnapped in the US every year. “Los Angeles Times”of July 29, 2013 reported that the FBI had launched a 3-dayspecial action in 76 cities nationwide and released 105 minor children abducted by vice racketeers. Most of them were girls, involving the youngest one merely at the age of 13.
A great number of the children are kidnapped or abducted by human-trafficking
criminal groups in the Western countries being forced to do all sorts of toils and meettheir ends during their childhood.
The US and Western societies are the hopeless societies, facing doomsday,
because it treats children just as their subjects of pleasure and luxury.
5-2 Rights of Women
5-2-1 Discrimination against Women
Elimination of discrimination against women is one of the principal issues in the
implementation and protection of the rights of the women.
The humankind has long struggled for the implementation and protection of the
rights of the women, which led to the stipulation on the issue of the prohibition of allforms of discrimination against women in international human rights legal
instruments.But, in the US and Western countries, which have deep-seated contempt and hate
for women, the “respect for women”is nothing but a mere slogan and women are
subjected to all forms of contempt and discrimination.
The US and Western countries assert that women are entitled to vote but, contrary to their assertion, a lot of women are excluded from the election due to several limitations, and women of working origin are not given the rights to freely participate in the state affairs.
For the single reason of gender, women can’t afford freely to choose their own career. The women in the US and the west can’t avoid being fired first.
The data says that the employment rate of women among the university graduates in Western countries is lower by 14.4% than that of men. The women employment rate accounts for not less than 46.9% in Italy. It is 7% higher
as compared with men in Greece. In Japan, the most notorious country for its doctrine of the contempt for women, a third of working women nationwide are forced to work overtime without being paid and 52.5% of working women live from hand to mouth on temporary jobs. Women in the US and Western countries are paid much less than men for the same category of work.
The average income of working women in the US accounts for mere 81% of men’s. Women of both African and Latin origins are paid less than men for the same category of work: 69% and 58% respectively.
The wage gap between the working men and women in Germany increased by 23% and women are paid 16% less on average than men in Italy. In Japan, women make up 70% of the workforce, who barely eke out their livelihood with low incomes.There are countless cases of women in irregular jobs who often skip over meals due to a meagre amount of wage albeit hard work and who can hardly maintain their livelihood on part time jobs.
Due to the discriminatory conditions, about 1.5 million women worldwide are in
poverty line and the women under such a line account for 22.2% in the US.
Discrimination against women in Australia is so rampant that it is causing public
controversy. According to the opinion poll, 51.1% of the respondents expressed that women are under discrimination in employment opportunities while 93.2% saying abarrier exists in the workplace that hampers the equality between men and women.The US and Western countries can never get away with their crimes that institutionalize discrimination against women and wantonly violate the rights ofwomen to the gender equality.
5-2-2 Maltreatment and Abuse against Women
Violations of human rights of women in the US and Western countries can be found in the form of maltreatment and abuse against women.
Over 6 million women are falling prey to violent crimes every year in the US.
Among them, 0.5 million cases are annualy arecorded as sexual assaults against
women.
It is the sexual abuse that covers a great proportion of the maltreatment and
violence against women in the US. 1.3 million women were exposed to sexual abuse each year. About 20% of women were raped more than once and sexual abuse has been inflicted on one in every 5 university students.
According to the survey done in April 2014, over 67,000 women are suffering in
the US from the crimes of sexual abuse each and every day.
In May 2013, an appalling fact was exposed to the public. The world was taken
aback at the fact that a 52-year-old criminal in Ohio had inflicted sexual abuse on three women tied in chains and ropes for a decade, locking them up in the
underground solitary cells of his house. Sexual abuse is also growing in the US army, where one out of 5 women service personnel is vulnerable to sexual abuse.
According to the Reuters website in the UK on July 21, 2012, Lewis Worker, the
US Air Force drillmaster inflicted sexual abuse on 10 women trainees. The European Council made public that 12-15% of women in Europe are falling victims to sexual assault.
The survey by the EU human rights association on March 5, 2014 revealed that one out of three women in the Western countries are falling prey to physical and sexual abuse. Over 2 million women are falling victims to domestic abuse every year in the US and 3 women are losing their lives every day. Worsening domestic sexual abuse in the society led to the enactment of the Prevention Law on Domestic Abuse in the US, but it still remains ineffective. Over 1 million women are falling victims to domestic abuse crimes in Australia.One woman in France on a three day basis and two women in women in UN on a weekly basis are losing their lives due to the domestic abuse.
The maltreatment and abuse against the women in the US and Western countries
constitute the crime that severely violates the dignity and personality of women, and that poses an open challenge to the efforts of the international community to protect and promote the rights of the women.
5-3 Rights of the Indigenous and Ethnic Minorities
Protection of the rights of the indigenous and ethnic minorities is mostly caused by the colonial occupation and re-division of it by the imperialists. It is from this it should be said that the US and Western countries should assume their due historical and moral responsibilities to ensure their rights. It is also an obligation under the international law.
The international human rights instruments have so far stipulated different rules
and regulations concerning the protection of the indigenous and ethnic minorities, whereby the states were bound to provide favorable conditions for the indigenous and ethnic minorities to have equal rights and opportunities with other nations and to maintain and develop their socio-cultural independence and national traditions. On the contrary, discrimination and exclusion in the US and Western countries against the indigenous and ethnic minorities are ever growing day by day. In particular, the US is the most notorious criminal country that severely discriminates and mercilessly excludes the indigenous and ethnic minorities, despite the fact that it brutally killed the indigenous people and has achieved its “prosperity” and “development” by brining in numerous African people and minority nations. Ethnic minority people in the US are subject to all kinds of restrictions and discrimination in the election. According to the “Boston Overview” from January to February, 2013, more than 2 million African-Americans are deprived of their rights to vote in the US. “Guardian”, the UK newspaper reported on May 30, 2012 that the US Attorney General himself had admitted that the citizens of ethnic minority origin are under the restrictions in exercising their rights to vote or even losing it under the legal provision demanding for the ID certification.
This is as remote as a northern pole to seek jobs by the ethnic minority people in
the US. Those, who found the jobs by chance and worked their fingers to the Bones,also can’t escape from the discriminary treatment.
According to the statistics by the US Department of Labor, the unemployment rates of the Americans of African and Latin American origins were 4.3% and 10% respectively compared to 7% of the white in October, 2012.
According to the “Gallup” opinion poll against the black people on July 18, 2013,
75% of the respondents complained that they are getting unfair treatment in their labour life. The data reads that the natives (5.2m), 1.7% of the American citizens and especially those (about 0.7m) living in the immigration centers are living in the worstconditions. Nearly one third of them are officially below the poverty line and the unemployment rate in the immigration centers accounts for 50% and 80% in some areas. The total annual income of an American Indian family in the US is less than half ofthe average American family’s. Alen (96.4% of its residents are the Indians), South Dakota is the poorest region in the US, where 96% of its residents are below the poverty line.
Approximately 46% of the American Indians in the US are homeless and one out of five is living in the the house without tap, electricity and drainage system. On
February 13, 2013, special rapporteur on the rights of the ethnic minorities in the UNHRC disclosed that the cases of abuse infliction on the women natives in the US are too numerous to mention.
On September 10, he made an appeal to the US government to ensure sufficient
protection of the rights of the children of the American Indians, saying that the actfor the welfare act for the children of the American Indians is hampered in its
implementation. On September 10, 2013, the international organization for the rights and interests of the descendants of ethnic minorities revealed that the American Capital Energy Corporation branch in Belize is exploring for oil in the Belize Mayan Culture and Tradition area without any consent of the local natives.
Discrimination against the ethnic minorities is exasperating the conflict and clash between the tribes and nations, only to worsen them off as disputes.
Ethnic minorities in the Western countries are under discriminatory treatment
whether they are alive or dead. In the early 2015, a 2-year-old Romanian gypsy child after his death was about to be buried in the cemetery of Shamblang city on the outskirts of Paris. But, it was not approved by the mayor. Soon it caused the public anger against the discriminatory measure even against the dead.
The US and the Western countries, which have deep-seated and inveterate
imperialist way of thinking of despising other nations and peoples, and ignoring and dominating them, discriminate against and exclude their native Americans and minority people. This constitutes one of the gross violations of the UN Charter providing that all nations must live in harmony on the principles of equality and mutual benefits.
5-4 Rights of Disabled Persons
It is the obligation of every state under international human rights instruments to protect the rights of persons handicapped physically or mentally and ensure their well-being and restoration.
The “Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons” and the “Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities” provide that disabled persons have the inherent right to respect for their human dignity and the political and cultural rights on an equal basis with others, and are entitled to enjoy their rights without discrimination.
However, in the US and Western countries which often call for “public welfare”,
the promotion of the rights of disabled persons is no more than flowery words
leaving many disabled persons to be abused in their rights.
Many people in the US and Western countries become disabled in labour accidents due to greedy pursuit of profits by the monopoly capitalists and unfavourable working conditions.
According to research data conducted by the European Parliament, more than
300,000 people become disabled due to labor accidents annually.
-In Japan, maltreatment is prevalent towards people with disabilities far from
defending their rights. Survey data released by Japan’s Welfare and Labor Ministry on 11 th November 2013 shows that there have been at least 1,505 registered cases of maltreatment towards disabled persons at familes and the recuperation centers in Japan during the period of 6 months until March this year. In Spain, 10,000 disabled persons held a protest demonstration against their government’s austerity measures which have aggravated their situation.
After the occupation of Iraq years ago, the US military, while searching civilian
houses, killed a man who has relied on his wheelchair for 25 years, accusing him as a “terrorist”. It is common sense that a man who is paraplegic cannot commit any acts of terror. The US military not only framed a disabled man but committed cruel killing as their pastime. The US, with its butchery and heinous crimes against disabled community, can be only described as a “grave for the disabled”.
5-5 Human Rights during Wartime and Armed Conflicts
5-5-1 Killing of Innocent Civilians and Destruction of their Living Conditions
The US and Western countries are blatantly violating the human rights by
slaughtering innocent civilians and turning their homes into the pile of ashes on the protection of human rights, during wartime and armed clashes (as stated in the above), disregarding international laws including the Geneva Convention.
The “articles and practices of ground war” stipulate that the occupying power
should respect the existing law of the occupied area, should promote and reinstate public regulations and environment as much as possible and should prohibit plunder by all means. But, the US and the multinational forces not only infringed upon the lives but also destroyed living conditions of the population in the occupied area in the name of “counter- terrorism”. The US army even attacked, destroyed and plundered at random houses, hospitals,
red-cross warehouses and high voltage cables connecting the city, which are all
recognized internationally as targets not to be attacked during the wartime.
Due to indiscriminate bombing and destruction of the US Army, economic
establishments and infrastructures were turned into ruins in Iraq.
According to the UN report, the production of industrial sector like the mining,
manufacturing and power industries, which form backbone of the country’s economy decreased 54.1 % in one year after start of war. The economic stagnation due to US’s indiscriminate bombings and destruction has
pushed Iraqis to serious unemployment, extreme poverty and starvation.
Although their official unemployment rate is reported as 28%, the experts have
re evaluated it to be 50% and among them 50 % are youth. 23% of Iraqis are living below poverty line and more than 30 % of children are suffering malnutrition. US attack and destruction of the infrastructure left the Iraqis with severe shortage of water, electricity and fuel. 85 % of residents live without electricity and 45% with shortage of drinking water.
Hundreds of thousands of young people cannot attend school as their schools were destroyed.
The US army turned the country into a living hell by encouraging illegal activities like swindles, fraud and robberies.
In the 1990s, the “NATO” army led by the US committed criminal acts in
Yugoslavia by indiscriminate bombing which led to the collapse of the economy, and forced over a million out of their houses, homeland, and their country and to foreign soil as hopeless vagrants.
Although US and Western countries are bustling about to cover up their crimes
under the cloaks of “anti-terrorism” and “protection of the minority”, they cannot escape the blame for destruction and plunder of the livelihood of the people in other countries and, for this, they should receive due punishment by the international community.
5-5-2 Use of Banned Weapons of Mass Destruction
International laws and regulations prohibit the use of biological and chemical
weapons in any case, with no exception of wartimes and armed conflicts.
In 1950s, during the Korean War, the US used both chemical and germ weapons
immensely slaughtering innocent Korean civilians. In 1990s, depleted uranium was used during the Gulf War and Balkan War.
For example, within two months from January 28, 1951 to March 31, 1952, the US poured down more than 700 times germ bombs and all kinds of substances
containing lethal micro-organisms to more than 400 areas in the northern half of the Republic. During the period from February 1951 to July 1953, the US army used lots of chemical weapons in the cities and counties in the northern half of the Republic such as Kangwon, Hwanghae and South Phyongan Provinces and war fronts.
Tonnage of the depleted uranium used by the US in Gulf War and Balkan War
amounts to 300t, equivalent of 41 thousand bombs respectively.
In a new century, the US is resorting to weapons of mass destruction more often.
US infringed the human rights by slaughtering many civilians by using chemical
weapons that completely melt human bone. An Italian television channel broadcasted the reports of chemical weapons usedagainst civilians by the US military in Faluza city in Iraq.
British newspaper “The Mirror” exposed that it was evident that the US military
used chemical weapons against civilians in Faluja city through the fact that all 168 patients hospitalized in Halah City Hospital sustained severe injuries from shrapnel and burns and there was no patient with bullet injuries.
In Annasuria city in Iraq, many civilians were killed by white phosphids used by
the US military.A group of the Russian Institution conducted a survey on the damages in Iraqcaused by the US military using mass destruction weapons. This shows that the radioactive contamination level in Iraq was hundred thousand times higher than the international standard.
The Uranium Medical Research Centre owned by Dr. Dulakovich, a former US
army surgeon, analyzed over 100 samples gathered from 15 areas in Iraq like Baghdad, Basra and Karbala. The result shows the radioactive contamination levels in those areas as thousand times higher than that of air and water of Toronto, Canada, which serves as the international comparison.
As a signatory to the Convention on the Ban of Chemical Weapons in 1997, the US holds fully responsible under international law for the massive use of chemical weapons.
The crime of utilizing weapons of mass destruction including the chemical
weapons is a criminal offence and can be only committed by the US who is the
mastermind of mass killing, culprit of human rights abuses and cancer to the world peace and stability.
5-5-3 Ill-treatment of POW
The violation of the human rights by the US and Western countries during wartime and armed conflicts, particularly the criminal acts of the US have also been exposed in the form of ill-treatment of POWs.
The US flagrantly violated the international norms and regulations on POWs by
killing Taliban POWs in Afghanistan indiscriminately.
After the seizure of Kunduz located in northeastern part of Afghanistan, the US
military killed more than half of 8,000 Talibans while transporting them to a prison, using 25 container trucks.
The truth is as follows; around 200 to 300 Taliban prisoners were stowed into each airtight container which made them stifled in a sizzling hot weather.
When some of the prisoners asked for a ventilation hole in the container, the US
soldiers fired into the container under an order from their commander.
All containers were riddled with bullet holes through which blood poured out and the area was emanated with smell of blood.
On arrival at the prison, the containers were opened: 150~160 prisoners were found dead and other survivors either wounded or unconscious.The US commander ordered those wounded or unconscious to be taken out to the desert and killed, not leaving one soul. Many remains and clothing of the prisoners were later found in the area.
The fate of the Taliban prisoners taken to prison camps was not much different
from those who were killed.
After taking out for interrogation, the US soldiers did not hesitate to cut out the
tongues and fingers, shaving off beard and hair of the prisoners as pastime.
Witnesses testified that the US soldiers killed the prisoners by breaking off their
necks and many prisoners never returned from the interrogation room. (POW
atrocities stated above) The barbaric act towards prisoners committed by the US is a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention-3, showing vividly that the US is a barbarian group.
5-6 Rights of Refugees, Immigrant Workers and Foreigners
5-6-1 Main Culprit for the Origination of Refugees
Now, to ensure the rights of the refugee is becoming a serious international and
human rights issue as the number of refugees is on the inrease all over the world.
International human rights instruments including the “Convention on the Status of Refugee” stipulate that all countries should take practical measures and intensify international collaboration to ensure the rights of the refugees.
Despite the increasing effort to ensure the rights of the refugees, the number of
refugees keeps on increasing along with infringement of their rights.
This is the result of interfering and dominant policies of US and the West.
Interfering in social and political matters of other countries only aggravated
confrontational conflicts, fostering and enlargement of disputes between nations and races. This is one of the repeated methods used by the US and the Western countries.
Recent increase of refugees due to internal conflicts in Africa including the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, Kenya and Nigeria is the result of constant interference and dominant policies pursued by the US and the West.
In particular, the number of refugees amounted to 2.7million in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, 1.8million in South Sudan and 700 thousand in Mali.
Refugees from Africa and Middle East crossing over the Mediterranean in 2014
have increased by three times compared to 2011.
The US invasion of Iraq under the pretext of “War on Terrorism” in March 2003
turned the country into a land of chaos with terror and collision, confusion and
disorder within residents. This generated millions of refugees.
In 2012, the US dispatched special forces into central Africa to “eliminate
terrorists” making the situation more complicated with the expansion of armed
conflicts and generation of refugees in tens of thousands.
Drone attacks on several countries including Pakistan took many lives and turned civilians into refugees.
In 2013, the US instigated Israel who, alleging a major hindrance to peace
agreement, attempted to change the status of Palestinians who left their homeland in 1948. This created further complication in the settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem.
The whole world was shocked to see a video clip uploaded on internet which
displayed violence of a guard in a German refugee camp inflicting injuries to a
refugee. The guard punched and forced the refugee to lie flat on the ground by
pressing his boots on his neck and cuffing his hand.
The refugee problem caused by the US and Western countries is per se the violation of human rights and thus they should be responsible according to international law for removing the cause of refugee and ensuring their rights.
5-6-2 Violation of the Rights of Migrant Workers
In today’s world where the economy develops on a global scale and economic
exchange and ties are growing between countries, the right to immigration is
recognized as an important human right and it is commonplace that many people immigrate to other countries for work.
Therefore, all countries are obliged to ensure the rights to immigration by
international agreements on human rights including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers which entered into force on July 1, 2003.
But the US and the Western countries are treating foreigners entering their
countries to earn a living as illegal immigrants and immigrants are forced into
inhumane treatment which is no more different from that of the criminals who are in prison.
There are about 40 million immigrants in the US. Among them, 400,000 are
coming to US every year to earn a living , but they are all detained in immigration camps as illegal immigrants.
Once they are considered as illegal immigrants, IDs and personal belongings are
confiscated, and they are given psychological pressure and separated from their
families. They are kept in small cells in unhygienic environment with little water,
food and medical attention. All kinds of physical violence are committed against
them.
According to the data from 2003 to 2009, about 100 lost their lives in the
immigration camps in the US and there have been more than 200 recorded cases of rape and sexual assault among detainees in the camps.
There is no legal support at all for those immigrants in the camp facing a threat of deportation. One out of 510 detainees is likely to be provided with a lawyer.
It is common to find illegal immigrants who are forced to work 16 to 24 hours a
day with low pay.
Recently, the number of immigrants, who were deported back to their countries
against their wills, increased to 400,000 in the US. The US even deported
immigrants who have been residing with families in the US for a long time, which led to separation between spouses, parents and children.
According to the report issued by an immigration research center in August 2012, immigrants who have worked hard for more than 20 years in the States had much less assets index compared to the Americans born in the US.
The immigrants, who come to US to earn a living, become targets for sexual
assaults regardless of time and place.
A survey was conducted by the “Human Rights Watch” in 2001 among 160 people with different professions such as farmers, farm owners, human rights advocates, lawyers and other experts. The survey reveals that most respondents considered sexual assaults towards the immigrant workers in the agricultural sector as the most serious issue. All foreign female workers who participated in the survey disclosed that they have been victims of sexual assault or witnessed a crime.
Discrimination and abuse towards immigrants are becoming a serious international issue in Western countries.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released a report that more tha
thousand migrant children in Germany are being deprived of sufficient care and
support from the government for health care, education and other sectors.
There have been many ostracised movement against immigrants in Germany. In
October 2014, three buildings for immigrants were burnt down. The arsonists left behind “No more housing for immigrants” on the walls of the housings.
The US and the Western countries have always self-proclaimed that they are the
center of cultural exchange but all the evidence shows that the US and Western
countries are center of human rights violations.
5-6-3 Xenophobia
Promotion of the rights of foreigners is an international practice, which has been established through a long span of history and recognized by several international legal instruments, and constitutes a basis for the normal development of relations between states.
But, the US and Western countries keep themselves away from such international treaties and practices, and human rights violations towards foreigners are committed openly, regarding them as heretic, discrimination, etc.
In the US, the number of radical groups which instigate discrimination and
rejection of foreigners are on increase and the crimes committed based on hatred of foreigners are getting higher record.
-According to the data of a NGO “Southern Poverty Law Centre”, there now exist over 1,000 radical groups in the US including such neo-Nazi groups as “National League”, “National Socialist Movement”, “National Socialist Pioneers” and other xenophobic ones. The number of people belonging to these groups shows increase.Xenophobia in its naked form is fully supported by 15 to 20% of the US population.More than 80% of the British population regard that foreingers are responsible for all the occurred criminal activities in the country.
Frequent violence is committed against the foreigners in Sweden. In Germany, 4
drunkards made a target against the Turkish family greeting a New Year’s Day in a restaurant, and made a scene by shouting out “dirty Turks” and uplifted the symbols of the racial organizations while destroying the restaurant and breaking its windows.
Sunday became a day in Dredzen, Germany to hold demonstrations against the
foreign immigrants by the right-wing extreme organizations.
“Xenophobia is not a simply racial issue but social one”. Such a voice is coming
out from all over the world that condems the human rights violations aginst the
foreigners by the US and the West. This notewithstanding, the US and the Western countries still remain indifferent to establish any institutional mechanism to ensure the rights of the foreigners while committing itself to a policy of xenophobia and contempt to foreigners.
6 Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or
preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise,on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political,economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. (Article 1.1 of
“International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination”) It is stipulated as one of the important duties of each state to abolish racial discrimination in the several international human rights instruments such as the “Universal Decaration of Human Rights” and the “International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights”. Racial discrimination became a policy in the Western countries, notably, in the US. Foreigners are allineated and suppressed just for this simple reason that they are from different races. Such human rights violations still remain unabated in those countries.
6-1 Racial Expulsion
Racial expulsion and human hatred is the history of the US, its inherent policy and idea. The US, formed on the dead bodies of the Indians, made it as its policy to discriminate other nations and races. It enacted all kinds of evil laws to realize it and got it institutionalized.An outrageous system of racism was in force in the US until the beginning of 1960s. During which time, black people had to stand up and give their own seats to the white people when they took on the bus. After that, racism was abolished in 261cities by the people’s struggle against it, but it was only for form’s sake. Racial expulsion still persists until today in the US. The black people are divested of their rights to vote by the limitative voting regulations such as the residential place and time.Some states in the US are running a system of “wisdom test” at the time of registering the black voters whereby each state would give them strange and unreasonable questions such as “How many foams can be made from one cake of soap?” or “How many windows are in the White House?”. Those, who fail to answer these questions, can’t cast a vote. There is also a regulation to deprive the rights to vote against those who had once a prison life.Owing to this, 13 % of black males and one person out of 7 black people are losing their rights to vote.Much heavier penalty system is in operation against the black people in the US. Let’s take the case of the same crimes committed by the black and white people. Black people would be sentenced to a 5-year prison life if he or she is found to be possessive of 5g of the drug while the white people only so if he or she is found to bepossessive of 500g of the drug.
According to statistics by the US Labor Department, unemployment rate is 2 times higher among the black people compared with the whites, and the number of the black people in hunger is 3 times higher than that of the whites.
The US Census Bureau released its survey result concerning the poverty rates of
different racial group in November 2013 with following results; only 11.1% (white people), 25.4% (black people) and 28.2% and 16.7% (Latinos and Asians
respectively). 1 out of 5 Latinos is less fed and 1 out of 20 is in a suffering of constant hunger and disease. 84,000 black people are not on steady medical treatment, losing their lives in grievance.
What is worthy of special notice is the fact that black women have 4 times higher maternal mortality rate than white women. Half of those who were recently recorded black women. The black people and Latinos were found to have been charged house rental fees two or three times higher than the ones of the white people in California, US.
According to the nationwide survey done by the Pew Research Center, 43 black
respondents were dissatisfied with the widening gap between the black and white in the economic life. More than half of the students of black and Latin orgins dropped out the high schools in California and other states in the US, due to the aftereffects of racial discrimination, and only 2.3 % of black students were enrolled in high schools. The website of the “Huffngton Post” carried this article on October 23, 2013. According to it, saleswoman declared to the police about Christine, black student, on suspicion of cheating when she bought 350 US $ worth of a leather belt at the Barney Department. Even after he showed a receipt and his ID card to the police to prove his innocence, the police dragged him to police station for interrogation afterputting him in shackles. His attorney said that “His only crime is just that he is none other than a black youth.”
The US “Los Angels Times” conveyed an article on December 2, 2013, which said that there exists a racial discrimination by the Los Angels Fire Department at a time when it employs firefighters and during a normal working process.
The major mass media, social organizations and politicians in the US are putting in circulation the idea of racial expulsion and human hatred. The US ABC News spread the idea of “Kill all Chinese!” and preached the human hatred through program runby Jimmy Kimel on October 16, 2013. Bobi Barengtok, a black child studying at a school in Harlem Street of the US wrote in a “Freedom” titled composition that “Freedom is a time when the white people stop insulting the blacks, when the latter live in a beautiful house like the whites and when the black girls are not refused by the white girls when the former requested the latter to play”.This small dream of a child can’t come true indefinetly unless the US social system itself is corrected, which has a deep-rooted idea of racial expulsion and contempt.
The US crime of racial expulsion constitutes an extremely grave one as it it fails to implement its obligations under the international human rights instruments to abolish the racial discrimination, and connives and fosters it.
6-2 Racial Suppression
Racial suppression is an extreme form of raical discrimination. It is a criminal act which entails a dangerous result of exterminating a race as a whole.
Racial suppression under the category of the crime of massacre has become one of the awful crimes, a pronoun for hatred and condemnation against the US and an indicator for the worst human rights situation in the US.
The racial suppression is openly staged by the violent groups as well as by the
police and the judicial authorities in the US, which have missions to prevent all kinds of racial discrimination.
The staggering number of 1,800 terrorist groups is in the forefront of racial
suppression under the control of the US administration, which includes “3Ks”, “John Birch Society” and other terrorist bodies and gangsters in the US. According to the data, at least 136 African Americans with empty hands and naked fists were killed by the police and security people in 2012. In the same year, 24 year old black youth was killed by the police who had arrived on the spot - 101 -when the youth asked for help after a car accident and 25 year old girl was ganged up on by two white policemen for the reason that she did not pay back the fine in the US.
John Berge, once a police lieutenant and his-led night patrol policemen in Chicago had captured “strange people”, most of them were black men. After that, they applied the paper bag-choking torture, Old Sparky or electric shock and other barbarous methods of torture against them, thus to have caused a grave threat to their life. They had also incriminated them by force.
2014 was the year of racial suppression in the US.
White policeman shot to death a black youth at the age of 18 in Ferguson City,
Missouri State, US in August, 2014. Back-to-back incident of the black youth being shot to death by white policeman broke out in St Louis, Missouri State, US.
Judicial authorities in Missouri State, US didn’t take any measure of putting a legal punishment against that policeman who had mcercillesly killed 18-year old black youth in a defensless position. Judicial authorities in New York City issued a disposition not to institute a public action against the white policeman who had
strangled to death a black man who barely maintained his livelihood as a cigarette peddler in the street.
With these incidents as a momentum, protest and demonstration were reached to a high pitch against racism in the US. These, later, has a rippling effect over to many cities including New York, Washington, Detroit and Los Angels.
Obama held an emergency meeting in the White House to cope with this where he said there is a need to reform the way the police behaves. But, that was, if any, only to install miniature cameras in the uniforms of the policemen by spending several hundreds of million US dollars.
What Obama had put as a measure is nothing but a mean fabrication to ocver up
their hideous colours as culprits for human rights violations and to mislead the world public opinion.
Racial suppression in the US is committed by the racial discrimination policy by
the US administration, and this is not something that can be easily solved with such a stop-gap measure as the installation of such miniature cameras.
The US, a barren land and tundra of human rights, should no longer depict itself as a “model state of defending human rights” and not any more take an issue with the human rights situation of other countries.
The US would be severely punished without fail before the history and the
mankind, and at the international courts for what they had committed the crimes of all kinds against human rights.
Conclusion
Mentioned in the above report is only the part and parcel of the human rights
violations committed by the US and the Western countries.
As we delve into it, it goes worse. As we often see and hear it, it will lead us to
grind our teeth with indignation. This is what we found as an actual human rights situation of the US and the Western countries.
The human rights violations by the US and the Western countries is an inevitable
product caused by the inhuman and reactionary viewpoints and stands on human rights from those countries, and their unpopular social systems and dominating ambitions.
But, when we look around the world, we find not a few countries and people who still have illusions about the US and the Western countries, listen with repeated expressions of assent to what they say a catchphrase that they “defend human rights”, and follow them.
It is a must that all countries and people aspiring for independence squarely see
who are the worst human rights violators and the kingpins of such violations in the world. With this recognition, they should condemn the crimes of the most cruel human rights violations by the US and the Western countries and conduct the concerted actions with determination to punish the US and the Western countries by bringing them into the dock of the international court.
The Korean Institute for the Research of Human Rights would continue to make
public, one after another, the results of its much more comprehensive and detailed research and analysis about the human rights situation of the US and the West as well as about the human rights violations by those countries.
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