China takes tit-for-tat swipe at US on rights

BEIJING - China took a tit-for-tat swipe at the United States on Thursday for abusing Iraqi prisoners of war and other human rights violations in a report released days after Washington criticised China's rights record.

The US State Department accused China in its annual human rights report on Monday of using the global war against terrorism to crack down on peaceful opponents of its rule in Muslim Xinjiang and of committing persistent rights abuses in 2004.

China's State Council, or cabinet, issued its own report for the sixth year in a row, citing atrocities by US troops against Iraqi prisoners of war which "exposed the dark side" of the human rights record of the United States.

"The scandal shocked ... humanity and was condemned by the international community," said the report, carried by the official Xinhua news agency.

Ironically, the United States posed as the "world human rights police" while keeping silent on its own misdeeds, it said. Iraqi prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were kept naked, stacked on top of each other, forced to engage in sex acts, struck by American jailers and photographed.

The report made no mention of US President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld condemning the abuses and then US Secretary of State Colin Powell apologising to the victims.

In the only trial so far in the scandal, the alleged leader of the abuse was jailed for 10 years. Six people accused in the scandal have pleaded guilty and accepted punishment that ranged from no prison time to eight years.

Instead of indulging itself in "unreasonably censuring" other countries for human rights abuses, Washington should reflect on its behaviour and take its own human rights problems seriously, the Chinese report said.

"The double standards of the United States on human rights and its exercise of hegemonism and power politics under the pretext of promoting human rights will certainly put itself in an isolated and passive position and beget opposition from all just members of the international community," it added.

The report accused Washington of keeping under wraps half of its 20-odd detention centres worldwide which hold "terrorist suspects" to avoid international scrutiny.

China's performance on rights was "far from perfect", Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference, citing the gap between rich and poor and between the booming coastal provinces and the impoverished hinterland.

China broke off a human rights dialogue last March after the United States urged a UN watchdog to condemn what it called China's backsliding on rights.

"The US report is not conducive to narrowing differences between China and the US on human rights issues so we oppose that report," Liu said. "The US report poisons the atmosphere for resuming dialogue."

- REUTERS